Nieuws

The ‘God of the Peasants’ on stage. Willem Bilderdijk’s tragedy Floris de Vijfde (1808).This article focuses on Willem Bilderdijk’s play Floris de Vijfde (Floris V), which he wrote in 1808 for King Louis Napoleon. This play is studied form different perspectives in order to get a complete picture of the content, context, function and reception of this work. It offers new biographical information on Bilderdijk’s life in the context of the Kingdom of Holland and focuses on Bilderdijk’s ideas on theatre in relation to Floris de Vijfde and on his ideas about national history. Furthermore, attention is paid to the political context in which the piece was written and to the political function that it fulfilled. Finally, this article presents an extensive overview of the reception and nachleben of the play in the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century.

Great expectations. Elections and the consitutional reform of 1848.This article explores the causes of the low turnout at the Dutch elections in the years following the constitutional reform of 1848. The liberal reformers had hoped for an increased participation of Dutch voters after the introduction of direct suffrage, but were soon to be disappointed when after a promising start, the turnout dropped well below fifty percent. Drawing on Pierre Rosanvallon’s notions on political citizenship, this article tries to explain the low turnout.

The royal inauguration’s ‘new clothes’? The representation and reception of power at the inauguration of William III after the constitutional reform of 1848.In recent years, historians have shown how royal rituals were a major site for legitimating and contesting power in Europe’s long nineteenth century. This article calls for attention to cases with a more ambiguous political meaning and function. It analyses how the Dutch King William III’s 1849 inauguration ceremony represented the new political order following the far-reaching 1848 constitutional reform. The ceremony was planned surprisingly hastily without much attention to political events and lacked symbolical value, especially compared to other countries. Although the tradition of inauguration was organized and perceived as a ritual of political transition, it ultimately had little long-term political impact.

Three-dimensional news. The Amsterdam wax museum as a competitor of the illustrated newspaper, 1882-1919.The nineteenth-century wax museum can be viewed as a contemporary mass medium that showed people scenes from the news. The Nederlandsch Panopticum was the first of its kind in the Netherlands, located in Amsterdam between 1882 and 1919. As an informative visual medium, the Panopticum had to compete with other media, like the illustrated newspaper, for the attention of the public. At the same time, the wax museum also depended on photographs published in these same papers: wax models were often, and in the course of time almost exclusively, modelled after photos. This reciprocal relationship can be seen as an example of ‘intermediality’. In the end, the wax museum lost ground, foremost, to the new mass medium of the time, cinema, which took over both as an urban attraction and as a popular visual medium.

A popular aristocrat. Arthur van Schendel and the reading public in the 1930s.In Dutch literary culture of the first half of the twentieth century, intellectual elite and general public were not only separate, but even opposite categories. ‘Highbrow’ and ‘middlebrow’ held polarized positions in matters of cultural hierarchy and literary taste, which led to fierce debates. Strikingly, one author was able to bridge this gap: Arthur van Schendel (1874-1946) appealed both ends of the spectrum and thus had an exceptional, connecting role in the cultural divides of the Interbelluminterwar period. This article analyses the responses to Van Schendels so-called ‘Dutch novels’ in order to find out what made Arthur van Schendel highly valued by leading professionals as well as loved by the reading audience.

Importing texts from abroad. Editors’ reuse of foreign historical texts in Dutch periodicals, 1780-1860.This article explores the ways in which the editors of five Dutch history journals and three magazines for general circulation copied historical texts from abroad, between 1780 and 1860. By comparing original texts with reprinted versions, we show that the editors’ work involved not only ‘passive’ duplication (reprinting in full), but also more active forms of intervention, from the selection of text fragments to their translation, modification or critical review. These varied editorial practices point to a broader creative process through which historical knowledge was tailored to an emerging and nationally-oriented academic audience. Editors here assumed the role of mediators, gatekeepers even in the sense that their judgment determined the very choice of texts. At a time when the study of history was evolving at both the national and international level, and when the relationship between actors making up the disciplinary field was also in flux, editors thus became influential figures.

Expertise in case files. The practice of forensic psychiatry in the Netherlands, 1811-1930.Research on the history of Dutch forensic psychiatry has hardly taken into account how psychiatrists functioned in practice. This article, based on 485 court cases of (child)murder, rape and arson, provides an inventory of the role of psychiatrists in the courtroom. It distinguishes between three regimes of knowledge: a first regime in the first half of the nineteenth century, when there is much overlap between lay and expert knowledge on the mind; the second from ca. 1880, when increasingly reference is made to scientific concepts and reports became standardized; and a third regime around 1920, when an emphasis on scientific methods found its way into the reports. An analysis of verdicts shows that the judges often agreed with the expert reports. The relationship between the judges and psychiatrists can be qualified as one in which judges accorded room for experts, who, however, remained subservient to the judiciary.

True religion and stern morality. A thematic-historical analysis of the sermons of Chief Rabbi Tobias Tal (1847-1898).The process of integration of the Jewish community in modern Dutch society was accompanied by a change of Jewish homiletics in both content and form. This article presents the case of the Dutch Chief Rabbi Tobias Tal with the aim of showing how Jewish homiletics changed in the second half of the nineteenthcentury. Based on an analysis of his sermons, this article argues that Tal successfullycombined liberal-protestant ideals and homiletical forms with old Jewish thoughts.

The Netherlands through Colombian eyes. The novel Una holandesa en América (1888) by Soledad Acosta de Samper.In 1888, Soledad Acosta de Samper, a well-known writer and journalist in Colombia’s capital Bogotá, published the novel Una holandesa en América. This article presents an imagological analysis of how the Dutch and the Netherlands are representedin her novel, and discusses Acosta’s possible intentions in writing thisbook as well as her reasons for choosing a Dutch protagonist. It argues that the images of the Dutch were meant to serve as examples for Acosta’s Colombian audiencein a period in which the country was still engaged in nation building after gaining independence from Spain in 1819.

‘Centre of a beneficent force in education’ or ‘ordinary merchant business’? The Museum of Education and Art in Rotterdam, 1880-1886.For a short period of time, the city of Rotterdam housed a rather unique museum, the Museum of Education and Art (Museum voor Onderwijs en Kunst). It existed for six years and only for less than a year in its original form. In 1880 it was unlike other educational or – as they were usually called – school museums. Other than today’s cultural history school museums, these museums were integrated in education and functioned as a means to support mass education by the state. They did so by exhibiting the whole range of school materials to enable headmasters and teachers to make informed choices. School materials were also displayed at educational exhibitions at world fairs. The Museum in Rotterdam was exceptional because it was a private, commercial enterprise, unlike other school museums which were established by schoolboards, local authorities, or by a state. In addition, it was the first and probably the only case with a purpose-built housing, where others generally used existing (school)buildings or were part of an arts and crafts museum.

Are you what you read? E. du Perron’s Notebooks of a reader.This article offers a close reading of E. du Perron’s influential Notebooks of a reader (Cahiers van een lezer). It focuses on Du Perron’s self-representation as a reader and his ideas on reading. On the one hand, author’s notebooks confirm his reputation as a subjective reader. Du Perron cherishes an utterly emotional reading method, an affective bond with writers and books and a volatile literary taste. On the other hand, the Notebooks allow us to refine his subjectivism. They demonstrate the importance of reading as a communal activity and the exemplary function of Du Perron’s own reading experiences.

In the heart of Java (1881). Exoticism and nationalism in the Dutch East Indies verse epics of Willem Jacobsz. Hofdijk.Towards the end of his life, the Dutch poet Willem Jacobsz. Hofdijk wrote his ambitious verse epic In the heart of Java (In ’t harte van Java), set in seventeenth-century Indonesia. Two similar works soon followed. This article examines the various literary techniques used by the author to evoke the exoticism of a world he had never experienced himself. The received idea that Hofdijk started writing his Dutch East Indies poems when his son joined the colonial army is exposed as a fallacy. It is my contention that Hofdijk’s epics, deliberately distorting historical facts, were intended to strengthen the resolve of the Dutch against the rebellious province of Aceh.

Artistic versus political avant-gardism. The visual arts in and around the magazine Nieuw Rusland/Cultuur der U.d.S.S.R. (New Russia/Culture of the USSR), 1928-1934.This article concentrates on the position of the visual arts in Russia as presented in Nieuw Rusland (New Russia), organ of the Netherlands – New Russia Society. This Society was initiated by voks, the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, established to coordinate international cultural contacts with artists and intellectuals in other countries in order to help lending the Soviet Union a positive and civilised image. The Netherlands – New Russia Society was suspected to be a communist umbrella organization, and indeed some of its members were moles. At the time, visual arts in Russia were in transition: the abstract avant-gardism of the first years after the Revolution was making way for moderately modern, figurative, and politically engaged painting. Easel painting in general had to yield to the graphic arts, photography and composite picture, especially as applied in posters, children’s books and magazines. Dutch editors of Nieuw Rusland had to communicate and explain or soften the often staunch political art theories of their Russian authors. From around 1932, Nieuw Rusland made a change of course from cultural information towards explicit political propaganda. In combination with a ban on membership of left-wing organizations for all public servants, this meant the end of the magazine.

The ‘genuine’ historical novel and the ‘genuine’ scottian epic poem in ‘modern times’.For over a century, it has been taken for granted that David Jacob van Lennep’s Discourse on the significance of Holland’s soil and antiquities for sentiment and imagination (1827) inaugurated the historical novel as a specific literary genre in the Netherlands. The historical epic is supposed to have benefited similarly. In this article I inquire whether the conventional separation between historical novels and epics before and after 1827 does in fact rest on objective and tangible characteristics of these works. If we were to examine the entire corpus of historicising literature between 1780 and 1940, would we or would we not encounter a continuous developmental line? A preliminary investigation of some specific cases suggests that, as a genre, the historical epic has vanished completely, whereas the historical novel remained as vital as before up to World War II. Its objective, however, was no longer the re-enactment of the past but the dissolution of the separation between past and present.

Action on the pitch. A visual approach to nineteenth century football history in The Netherlands.This article illustrates the ‘visual turn’ approach to sports history in an analysis of traditionally under-researched material from the late nineteenth century. Focusing on football (‘soccer’) action photography, we argue that interpreting this visual material contributes significantly to the exploration and interpretation of the broader social and cultural context within which sports were practised and the visual material was produced. Regarding the latter, the photographer’s challenge was to capture the movement inherent in the practice of sports generally and of football specifically. Our analysis explains the time at which these pictures first appear as a consequence of developing possibilities and skills in ongoing photographic experimentation. This is illustrated by a case study of a football action photograph from the archives of the Noorthey Institute for boys in Voorschoten, dating from 1895-1897. There, conducting sports was seen as a way of enhancing the students’ physical and mental strengths, including improved study performance.
It took place in an atmosphere of camaraderie among teachers and students, the
latter acting as supervisors and teammates at the same time. Beyond the texts, the photographs visualize what this educational approach entailed in actual practice.

Writing for the present or writing for the future? The war literature of Abraham Hans.Even though his name may mean little to readers today, the work of Abraham Hans (1882-1939) was hugely popular with the Flemish public in the interwar period. This article studies his neglected World War I novels which, like most of the Flemish war literature, have received little critical attention. On the one hand, it
explores the ideas that inform Hans’ representation of the war. On the other, it argues that his work did play a role as a medium of cultural memory in the interwar period.

Around the volcano. La Muette de Portici between creation in Paris and reception in the Northern Netherlands.Since its première in 1828, La Muette de Portici has been one of the most popular grands opéras performed in Dutch theatres in the nineteenth century, despite its reputation of having incited the Belgian Revolt of 1830. Based on a wide range of primary sources, this article analyses how, in the initial process of cultural transfer from Paris to the Netherlands, the opera with its ambivalent political tenor was staged and received differently in three theatres in Amsterdam and The Hague. In the aftermath of the Belgian Revolt, authorities, artists, press critics and audiences subsequently problematized, rehabilitated and enriched the opera with new meanings. After having been feared and condemned, ‘Amour sacré de la Patrie’ again became a favorite aria to enthusiastically respond to.