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oapen-20.500.12657-608712024-03-27T14:15:07Z Verlichte verhalen de la Porte, Eleá Enlightenment - Dutch Republic - History of Historiography - 18th Century - Intellectual History - Enlightened Narrative - National Identity thema EDItEUR::2 Language qualifiers::2A Indo-European languages::2AC Germanic and Scandinavian languages::2ACD Dutch thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3ML 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799 thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DS Literature: history and criticism By describing their present as ‘enlightened’, eighteenth-century intellectuals inevitably altered their relationship to the past. In search of an explanation for this Enlightenment, eighteenth-century authors created a historical narrative which connected European countries in a linear history from antiquity, through the barbarous Middle Ages, to the progress of the scientific revolution and, finally, to the enlightened present in which seventeenth-century knowledge was perceived as increasingly benefiting society as a whole. Even though this narrative served as a shared European history and identity, national varieties soon emerged. This book shows that, in the context of the European ‘Enlightened narrative’, the Dutch Republic formed an extraordinary case. Here, the narrative of progress collided with a simultaneous debate on national decline and a deeply rooted humanistic tradition. Dutch intellectuals, moreover, were forced to reconsider their national past and national identity. The Batavian myth, for two centuries the primary historical foundation of national identity, increasingly came to be viewed as ‘barbaric’. Consequently, the concept of a seventeenth-century Golden Age was invented. It replaced the Batavian myth with a celebration of seventeenth-century Dutch economic prosperity, commercial politeness and moral rectitude more in line with enlightened historical thought. 2023-01-23T13:43:27Z 2023-01-23T13:43:27Z 2023 book 9789463720083 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/60871 dut application/pdf Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International 9789048556151.pdf Amsterdam University Press 10.5117/9789463720083 10.5117/9789463720083 dd3d1a33-0ac2-4cfe-a101-355ae1bd857a da087c60-8432-4f58-b2dd-747fc1a60025 9789463720083 Dutch Research Council (NWO) 296 Amsterdam OND1348659 Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research open access
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By describing their present as ‘enlightened’, eighteenth-century intellectuals inevitably altered their relationship to the past. In search of an explanation for this Enlightenment, eighteenth-century authors created a historical narrative which connected European countries in a linear history from antiquity, through the barbarous Middle Ages, to the progress of the scientific revolution and, finally, to the enlightened present in which seventeenth-century knowledge was perceived as increasingly benefiting society as a whole. Even though this narrative served as a shared European history and identity, national varieties soon emerged.
This book shows that, in the context of the European ‘Enlightened narrative’, the Dutch Republic formed an extraordinary case. Here, the narrative of progress collided with a simultaneous debate on national decline and a deeply rooted humanistic tradition. Dutch intellectuals, moreover, were forced to reconsider their national past and national identity. The Batavian myth, for two centuries the primary historical foundation of national identity, increasingly came to be viewed as ‘barbaric’. Consequently, the concept of a seventeenth-century Golden Age was invented. It replaced the Batavian myth with a celebration of seventeenth-century Dutch economic prosperity, commercial politeness and moral rectitude more in line with enlightened historical thought.
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