Diversity, Differences, and Divergence: Religion as a Criterion of Difference in the Empire in the First Half of the Fifteenth Century

Christine Reinle

University of Giessen

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2  (2024):261-286 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.261

The article examines the extent to which religious diversity was possible in the Roman-German Empire at the time of Sigismund. With a look back to the fourteenth century, it considers groups and practices that deviated from Church doctrine to varying degrees and in different ways: the Waldensians and the so-called “German Hussites” as heterodox Christian groups, the Jews as representatives of a religion that was tolerated but suspected of blasphemous and criminal practices, and people who used superstitious or even allegedly magical practices. The Heidelberg university professor and inquisitor Johannes of Frankfurt is used as a representative of the official position of the Church, whose positions provide a comparative foil. Although other religious doctrines were theoretically not accepted (with the exception of Judaism), it will be shown that the persecution of dissenters depended on infrastructural conditions. It was also crucial whether the authorities and the population were willing to take note of deviations and classify them as heretical. At times, the specific labels were used in an arbitrary manner. Particularly in the case of superstitious practices, the questions that arose were often addressed through open processes of negotiation.

Keywords: Waldensians, Hussitism, superstition, Jews, John of Frankfurt

Recogitabo omnes annos meos in amaritudine vite mee (Is. 38, 15). With these words of the Jewish king Hezekiah, the Heidelberg professor of divinity John Lagenator from Dieburg, better known as John of Frankfurt (ca. 1380–1440), began (after a dedicatory preface) his “meditatio devota” in 1409f. In this devotional text, he reflected on the miserabilis ingressus, the lamentabilis progressus, and the dolorosus egressus of his life.1 John chose a sentence often quoted in the literature on preaching and confession to reflect on his sinful life in light of the impending judgement but also of his hope in God’s grace. I have deliberately placed the “meditatio devota” at the beginning of my remarks, because we usually know John of Frankfurt better in a different role: not as a man aware of his sins and pondering his own need for redemption, but as an inquisitor.2 The tension between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, between conform piety, in line with the doctrines, and non-conform piety, is thus embodied by one person. This leads us into the center of our topic: Late-medieval religion examined from the point of view of diversity.

General Remarks

The contributors to this volume were asked to focus on diversity as a concept, specifically as a “system of differentiations.”3 Understood in this way, diversity is, according to Florin, Gutsche, and Krentz, “socially and culturally constructed” and thus “subject to historical change.”4 In general, it can be assumed that there is a broad reservoir of possible criteria of difference and that it is subject to historical change which and how much significance is assigned to which criterion.5 By developing this assumption further, one can ask in general how diversity is dealt with and which particular forms of diversity are accepted in political, religious, and social terms. It can also be assumed that the acceptance of diversity is (partly) negotiated and that diversity can influence political, social, and religious negotiation processes.6 However, in premodern times, not all participants were able to influence this process to the same extent, and thus it has to be asked whether and to what extent the idea of negotiation works.

When attempting to apply these general considerations to the subject of religion, I started from a premise and two questions.

Religious affiliation in general and the specific dogmatic form of faith in particular were unquestionably criteria of difference at a time when the legal and social status of a person in the area of Latin Christendom depended on his or her affiliation with the Catholic Church. One need merely think of the special legal status of the Jewish population or the categorization of heresy as “crimen laesae maiestatis.” These categories of difference were based on normative ideas; they were therefore not arbitrarily negotiable. The non-negotiability of central religious criteria of difference concerns the core of difference, the essential differentness between the Christian and Jewish religions, but also dogmatic differences, e.g. between Catholics and Waldensians or Hussites, once certain divergent dogmatic statements had been established as the respective propria in a conflictual process. Within Christianity, orthodoxy and heterodoxy are separated by the readiness to recognize the doctrines of the Church and by engaging in or refraining from religious or superstitious practices.

However, it is necessary to ask about the scope for negotiation when dealing with religious difference. Was there any readiness to coexist and live with differentness if the difference was to be maintained? Was it possible to draw the theoretically given boundaries clearly in practice? Was there any willingness to ascribe or not ascribe the attribute of difference or deviation to specific persons? It should also be noted that it was not exclusively the majority that categorized a minority as deviant. In fact, we can also expect that minorities deliberately differentiated themselves from the majority in their internal communication without necessarily staging this differentiation externally. The forementioned three aspects do not affect the criteria of difference per se, but they draw attention to the possibility and the will of the participants to apply them, as well as to the scope for interpretation while applying them.

Negotiation processes also have to be examined from the perspective of the question as to where the fundamental boundaries of what was tolerable at the margins of religious practice were redefined. Here it was necessary to focus on grey zones between religion, superstition, and magic and to inculcate and amplify existing classifications and norms.

In view of space limitations, I cannot consider all possible varieties of religious practices, spiritual forms of expression, and theological controversies in the discussion below. I concentrate more narrowly on questions that had political implications, because the issue of how to deal with diversity and divergence is also connected to governance in the time of king Sigismund. For this reason, I deal with the ways in which the heresies of the Waldensians and the Hussites were dealt with. The treatment of the Jewish minority and the issue of superstition will only be briefly touched upon. My considerations will be limited to the German part of the Empire, not including Hungary or Bohemia. Occasional retrospectives to the fourteenth century will be indispensable for understanding. Conform piety, which, when viewed in terms of private devotion, did not have a direct political impact, will only be touched upon for comparative purposes. Considering the abundance of possible aspects and wishing not to proceed too cursorily or arbitrarily, I will tie my comments on Catholic positions and practices back to the aforementioned John of Frankfurt. John, a scholastically influenced theologian who also made contributions to the theology of piety with his “meditatio devota,” was of course only one voice among many, but his view may be meaningful precisely because of its averageness.

Disguised Differences: The Heterodoxy of the Waldensians

We begin with the diversity constellation that was at times the most inconspicuous, namely the “informal coexistence”7 between Waldensians and Catholics. It lasted for up to 200 years. Despite sporadic regional persecution, Waldensian communities survived during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and possibly beyond in the German part of the empire,8 whereas the Waldensians in Bohemia and Moravia were subjected to more consistent persecution.9 It was not until the persecutions of the 1390s that the German Waldensians were decisively weakened and decimated.10 Researchers have investigated the reasons behind their ability to survive for such a comparatively long period of time. It was argued, on the one hand, that the Waldensians did not distance themselves from the Church in their way of life. They received the sacraments of the Church, for example. On the other hand, however, they differed from the Catholics because they rejected the doctrine of purgatory, the veneration of saints and relics, pilgrimages, and sacramentals. They refused to take an oath and denied that killing could be justified. Spiritually, they were committed to lay itinerant preachers, who also took confession. Waldensians defined themselves inwardly as the künden (those who knew), thus distinguishing themselves from the Catholics as the frembden.11 In the case of Strasbourg, they lived in close proximity to one another and pursued similar trades.12 They were endogamous and passed on their faith to their children.13 Their strivings not to stand out and to network closely with one another were complementary. Above all, the originally distinguishing feature of the Waldensians, the ideal of poverty, had already receded into the background by the thirteenth century, as it had come, in the meantime, to be seen as applying only to the itinerant preachers, and no longer to the simple devouts or those who only sympathized with the Waldensians. This made it possible for the Waldensians to lead a lifestyle that outwardly hardly differed from that of their Catholic neighbors.14 There is evidence of good integration into the urban society in Strasbourg and in Fribourg in the Üchtland region, where there were Waldensians who were poor and Waldensians who were wealthy and well connected.15 There were also Waldensian families in rural areas with a long Waldensian tradition, even entire “heretic villages” (namely in the Mark Brandenburg).16 The readiness of Waldensians to renounce their heresy when they were discovered and thus save their own lives without denouncing others17 is as striking as the apparently effective disguises used by traveling Waldensian preachers, who pretended to be merchants.18

The Waldensians offer an instructive case study for the topic of diversity in many respects. We begin with the question of whether they actually stood out as diverse, and we continue by asking why they were apparently tolerated over long periods of time despite their doctrinal differences with the Catholic Church. We conclude with the question of the logic and dynamics of persecution, including the problem that the status of a heretic had to be ascribed to individuals (or not).

The answers that have been offered to the first question in the secondary literature are controversial. Generally speaking, the Waldensians’ readiness to dissimulate, their willingness to feign repentance and the assumption of the authorities that they were not particularily dangerous were and are considered important reasons behind their ability to externally adapt to their environment.19 Karl Ubl, however, has called into question this thesis concerning the Waldensians’ alleged tendency to try to “camouflage” themselves. Ubl notes that their refusal to take oaths was a clear factor which set them apart from those around them, thus suggesting that the Waldensians were visible after all. In his opinion, other reasons played a role in the low level and sporadic occurrence of persecution before the 1390s in the Duchy of Austria. First, the rulers and inquisitors lacked comprehensive information about the Waldensians, in part because there was comparatively little written institutional information about Waldensians who had already been discovered. Second, the inquisitors had been given few means of power by the central authority (with the kingdom of Bohemia as a significant exception). Third, the population had little interest in persecuting the Waldensians. There was also reasonable fear that the Waldensians, if threatened or persecuted, might take revenge on inquisitors, apostates, or collaborators. Therefore, Ubl writes pointedly of “tolerance as a result of ignorance in the centers, pragmatic and enforced tolerance on the ground.”20 Even after the beginning of a campaign of persecution in the first half of the 1390s, the city of Strasbourg was more interested in a clandestine mass abjuration than in public heretic trials so as not to gain a reputation as a heretic stronghold. A negative image like that would have jeopardized the city’s honor.21

As far as I know, historians have not yet offered a clear explanation as to why the comparatively peaceful coexistence between Waldensians and Catholics came to an end in the 1390s. The apostasy of so-called heresiarchs and the disclosure of the names of sect followers probably only partly explain the wave of persecution launched against the Waldensians.22 The persecutions in Sigismund’s time, such as the burning of John Grießer in 1411 or the persecution of the Waldensians in Fribourg in 1430, lagged behind the persecutions of the 1390s. While the persecutions in Bern and Fribourg in 1399 were linked by denunciations and the Strasbourg persecution of Waldensians of 1400 was initiated from outside and favored by a phase of good relations between the city council and the bishop, the Fribourg trial of 1430 was fueled by an external factor, namely the fear of the Hussites. Once the trial was set in motion, it could also be instrumentalized to lead neighborhood conflicts.23 For the witchcraft trials in 1429 and 1437–1442, Georg Modestin and Kathrin Utz Tremp also asserted that Fribourg was pursuing political interests, namely to establish itself as a sovereign in former Tierstein territories.24 Thus it was not only religious fervor but also political will that led to the persecution of the Waldensians. The desire of the ecclesiastical and especially the secular authorities to maintain sovereignty over the meanings and procedures of the campaign of persecution against the Waldensians is also evident in their increasing interference in the conduct of the trials.

The transition from the persecution of Waldensians to the persecution of witches in the Fribourg region also raises questions concerning the actual mean­ings of “Waldensianism” as a construct, i.e. as a label used to denote (heretical) difference. As Herbert Grundmann has persuasively shown, in­quisitors categorized heterodox statements by labeling them with the names of older sects.25 For this, in the fourteenth century, people who were probably Walden­sians were labeled Luciferians. Similarly, according to Hermann Haupt, Wal­densians in Griesbach and Waldkirchen were labeled Wyclifites in 1410.26 And, of course, it could be useful to label an opponent within the church as Waldensian to bring him under suspicion.27 At the turn of the fifteenth century, the original Waldensian name (vaudois[e]) also took on the meaning of sorcerer or witch because of the equation of vaudois with heretic per se and the association of heresy with magic.28

However, in the local context, the question of who was to be condemned as a Waldensian was also negotiated on a personal level in front of the Inquisition. In individual cases, Waldensians were able to refute the accusation of heresy.29 The ascriptions made at the time (i.e. the contention that someone was a Waldensian) are not the only uses of the term that may be problematic. As Ubl has shown in the case of John Grießer, there is also an inherent danger in the scholarship of making simplifications and working with classifications that do not stand up to scrutiny. Grießer, who was executed in 1411, was probably not the Hussite he was accused of being. He may have been a Waldensian. But it is also possible that he may simply have been a dissident whose concern was a social one.30

What applies to individuals also applies, under different circumstances, to the Waldensian group in the period under investigation. Their contours began to soften. Long-held biblical positions such as the absolute ban on killing and the consistent refusal to take oaths were abandoned. Some Waldensians moved closer to Marian devotion. Heresiarchs turned to the Catholic Church and even became priests. Lay people may also have begun to perceive the lay apostolate as misguided. From the 1390s onwards, the Waldensians were therefore a group that was at least in a crisis-ridden process of transformation, if not in decline.31 Some Waldensians thus may have been amenable to Hussite ideas, when Peter Payne (around 1418–1432) and Friedrich Reiser (from around 1450) made attempts to persuade Waldensians and Hussites to unite and to remodel Waldensian teachings and structures by adopting Hussite elements.32

Feared Difference: The Heresy of the Putative “German Hussites”

Let us now turn to individuals who were labeled “German Hussites” by scholars. Sometimes they were condemned at their own time after having been accused of spreading certain teachings of Jan Hus, but sometimes they were simply put in this category by historians (for instance in the case of the aforementioned John Grießer, as Ubl has shown). They could simply have been one of the people who, like John Drändorf, had dedicated themselves to the pura[.] pauperta[s] Christi33 or had explicitly Waldensian roots, like Friedrich Reiser, who was executed in 1458. In both cases, a Waldensian influence was mixed with the adoption of Hussite ideas. However, it was also possible that a wealthy priest who was presumably well connected in the city council’s circles, such as the chaplain of the Regensburg council chapel Ulrich Grünsleder, copied Jan Hus’ writings and promoted his ideas.34

The authorities were highly alert to the emergence of actual or supposed Hussites, as the Hussite movement had taken on violent and revolutionary traits in Bohemia after the execution of Jan Hus in Constance. The Taborite wing of the Hussites in particular (since 1420) took on revolutionary traits, which found expression in instances of verbal and real violence. Fueled by the active advertising that the Hussite side carried out for its positions, the endeavor to combat the Hussite threat externally, i.e. in Bohemia, was accompanied by the fear of a spillover of the Hussite movement into the German lands. To prevent this, the whole population was required to take an anti-Hussite oath.35 It is difficult to say how much sympathy the Hussites enjoyed in Germany, especially in the cities, and how well sympathizers were informed about the Hussite doctrines in general. Riots such as the one in Heidelberg in 1422, in which the townspeople and the electoral bodyguard alike organized a riot against the members of the university and in which the cry was heard that the attackers would rather kill students and clerics than Hussites,36 may have been a mixture of a diffuse expression of sympathy and provocation. For Austria, Werner Maleczek has questioned whether the Hussites, who were feared for their campaigns and acts of violence, were able to gain a relevant mass of followers.37 Christina Traxler notes that the elementary military difficulties faced by the Hussite movement in the early 1420s in Bohemia itself as well as the national and patriotic character of the movement made it unlikely that it would have spread to Austria during its early years. Instead, she assumes that after the condemnation of Wyclif’s teachings and the execution of Hus at the Council of Constance, heretical phenomena of any kind came “suddenly under the general suspicion” of being Hussite. For this reason, Traxler also warns against inferring “the existence and the spread of Hussite followers in Austria from anti-Hussite measures.”38 Nevertheless, it cannot be overlooked that the Hussites aggressively tried to defend and spread their positions. Their positions were also adopted or adapted and disseminated by others. The cases of the heretics John Drändorf and Peter Turnau, who were interrogated and condemned with the significant involvement of Heidelberg professors, including John von Frankfurt, offer two examples.39

After studying in Prague, Leipzig, Dresden, Zittau, and again in Prague and after being ordained as a priest in Prague in 1417, Drändorf, a nobleman from the Margraviate of Meissen, led his life as a preacher in Prague and Neuhaus. In 1424, he traveled via the Vogtland region to the Upper Rhine valley as far as Basel. He then moved to Brabant and finally to Speyer.40 There, he was reunited with Peter Turnau, a native of Prussia and a companion from his Zittau and second Prague years, who had only received a lower ordination in Prague and had left the city in 1414 to attend the Council of Constance. After studying law in Bologna and taking a long journey which led him to Crete, Turnau had come by detours to Speyer. When Drändorf arrived, Turnau was in charge of the Speyer cathedral school.41 In 1424, Drändorf and Turnau traveled to Heilbronn. Turnau intended to apply for a preaching prebend, and Drändorf probably wanted to preach and evangelize. Drändorf’s downfall was that he meddled in the dispute between the town of Weinsberg and the lords of Weinsberg. As a result of this dispute, the town found itself in the Ban of the Imperial Würzburg District Court, the Imperial ban and the reinforced outlawry of the empire (Acht und Aberacht), as well as under the ecclesiastical ban.42 Drändorf took Weinsberg’s excommunication as an opportunity to incite the town to resist the unjust ex­communication. He criticized what he found annoying about the church ban: the secular exercise of power by the clergy, which included the use of the ban in secular matters.43 This grievance was, as Drändorf suggested, made possible by the blind obedience of the laity.44 After Drändorf was arrested near Heilbronn, he was extradited to Heidelberg because Elector Ludwig III intervened with the Würzburg bishop who held jurisdiction; hence, Drändorf was subjected to a trial there. The Bishop of Worms and three Heidelberg professors, including John of Frankfurt, presided over the trial on the basis of a Würzburg commission.45

In the course of the interrogation, Drändorf revealed his convictions one by one. His radical refusal to take an oath before the interrogation was seen as clear proof of his heresy at the outset of the trial. Self-confident, even defiant, he insisted that the copy of the Gospels he was given on which to take the oath was only a human product and that he could lie with or without having taken an oath. Moreover, Drändorf answered questions about his own biography and his actions by criticizing the church. He claimed that only a few clerics wanted to live according to Christ’s regula, and he insisted that symonia, avaricia, luxuria, et pompa prevailed among the clergy.46 Emperor Constantine was only allowed to give the church bona temporalia, but not dominium, and the pope should not have accepted the latter. Not every excommunication was unjust because, he added derisively: For clerics who carried weapons and bishops who invaded towns and villages were excommunicated, just as prelates who exercised temporal power were heretics and in a state of damnation.47 All believers who professed the true faith were the Church, not the church hierarchy. 48 Drändorf also rejected indulgences. The Council of Constance did not stand for the whole Church, a statement that Hermann Heimpel has interpreted to mean that Drändorf did not consider all the articles condemned by Constantiense in fact to be condemned. Drändorf also agreed with the demand for communion sub utraque.49 On other topics, Drändorf mixed statements that were influenced by Waldensian, Wyclifite, or Hussite ideas with Catholic elements, or he distanced himself from the Hussites, for example by rejecting Hussite iconoclasm.50 All in all, the heretical positions of the three provenances converged in Drändorf’s views. During his short trial which lasted only four days, Drändorf was also tortured. In the end, Drändorf, who had occasionally gone on the offensive and repeatedly provoked his judges, was degraded, sentenced to death, and burned.

Unlike Drändorf, who, as Marie-Luise Bulst-Thiele has suggested, may have wanted to die51, Turnau did not seek martyrdom. Rather, the trained jurisprudent initially defended himself skillfully in Udenheim (a place belonging to the bishopric of Speyer), where Heidelberg professors also took part in the trial. Heimpel credited John of Frankfurt with having effectuated a turnaround in the trial. The inquisitors got hold of Turnau because of the doubts he had expressed about the “ecclesiastical doctrine and practice,” such as the relationship between the Bible, the Church fathers, younger church teachers, and ecclesiastical ministry.52 Turnau, who argued in a strictly Biblicist manner, argued that the church could err. Moreover, he was accused of Utraquism.53 To summarize, Kurt-Victor Selge describes Turnau as a “consistent dissident,” whereas he characterizes Drändorf as an “aggressively subversive missionary.”54

At this point, it is worth taking one more look at the other side. Hawicks described Drändorf’s judge John of Frankfurt as a “vehement opponent of Hussitism,”55 as he opposed the Hussites in various roles, including as an inquisitor, as a writer, and as a preacher. However, John differed from Drändorf not only in terms of church politics. Both came from different social classes. Drändorf was originally a well-off lower nobleman, while John was mentioned as a pauper at the University of Paris in 1396.56 As John owed his rise to the church and the university, Drändorf’s radical “rejection of university degrees”57 must have been alien to him. Drändorf’s apparently ambivalent attitude towards his ordination to the priesthood, which caused the court to doubt his ordained status,58 also hardly bore any affinities with the high esteem in which John of Frankfurt held the priesthood in his “meditatio.”59 Further comparisons are methodologically problematic, as Drändorf’s interrogation protocols and John’s “meditatio devota” belong to completely different genres. Nevertheless, with every methodological reservation, it should be noted that Drändorf primarily denounced the sins of others by harshly criticizing the Church, while John reflected on his own sinfulness. John of Frankfurt was therefore not only a church functionary acting in terms of power politics, but also a person whose work as an inquisitor was probably in part tied to a religious doctrine that he had personally espoused. However, Drändorf’s concern for the salvation of his soul, which underlay his desire for communion sub utraque, also suggests a spiritual dimension. Perhaps Turnau’s occasional appeals to his conscience60 can also be seen as an indication of internalized piety.

More can be learnt from the study of the Hussites and the trial against Drändorf and Turnau on the subject of diversity. The theological premises and ecclesiastical-political conclusions of Hussitism were considered antagonistic to Catholicity and were therefore no longer tolerable as an expression of diversity. This condemnation included people such as Drändorf and Turnau, who had designed their own heterodox faith with various Catholic, Waldensian, Wyclifite, and Hussite elements. Drändorf and Turnau were also tried as individuals, not as members of a community like many Waldensians.

Incidentally, this was also often the case for the German Hussites of the early period, who were frequently, but not always, clerics, with a Prague university background playing a role. There are no clear indications in the sources that distinct Hussite congregations formed at that time. The time was probably still too short for this and the endeavour too dangerous. The only exceptions were Flanders and Hainaut, where, according to Bart Spruyt, an “important, mostly hidden dissenting movement” existed, which apparently also absorbed Hussite elements early on. As early as the late 1410s and until 1430, a number of people there were detained. The fact that several people were arrested and meetings were held suggests that there were group structures.61 Elsewhere, despite the idea of Peter Payne to persuade the Waldensians to join the Hussites, there are only sporadic indications in the sources to suggest that they did, at least until the 1440s. Only then did the weakened Waldensian communities appear to have come so close to Hussite ideas that it would be possible to speak of a Hussite-influenced diaspora.62 In my opinion, widespread hatred of the clergy and general social unrest are not enough to suggest that we can speak of the existence of Hussite religious communities before the 1440s, even if anti-clericalism in particular would have provided a starting point for the infiltration of Hussite ideas. Concerning the so-called Hussites, the sovereigns, municipal authorities, and local church institutions took the initiative to inquire about and try people regarded as suspicious. In general, we recognize an overriding political will to persecute alleged heretics.

The universities were also involved in the persecution of alleged heretics to varying degrees. Individual Heidelberg professors were involved in the fight against Hussitism at an early stage, an activity that was evidently also linked to their activities as electoral councilors. In 1421, John of Frankfurt and Conrad von Soest each wrote an anti-Hussite treatise during a campaign against the Hussites. Job Vener also took up his pen against the Hussites in 1421. Furthermore, there is evidence of a relevant sermon by John of Frankfurt and a speech by Conrad von Soest.63 A later example of the anti-Hussite commitment by Heidelberg professors is the refutation of a Taborite manifesto in 1430 by Nicolas of Jawor.64At the University of Vienna, in contrast, scholars just respond to requests and demands until the end of the 1420s. They did not become involved in the fight against the Hussites at their own initiative.65

The negotiation of a tolerated status, coexistence, or even integration were not on the agenda for those labeled Hussites. The religiously motivated political upheavals in the Kingdom of Bohemia had shown clearly what Hussitism was capable of, but other events also revealed the influence and power of Hussite ideas. Drändorf, whose hybrid heresy has been outlined, also regretted in a letter to the town of Weinsberg that he and other like-minded priests were too weak to oppose iniquitati malorum clericorum, nisi communis populus et loca imperialia suos oculus aperirent.66 He thus formulated a barely veiled threat. The opposition between Hussitism and Catholicism was only bridged at a later date and outside the inner empire, with the Basel and Prague Compactata. They were concluded with the participation of the Council of Basel and also under the impact of many military defeats and massive political pressure from Emperor Sigismund. Furthermore, they only applied to the Kingdom of Bohemia. This was the only case in which negotiations were held with heretics.67 The willingness to accept difference in this case was forced by the circumstances.

Suspected and Persecuted Difference: The Jews

It is worth also taking a brief look at the Jews, a group the diversity of which had been dealt with for centuries. John of Frankfurt still held the classical position towards them, according to which the messiahship of Christ necessarily would be deduced from the Old Testament. He made no reference to the opinion that emerged in the thirteenth century according to which the Talmud, if understood correctly, also contained appropriate passages.68 John’s writing, apparently secondarily called Malleus Judeorum, was intended as an explanation of the former position to the theologically interested Elector Palatine Ludwig III. It was not written with any missionary intention.69 In another sermon, John emphasized that the Jews had forfeited their first calling by God. Nevertheless, the path to salvation was not closed to anyone, because God would work on anyone if he did not close himself off. This remark can be interpreted as an expression of hope of conversion of the Jews.70 Despite still moderate voices like his, the Jews faced an increasingly repressive atmosphere in the late Middle Ages, as they were accused not only of alleged ritual murders and desecration of the Host but also of anti-Christian blasphemies and heresy because their teachings had gone beyond the Old Testament in the Talmud.71 Anti-Jewish and anti-Hussite sermons were held one after the other in Fribourg.72 Presumably both activities reinforced each other as a means of characterizing both the Jews and the Hussites as different. As in the fourteenth century, expulsions of Jews also took place in Sigismund’s time, partly in territories and partly in towns.73 Karel Hruza has shown in an exemplary manner that, for fiscal reasons, Sigismund had no interest expelling Jews, but that he was careful to protect his rights and financial interests when he was unable to prevent their expulsion, and that he thereby abandoned them.74

Three patterns can by shown in which the criterion of religious difference was instrumentalized in order to justify the expulsion of a group considered to be different but tolerated so far. First, conspiracy theories were hatched concerning the supposed cooperation of internal and external enemies. Secondly, religious pretexts were used to conceil economically and politically motivated Jewish persecution. And third, anti-Jewish stereotypes were reinvigorated in the run-up to Jewish persecution. As an example of the first, a rumor emerged in Vienna in 1419 according to which Jews, Hussites, and Waldensians had allegedly formed a confederacio which was allegedly directed against the Christian majority society. The Vienna theological faculty was consulted about this, but it apparently did not consider the topic urgent, as the discussion about it was postponed. Of the three groups mentioned, it was the Jews in particular who were highlighted because of their multitud[o], their allegedly delicata vita, and their writings (allegedly) containing detestable calumnies and blasphemies (i.e. the Talmud and probably also the “Toldot Jeschu”).75 The danger scenario was exacerbated by the fact that the Jews, who were already branded as heretics, appeared here in association with other heretics. There was nothing to substantiate this conspiracy theory, of course, even if Jews demonstrably sympathized with the Hussites.76

Secondly, the reasons for the expulsions of Jews have to be scrutinized. Petr Elbel has found little support in the sources for the seemingly self-evident as­sumption that the expulsion of the Jews from Vienna and Austria in 1420–1421 was a consequence of fear of their alleged alliance with other enemies of Catholic Christianity. Rather, the expulsion was motivated by economic reasons. However, an alleged desecration of the Host in Enns served as a pretext.77 The final expulsion of the Jews from Vienna in 1421 was also accompanied by the fact that Jews who had already been baptized under the pressure of the authorities were forced to listen to conversion sermons held by none other than the Viennese professor Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl. These sermons differed significantly from those which Heinrich von Langenstein drafted at the end of the fourteenth century to convert Jews through good words, as they lacked any concession to the Jews.78 However, the sermons fitted into a time in which the Council of Basel in 1434 wanted to impose forced preaching on Jews and inculcated traditional segregation regulations (1434).79

Religious pretexts were also used in other places to dislodge Jewish com­munities. In 2012, Hruza called attention to the political and fiscal motives of the city of Cologne, which wanted to get rid of its Jews in 1423–24, as the respective competences and rights of disposal over the Jews were a constant point of contention with the Archbishop of Cologne.80 However, when the city justified its actions to the king in 1431, the danger that the Jews were trying to persuade Christians to apostatize was put forward. It was also argued that foreign crusaders (probably in 1421) had attempted to slay the Jews on their way to the Hussite war, which led to concerns that such events could occur again. Further arguments included the Jewish practice of lending at interest, the expulsion of Jews from neighboring territories, the sanctity of the city of Cologne (with its relics of numerous saints and martyrs), and the rumor of well poisoning due to increased mortality rates caused by an epidemic.81 Nine months after Sigismund’s death, in August 1438, the mayor and the town council of Heilbronn justified to the chancellor of king Albert II, Kaspar Schlick, and the Hereditary Marshal of the Empire Haupt II von Pappenheim their decision not to extend the Jews’ residency status because they (the mayor and the town council) had been warned by scholars openly in sermons and secretly in the confession of how seriously they acted badly because they permitted Jews to remain in their community and allowed them to practice usury. The scholars also contended that the mayor and the council debased themselves by making this concession.82 Consequently, this situation had to be rectified.

As a third point, the accusations of ritual murder (a recurring accusation that both fortified and relied on an anti-Jewish stereotype) merits consideration. These accusations were used to justify repressive measures against Jews and to establish a new martyr cult. In the case of Ravensburg, however, King Sigismund tried to prevent the rise of a cult concerning a pupil purportedly murdered ritually in 1429. Sigismund had the church which had been designated as a pilgrimage site razed to the ground, though he was unable to put a complete stop to the pilgrimages.83 As far as I know, however, this measure taken by Sigismund was exceptional. In complete contrast, the Palatinate Elector Ludwig III, together with the parish priest of Bacharach, Winand von Steeg, ensured the revival of the declining cult of the so-called “Good Werner of Oberwesel,” who had allegedly been ritually murdered in the thirteenth century.

Blurred Differences: Piety, Superstition, and Magic

The problem of superstition, on which John of Frankfurt, among others, com­mented twice (in 1405 and 1425–27),84 can only be touched upon in this paper. The first text, a “quodlibet” on the question of whether demons could be compelled and controlled through the use of amulets, signs, and words, still predates the period in which the concept of the vaudois was amalgamated with that of the sorcerer. However, since the fourteenth century, magic and heresy in general had been brought closer together. Nevertheless, in his “quaestio” of 1405, John argues against conjuring demons without referring to the concept of heresy. Although demons could perform healings, for example, due to their extensive knowledge of the secret powers of nature, it was forbidden and harmful to summon them. Demons, he explained, only pretended to be coerced and compelled by men in order to deceive people. Anyone who invoked them was committing idolatry. In addition to healing magic, John condemned all kinds of common divination practices. Still very much in the old church tradition, he rejected the reality of witches flights, the transformation of people into animals through demonic magic, and the visitation of goddesses of destiny at the birth of children. With those and similar superstitions John charged old women in particular. 85

Furthermore, especially interesting are the passages in which John critizised “wildly” erected little houses or huts in fields or woods, which were visited due to vows because simple-minded people told of fantastic apparitions and alleged that miracles had been performed. Believers would make gifts and votive offerings to these dubious locations, donations that the parish churches then were lacking. Quite obviously, John was opposing unlicensed spontaneous pilgrim­ages. He im­puted them to be short-lived and therefore unsustainable, and he presumed that they were initiated because of avarice anyway. John also recalled the Savior’s warning against false prophets, but without mentioning demonic influences. In a very pragmatic way, he also cautioned that such remote places would provide a good opportunity for fornication. Furthermore, the canons forbade the offering of sacrifices in places that had not been consecrated. Like Nicolas of Jawor before him, John also warned against dubious hermits and ignoramuses who, out of shameful greed, offered to foretell the future and bless animals and humans. This too was idolatry, he insisted. Unfortunately, local priests often remained silent out of ignorance when they learned of abuses which John considered to be the remnants of ancient idolatry. John distanced himself from ignorant and brutal exorcists of the devil, who were often personally dubious figures anyway, much as he also rejected the practice of blessings, therefore citing Matthew of Krakow. If blessings were effective, he asked ironically, why would there be no blessing contra superbiam, luxuriam vel avaritiam or against robbers and arsonists?86

These passages are partly set in a contemporary discursive context to which Nicolas of Jawor, among others, contributed a great deal. When dealing with spontaneous pilgrimages and blessings, they show above all how the boundaries of permissible diversity were discussed.87 Unfortunately, it is not possible to trace the arguments used by John of Frankfurt in his more theoretical text written in 1425–25, in which he labeled people who summonsed demons heretics, as the second treatise remains unedited. It is therefore also not possible to decide whether this was an adaptation to the increasingly aggravated discourse or whether the different focus is due to the chosen level of argumentation.

Conclusion

It is worth returning, in conclusion, to our original considerations. Religion was a criterion of difference which in itself hardly left much room for negotiation. The dogmatic dividing lines were drawn by inquisitorial manuals, but they could also be seen, for example, when arguments from the Franciscan poverty controversy were used to refute the Hussites’ Four Articles of Prague.88 The doctrinal discrepancies are therefore evident in theory. This also applies to methodological determinations. John of Frankfurt, for example, accused the Hussites of clinging to the literal sense of the Bible. This methodological error was otherwise attributed to Jews.

In practice, however, the boundaries were more difficult to draw. The difficulty is evident when it came to the categorizations used for heretics, regardless of whether they were individuals or groups, as they often held hybrid positions. “Deviants” did not necessarily adopt all the doctrines and practices of a denomination that was marginalized as heretical, but possibly only some of them. They could take up and merge different ideas and even keep some elements of Catholic doctrines. In addition, whether a distinction was made between Catholics and heretics depended crucially on the willingness to recognize the heresy of the other person. In the decision-making situation, situational or context-dependent and pragmatic logics therefore competed with normative precepts.

Nevertheless, diversity was undesirable when it moved outside the normative boundaries of orthodoxy. Alexander Patschovsky pointed out early on that the heterodox could not be tolerated where there was no pluralism of truth.89 Tolerance was only possible with the Jews as long as they were understood as “blind” bearers of Christian truth. More recently, Christoph Mandry added that pluralism could only be regarded as a value once religion had become a private matter and confession was no longer considered constitutive for the cohesion of the political order.90

Concerning magic, the period under review was a threshold period. Magic and heresy could be connected from the fourteenth century onwards, but they were not necessarily combined. Furthermore, certain forms of superstition, as well as unlicensed forms of religion, could still be rejected without immediately being branded as magical or heretical.

In the examples outlined above, the approaches used to deal with diversity can hardly be described as “negotiation.” Both with the Jews and where pragmatism prevailed over doctrine in dealings with heretics, the power constellations were quite asymmetrical. Only when it came to the Jews and maybe minor forms of superstition was it possible to admit diversity in principle. In the case of heretics, deviance led to the elimination of the deviant as soon as it was addressed. Only in the case of the Bohemian Hussites (not examined here) did the political and military circumstances make it necessary to tolerate religious diversity, and this diversity in turn influenced political negotiation processes. Hence, I suggest we should speak of “handling diversity” when the possibility of tolerating or integrating differentness was given, no matter how asymmetrical the framework conditions may have been. On the other hand, I prefer to describe differences that could lead to the elimination of the other not as diversity, but as divergence.

Religious diversity can be found when the plurality of religious forms of expression is considered, that characterized conform late medieval piety. One can think of the variety of ecclesiastical and sacramental practices in the parishes, the numerous brotherhoods or the foundation system, which were able to combine the striving for imitatio Christi and an internalized relationship with God. However, these forms of religiosity were not the subject of my article

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Religious Diversity: What or How? Towards a Praxeology of Early Modern Religious Ordering*

Iryna Klymenko

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2  (2024):287-305 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.287

Scholars of the pre-modern history of religion have increasingly sought to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of religious diversity. Building on these advancements, this paper argues that our comprehension of this phenomenon is intricately linked to our presuppositions regarding religious groups and their boundaries. By challenging the conventional notion of groups as closed, authentic, and consistently coherent collectives, it advocates for a praxeological approach. Drawing on sociological theories and microhistorical studies, with a particular focus on early modern sources related to Jewish communities, it proposes a transition from inquiries about “what” the groups are to an examination of “how” they have been constructed in both temporal and spatial dimensions. Thus, by viewing religious groups and their ordering as dynamic and process-related, this approach aims to deepen our understanding of religious diversity in the early modern era as an analytical and empirical category.

Keywords: early modern history, religious diversity, praxeology

As noted by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, any attempt to construct a com­prehensive theory of society capable of adequately and empirically capturing its complexity necessitates a departure from several fundamental assumptions. Among these is the prevailing notion that groups and their boundaries are relatively fixed structures which can be viewed as tangible entities with determin­able memberships and delineated borders – often at the expense of any understanding of their relational dynamics.1 It is crucial to acknowledge that Bourdieu articulated these insights decades ago, engaging with the prevailing intellectual milieu of his era. Specifically, he challenged the simplistic conceptualization of social classes as historically predetermined categories, thus countering the prevalent notion of societal structure as an objective reality. His overarching objective was to transcend this perspective in favor of a theoretically robust framework informed by empirical evidence and capable of adequately addressing the intricate complexity of its subject matter.2

If one adopts this objective and attempts to offer an assessment of religious diversity in the early modern period through a historiographic lens, the imperative remains pertinent. It is incumbent on us to scrutinize how our interpretation of religious ordering intersects with our conceptualizations of religious groups and their boundaries. If one embarks on scholarly inquiries into the histories of Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and other faiths, there is an inherent risk of presupposing a predetermined structure to these religious groups and their demarcations. When we posit the existence of these groups as entities, we assume their cohesion as a collective and, moreover, we presuppose the ‘authenticity’ of their respective religious practices. Heeding Bourdieu’s critique of the compartmentalization of societal structures, such as the presumed objectivity of historical classes, we must take an epistemological step back. This entails examining the foundational assumptions inherent in historiography concerning religious groups and exploring analytical frameworks capable of transcending the complexity of these groups (and the processes through which they are posited and thus created in the secondary literature).

It is worth highlighting that over the past few decades, there has been a fruitful dialogue between historiographic and sociological approaches,3 along with extensive reflections on the complexity of religious organization in the pre-modern era. This paper contributes to a specific development recently articulated by Sita Steckel, who has synthesized past and current debates around an originally sociological concept of societal differentiation, thereby fostering an interdisciplinary perspective particularly applicable to the history of religions in the Middle Ages.4 The genesis of these discussions lies in historiographical reflections on differentiation theory, which, in essence, conceives society as a system consisting of various subsystems, such as politics, religion, medicine, law, and so forth, each driven by its own functional dynamics of communication.5 Notably, this form of societal complexity was originally construed as an inherently modern phenomenon. Consequently, differentiation theory, understood as a theory which applied specifically to modernization (explicitly constructed in contrast to pre-modern society), served as a catalyst for historical debates.6 Historians of pre-modern period have consistently argued for an approach that acknowledges the societal and historical complexity of pre-modern times. As Sita Steckel aptly phrases it, there is a call to perceive pre-modern societies “as dynamic entities”7 and thus necessarily to engage with primary sources in order to capture the nuances of historical dynamics faithfully.

In light of contemporary scholarship on pre-modern religious dynamics and pluralities, the notion that differentiation theory applies exclusively to processes and moments of modernization appears increasingly difficult to substantiate.8 Instead, current discourse emphasizes methodological endeavors by historians aimed at crafting conceptual frameworks that effectively capture the empirical intricacies of religious organization in pre-modern contexts. Building on this premise, this paper argues that our understanding of religious ordering is intricately tied to our presuppositions concerning religious groups and their boundaries. It therefore adopts an epistemologically reflective approach, seeking to illuminate the historical and societal complexities surrounding religious groups as early modern phenomena. Drawing on sociological theories, microhistorical studies, and early modern sources related to Jewish communities in particular,9 it proposes a shift from inquiries about the essence of these groups to an examination of how these groups have been constructed and how, as constructions, they behaved both temporally and spatially. By conceptualizing religious groups and their organization as dynamic and process-oriented, this approach aims to enrich our understanding of religious diversity and the complexity of the notion of diversity itself as both an analytical and empirical category in the study of the early modern era.

To accomplish this goal, this paper begins with an exploration of the regulatory constructions of religious boundaries (I) followed by an in-depth examination of these boundaries from a bottom-up perspective. This examin­ation considers the intricate interplay among the religious, economic, and medical spheres. Specifically, the paper employs the paradigm of religiously coded food and eating practices (II) as an analytical perspective from which to elucidate these dynamics. Within the chosen praxeological framework, it is imperative to acknowledge that any attempt to draw delineations among the societal spheres of religion, economy, and medicine necessitates recognition of the analytical nature of such categorization. This analytical division is crucial to any conceptual approach to the study of interactions that transcend individual subjectivity and structural objectivity. This allows for an understanding of these interactions as outcomes of both individual choices and structural dispositions.10 Additionally, it is necessary to perceive these spheres and their logics not as static compartments but as dynamic and contingent phenomena, exerting influence within every unique configuration of interactions.11 Translated within the context of this paper, praxeology entails the meticulous reconstruction of how religious group formation may be either compromised or strengthened, depending on varying societal contexts and problem references across different fields. This paper seeks to elucidate how these patterns can be extrapolated into broader conceptual frameworks.

Community of Law(s): Plurality and Polyphony of Regulations

Crucial to the construction of religious collectives in Judaism is the foundational concept of a chosen group the members of which adhere to the commandments of their God. A comprehensive collection of laws (mitzvoth), prohibitions, and precepts, derived from the oldest sources, was manifested in writing in antiquity. At least since the destruction of the Temple, Judaism has primarily been a law-based religion: halakha has been and remains far more central that any profession of faith (and here sees the crucial difference in the construction of belonging in Christianity). These norms address a wide range of topics and spheres, extending to the main matters of daily life. Though commonly translated as Jewish Law, halakha literally signifies the way to proceed or the right way to behave. Synchronized behavior, both in law and in practices, is constitutive for religious boundaries. Another fundamental aspect of group building is individual/personal belonging, which in the case of Judaism is not solely a result of following these norms of law but is primarily attributed to descent from a maternal Jewish line. This form of belonging includes or implies commitment to religious law. These two understandings of belonging (a definition of belonging on the one hand and the obligations of belonging on the other) initially provide a rather clear picture for what is addressed in this paper as a religious group. However, insights from early modern sources prompt further questions.

In one of his writings published in 1593, Reb Chaim12 lamented the behavior of his Jewish contemporaries: “And the rabbis have warned us not to be like the peoples of the lands, neither in our words nor in our deeds nor in our dress, but this is not heeded now in our sinful state, as many members of our community seem to mingle with them [goyim]13 and be like them [goyim], and they [members of our community] defile themselves with wine from their [goyish] feasts.”14 This passage underlines contemporary violations of religious norms but also speaks to the blurring of boundaries between Jewish and Christian groups. This blurring, crucial to the argument of this paper, occurs through daily practices and interactions.

The entire tradition of rabbinic literature and commentaries, developed over centuries in reaction to the practical need to adapt the (in principle) unchangeable norm of halakha to local and regional circumstances,15 reminds us to approach cases of violation of religious law beyond the sheer concept of deviance. As is asserted in one of the communal records, “[E]very Jew knows the law, and no [special] ordinance is needed.”16—so confirm one of the communal records. Yet the same record demands daily vigilance and control, prescribing sanctions and penalties for cases of violation.17 Community members belong to their collective by birth, which requires commitment to Jewish law. This clear demarcation of a group remains intact, as community leaders simultaneously count on the possibility of norm violations and, therefore, refer to and rely on regulations.

In the late sixteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,18 Jewish communities received permission from the political establishment of the country to arrange a relatively autonomous communal administration, with organs at both the local and the supranational levels.19 Interestingly, Jewish autonomy was facilitated by the political establishment of the Commonwealth not because it entertained some notion of tolerance or religious diversity but rather due to the need to find a way to collect taxes from the growing Jewish diaspora in the country.20 Among other provisions, this autonomy included the exclusive prerogative to regulate communal matters related to halakha.21 From the late sixteenth century onwards, communities and their organs produced an enormous amount of minute books (pinkassim)22 addressing different aspects and problems of daily life from the perspective of Jewish law. One crucial part of these regulations concerned religiously coded practices explicitly linked to religious differences, such as dress and attire in this example from 1607: “men and women shall not clothe themselves with the garments and immorality of non-Jews […]; children of Israel are to be distinguished by their clothing.”23 In the context of the religiously coded practices of attire, exceptions were or could be made for travelers (for security reasons) or those close to the political establishment and/or court (as a form of symbolic communication).24 This practice of making (or not making) exceptions offers an example of how religious practices not only co-shape boundaries but also, when deemed reasonable or necessary, temporarily prioritize them.

The changeability and adaptability of norms and therefore of boundaries, depending on contexts of interactions, will be important topics in the discussion below, particularly in the context of religiously coded practices related to food. The phenomenon of Jewish autonomy, in step with the actual practices of a regulatory framework, can be seen as another layer of collective demarcation of the group through adherence to a distinctive concept of law, along with religiously coded and regulated practices and fundamental norms of halakha, as mentioned above.

The limitations of this regulatory framework were many. As mentioned earlier, one of them was that regulations could only concern matters related to tradition. Moreover, Jewish authorities could exercise forms of governance over their community members but not over Christians or members of other religious groups.25 As interactions usually went beyond religiously defined communal spaces, regulatory organs and authorities regularly faced challenges in any attempt or effort to implement their orders broadly.

Furthermore, from the perspective of Jewish law and communal regulations, it is essential to stress the historically and societally given polyphony and disparity of regulations, emanating from different institutions and parties, motivated by diverse considerations, and situated in conditions of particular power relations. Rural and urban areas, for instance, were distinct in this regard. While the status of Jewish leaseholders (arendarze) was of importance in the latter,26 the regulatory constellations in the cities which enjoyed Magdeburg rights in its various forms were particularly significant. Guild and craft unions present another regulatory setting, primarily in context of the economic organization of the groups. Additionally, a special aspect of different urban districts being admitted to different groups merits consideration. Moreover, the status of Jewish communities in different places in the Commonwealth was subject to privileges issued by kings, resulting in different economic or social latitudes for different communities, which sometimes shared the same city, as is the case in L’viv/Lwow/Lemberg,27 which was home to two Jewish communities, one in the inner parts of the city and one on its periphery. Furthermore, the regulatory attempts by Christian, mainly Catholic institutions and organs towards the Jewish community also merit consideration.28 This briefly outlined plurality of regulatory frameworks and their dynamics and interdependencies are certainly topics that warrant further exploration and therefore cannot be exhaustively presented here. Yet it is crucial to keep this complexity in mind, along with the layers of Jewish law-related regulations, as we move towards a bottom-up study of interactions, focusing on one particular example of religiously coded norms and practices concerning food and eating.

The Logic of Fields: Between Religion, Medicine, and Economy

“A cooked root of this plant, called in Polish kosaciec [], in Latin irys […], as well as a salve made out of it, with added pork lard, softens gastric ulcers; with rose oil and a little vinegar mixed together, it is good for headaches; if mixed with honey and white hellebore, it removes stains from a face.”29 This recipe for improving health and treating ailments such as ulcers comes from a medical advisory published in Krakow in 1613. The language of the text is Yiddish, a vernacular which allows us to assume that this advisory was intended for daily use by members of the Jewish community. Hence, it is even more striking that this recipe included pork lard, which was prohibited by Jewish law.

Food-related prohibitions and precepts constitute a significant part of halakha, dating back to biblical times.30 Along with other functional aspects, these norms of a different kind have been used to create religious differences, i.e. to draw boundaries between Jewish and non-Jewish groups, not least due to the visibility and observability of practices related to food preparation and consumption.31 For instance, Leviticus 11: 44–47 includes verses regarding pure and impure (i.e. edible and inedible) animals, linking this differentiation to the fundamental religious distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish groups, exemplified by individuals in 1 Maccabees 1:12– 63 who chose death over consuming pork during the Seleucids persecution.32 If pork and pork products remained strictly prohibited, how can it be explained that they were mentioned in a book explicitly addressed to a Jewish audience?

An accurate analysis of a specific type of this source sheds light on the entire tradition of translations of medical works from diverse European languages into Yiddish from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth, which was one fascinating phenomenon of early modern knowledge transfer in Europe.33 Sejfer derech ejc ha-chajim presents one such translation of a then widespread type of regimen sanitatis salernitanum,34 which allegedly explains the puzzling reference to pork lard. The recipe could include foodstuffs that were prohibited by halakha because it was not derived from a text related to the Jewish tradition in the first place. Nevertheless, the question of retaining the passage in the translation intended for daily use by members of Jewish communities would still require explanation.

However, upon comparing the original version and the Yiddish one, we discover the latter to be an interesting case of symbioses, combining translated passages and passages added later. Remarkably, the cited passage was authored and included by the translator. Therefore, the inclusion in the recipe of an item that was prohibited by religious law still demands some explanation. From the perspective of differentiation theory (as well as field theory), one possible interpretation would be that texts written primarily as medical or health advisories related to a different form of authority than, for instance, those written from an explicitly religious perspective. And again, as mentioned in the introduction, this analytical division does not equate to empirical reality but is to be understood as implicitly incorporated in communicative and interactional structures as an option.

Confirming this perspective, rabbinic literature and commentaries tra­di­tionally addressed the issue of recommending a considerable range of items prohibited by religious law but apparently in daily use for medical or other purposes. In several recipes of Sejfer derech ejc ha-chajim which included pork lard, prescriptions were linked solely to external bodily parts, and thus the lard was not intended for consumption. It could be used as a salve, for instance, but still was not to be eaten. One such example regards a treatment for chickenpox among children. The recipe recommends combining a drink made from winter cress with a lard salve: “[O]ne must know and keep in mind that if giving bitter things [to drink], one must make a suppository from a stewed honeycomb or to grease the anus with fresh pork lard, so that worms can move faster from bitter to sweet.”35 This differentiation in internal and external use of forbidden items may have something to do with traditional rabbinic adaptations of halakha to particular regional or societal circumstances. An impressive number of commentaries and rabbinic texts argue about the use of pork and lard in the context of medical, economic, or social contexts. For example, one early modern commentary36 notes that the lard of an impure animal is considered unsuitable for sale or purchase by religious law, with certain exceptions. Selling lard intended for consumption is strictly forbidden, but its use for daily purposes (such as lighting a fire) is permissible. Additionally, exceptions may be made in cases of physical suffering: “[T]here is no permit for using lard for lubrication, except in cases of suffering; however, for a healthy person and for pleasure, it is not allowed […].”37 This reflects a pragmatic approach taken by religious elites. It indicates that the normative perspective of religious law cannot always be directly applied to daily life situations. Instead, it must be adapted and regulated differently according to various societal contexts.

On the one hand, religious boundaries influenced or expressed by norms related to food are established according to religious law. On the other hand, on a practical level (including the level of discourse), attributions, demarcations, and interdependencies of these boundaries could vary based on the logics of the various societal fields. This is illustrated in another passage from Sejfer derech ejc ha-chajim, where advice on improving digestion suggests following a practice among non-Jews (goyim), specifically Christians, who during Lent ate nuts after consuming fish to mitigate mucus production.38 While this practice may be seen as something to emulate, it simultaneously remained a clear marker of religious difference in religious texts. Notably, also figures writing from different Christian perspectives (and in various epochs of the pre-modern era) emphasized the functional distinctiveness of the Jewish feast, set in contrast with the Christian practice of fasting on Saturday. This can be illustrated exemplarily with the words of the influential Jesuit Piotr Skarga (1536-1612): “Why do we fast on Saturday? […] Firstly, in order to turn away from the Jews and reject their Saturday feast, which, like other feasts, was only prescribed until the resurrection of Christ. [And] [b]ecause fasting contradicts the feast.”39

Daily practices were undoubtedly influenced by religious law and forms of exercising control, yet they were presumably influenced to the same degree by the logics of societal fields. In Jewish moral literature, observations about economic activities in trade, such as the one from the city of Vilnius/Wilno, where the Jewish community would trade with Christians using impure poultry, reveal instances in which community leaders lost control over such situations.40 There are numerous regulations in the communal minute books regarding this matter in different regions of the Commonwealth. Solomon Kluger sought to arrive at compromises by drawing a distinction between trade in pork, with was forbidden, and trade in pork lard, which according to Kluger was allowed.41 This separation of meat and lard is striking. It invites us to consider whether lard was one of the very basic products in the region, common in general society, and therefore hard to avoid in daily life. It was used to prepare medications and, as evident from the passage cited above, to make soap and candles, and it was a great preservative for other foods or products. Kluger offered an explanation as to why his use of lard was justifiable: “Because I have complete evidence from one of the proselytes who told me how his father was negotiating the sale of olive oil, and that he himself brought oil from the state of Italy; and he could not transport it so far in barrels of wood without mixing it in lard until it was squeezed and stayed inside without taking out any drop.”42 Boundaries, with could be easily drawn in theological or polemical texts, seem to have been revised in moments of actual interaction.

From the perspective of religious law and its representatives, such as Rabbi and preacher Solomon Kluger (Rabbi Solomon ben Judah Aaron Kluger), the behaviors presented obviously fell in the category of deviant behavior and had to be controlled and punished. Yet from an analytical perspective, these behaviors can be seen as forms of adapting to norms in everyday interactions, which were governed by the logics of the social fields to which these interactions belonged. One could simultaneously appear to be a member of the religious community and be included, socially43 or economically,44 as a member of general society.

From this perspective of interactions, for instance, entangled labor relations among Jewish and Christian populations represent complexity.45 Jewish communal minute books shed light on these contexts frequently and regarding different aspects. Jewish households often hired maids who were Christian, which led to regulations concerning the responsibilities and prerogatives of the employers and their employees. A protocol from 1607, for instance, reads, “[Jewish] women are to remain vigilant [, sic!], in preserving and salting the meat themselves […], and by no means [having it be salted] by their non-Jewish maidservants; and they should also be careful when cooking the food, for it happened many times that they [the non-Jewish or Christian maidservants] […] added something forbidden.”46 The household was hardly observable from the outside, so the responsibility to watch over religious others became an issue, alongside the obligation to adhere to the law. Similarly, Jewish slaughterers (shoh. at. im) were frequently reminded of the rules of kashrut, and the possible sanc­tions and penalties for violations were stressed, such as suspension of one’s license (h.azaka).47 Licenses which permitted someone to engage in Jewish food production and trade, which included the production of butter and cheese and the supply of dried fish (which were popular in this region), were issued and could be suspended by local rabbis. They were thus one common instrument of regulation.

Working relations which brought members of different religious groups together were complex and involved various levels of negation and compromise. As mentioned above, Solomon Kluger complained about trade in non-kosher products in the city of Vilnius/Wilno, pointing out that these forbidden practices had become frequent, especially the consumption of non-kosher products by non-Jewish employees of Jews, even though this was prohibited by religious law.48 This must have been a major issue, as Polish and Lithuanian pinkassim from the sixteenth century onwards are filled with complaints about violations in cases involving food provided for Christian employees. As in the cases involving Jewish households, in this context we are also dealing with complex matters. An example from the Krakow community of 1590 shows clearly that suspicion had fallen on Jewish merchants traveling to the city of Gdansk as oxen drivers and grain transporters of having bought pork for their non-Jewish workers on the road, which constituted a violation of religious law.49 Much as a clear distinction was drawn between the two communities through the very observable difference between the Jewish feast on the one hand and the practice of fasting on Saturdays among Catholics on the other (as noted by the aforementioned Jesuit Piotr Skarga), the importance of time in the customs though which difference was expressed was also underlined in the context of interreligious labor relations. In the same minute book from Kraków, there are multiple warnings regarding the prohibition of doing agricultural works on a Saturday. Members of the Jewish community were not only prohibited from engaging in this kind of work on Saturdays, they were also prohibited from letting their Christian employees fish50 or plow or engage in any other activities in the field,51 under a penalty of a fine of 50 red złoty. The same temporal aspect of religious diversity (religious belonging linked to particular working days and feasts) frequently appears in the context of Jewish tavern keepers, who sometimes unlawfully served guests, primarily Christians, on the Sabbath, thus showing a stronger commitment to profits than to the law. Communal regulations, as we see here, were therefore not based on the law as an abstract norm. Rather, they were systematically driven by very specific situations and interactions.

Furthermore, supranational organs of Jewish autonomy also issued regulations to address violations of dietary laws, emphasizing the importance of maintaining religious boundaries between groups. This indicates that such problems occurred across regions and communities as a whole. A decree issued by the Council of Lithuania in 1628 provides an example. Local religious elites were ordered to warn all members of all communities in all the synagogues not to trade with Christians in non-kosher carcasses and other forbidden foods and also not to buy such items for their non-Jewish employees.52 Community leaders attempted to prevent and punish violations of these regulations, enforcing the dietary laws in order to maintain religious demarcation between the groups. However, religiously regulated practices related to food in particular were not solely about religious constellations. They also intersected with trade and economic interests, social relations, medical and health practices, and so forth. These various spheres of activity can and should be separated, yet on the level of actual interactions, they remained entangled and contingent.

By presuming the stability of early modern religious groups and the singularity of their boundaries, we tend preemptively to attribute authenticity to the very notion of groups as discrete entities, and we therefore are compelled to understand violation of group norms as deviance. Yet, if we shift our perspective from a religious one (which the former one is) to an analytical one, new questions arise. Is it possible that pork was cheaper than other meats, and thus there may have been significant economic incentives to buy non-kosher products for workers? Or perhaps roast pork was simply tastier and more filling? And was pork lard just a great preservative for food and a substance for healing practices? Yet, at this point and from an epistemological perspective, it is less important to find an explanations for these practices or give answers to these questions than it is simply to ask the questions themselves. This would mean not letting a normative, religiously burdened perspective appear in place of an analytical one, which could offer new perspectives on structural contingency and complexity.

Conclusion

Religious groups and their delineations are profoundly influenced by theological and legal frameworks. Despite demonstrating a historical propensity for fluc­tua­tion, whether through fragmentation or consolidation, religious collectives endure in the context of this form of ordering as relatively stable structures. Moreover, the formation of these groups is significantly influenced by religious practices and their accompanying regulatory mechanisms, which simultaneously serve to distinguish them externally while fostering internal cohesion. In this context, an interplay among shifts and enduring features is observable across temporal and spatial dimensions. Furthermore, within the realm of societal interactions, an additional framework emerges wherein a complexity of norms, regulations, and practices recurrently find expression in distinct forms. These diverse frameworks contribute to the establishment of religious boundaries, which can vary significantly. Additionally, the pace and frequency with which these boundaries undergo change within each framework may differ markedly.

Praxeology, as advocated for use in this paper, presents a perspective that transcends the simplistic dichotomy between the normative dimensions of theology and law on one hand and practices and interactions on the other. This perspective underscores that the analytical approach to understanding early modern group building should not be constrained by either of these frameworks. Rather, it urges a comprehensive consideration of the inherent complexity within these layers, recognizing their potential polyphony and incongruence in the early stages of assumption building.

These considerations have implications for the framing of religious diversity as both an empirical and analytical category. When beginning from a theological or law-related perspective, one may tend to perceive religious plurality solely as a sum of different groups. While historically valid to some extent, such an approach tends to accentuate only a specific aspect of the broader spectrum of religious ordering. These perspectives often underscore the apparent clarity and stability of religious collectives and their boundaries, notwithstanding their potential for variability. What remains concealed is the ambiguity inherent in what we define as religious groups. This ambiguity extends beyond mere proximity or boundaries of collectives and examines notions of deviance, when religious norms, perceived as definitions or forms of belonging, are individually or collectively transgressed. This paper considers these latter aspects of group formation and their conceptual underpinnings.

Consequently, if we seek to arrive at an understanding of religious diversity as both an empirical and analytical category, we must appreciate the complexity of ordering. Such an understanding must account for the coexistence of static and dynamic collective boundaries, both temporally and spatially, as well as the contingency of their manifestations in various interactional contexts.

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Kapral, Myron. “The Jews of Lviv and the City Council in the Early Modern Period.” Polin. Studies in Polish Jewry 26 (2014): 79–100.

Katz, Jacob. The “Shabbes Goy”: A Study in Halakhic Flexibility. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989.

Kaźmierczyk, Adam. “The Problem of Christian Servants as Reflected in the Legal Codes of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Second Half of the Seven­teenth Century and in the Saxon Period.” In Gal-Ed on the History of the Jews in Poland, vol. 15–16, edited by Emamuel Melzer, and David Engel, 23–40. Tel Aviv: Society for Historical Research on Polish Jewry, 1997.

Kulik, Alexander, and Judith Kalik. “The Beginnings of Polish Jewry: Reevaluating the Evidence for the Eleventh to Fourteenth Centuries.” Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 70, no. 2 (2021): 139–85. doi: 10.25627/202170210924

Luhmann, Niklas. Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity. Edited by William Rasch. Standford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

Luhmann, Niklas. Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997.

Oexle, Otto Gerhard. “Luhmanns Mittelalter.” Review of Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik by Niklas Luhmann. Rechtshistorisches Journal 10 (1991): 53–65.

Pietsch, Andreas and Sita Steckel. “New Religious Movements before Modernity? Considerations from a Historical Perspective.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 21, no. 4 (2018): 13–37.

Schorr, Moses. “Organizacja Zydow w Polsce od najdawniejszych czasow az do r. 1772 (glownie na podstawie zrodel archiwalnych)” [The organization of Jews in Poland from the earliest times until 1772 (mainly on the basis of archival sources)]. Kwartalnik Historyczny 13 (1899): 482–550, 734–75.

Steckel, Sita. “Differenzierung jenseits der Moderne: Eine Debatte zu mittelalterlicher Religion und moderner Differenzierungstheorie.” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 47 (2013): 307–51.

Steckel, Sita. “Hypocrites! Critiques of Religious Movements and Criticism of the Church, 1050–1300.” In Between Orders and Heresy: Rethinking Medieval Religious Move­ments, edited by Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane, and Anne E. Lester, 79–126. Toronto–Buffalo–London: University of Toronto Press, 2022.

Teller, Adam. “The Laicization of Early Modern Jewish Society: The Development of Polish Communal Rabbinate in the Sixteenth Century.” In Schöpferische Momente des europäischen Judentums in der frühen Neuzeit, edited by Michael Graetz, 333–50. Heidelberg: Winter, 2000.

Teller, Adam. “Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Economy (1453–1795).” In The Cambridge History of Judaism, edited by Jonathan Karp, and Adam Sutclifffe, 576–606. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

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Weltecke, Dorothea. Essen und Fasten: Interreligiöse Abgrenzung, Konkurrenz und Austausch­prozesse. Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte. Cologne–Weimar–Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2017.

The League of Lords between Feudalism and the Modern State: Diversity of State Models, Political Agency, and Opposition in Late-Medieval Bohemia (1394–1405)*

 Éloïse Adde

Medieval Studies Department, Central European University

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2  (2024):213-234 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.213

Traditionally, the League of the Lords (Panska jednota) is perceived as having been in opposition to the development of the modern state and as an embodiment of feudalism, which stood in stark opposition to rational modernization. In this paper, in line with the anarchist anthropology of David Graeber and James C. Scott, I would like to show that the nobles were not necessarily conservatives hostile to modernity but rather were political actors who were aware of their choices and who rejected changes not out of a mechanical conservatism but out of a motivated hostility to the modern state. Without losing sight of the pragmatic character of political events and alliances, I am therefore interested in this opposition group and, in particular, in the ways in which it justified its positions and sought to depict itself. Through an analysis of concrete events that occurred in Bohemia, this paper aims to challenge the linear doctrine on the development of the modern state as an unquestioned evolutionary development and thus reassess the possibility of (real) opposition and alternatives to the dominant model.

Keywords: state, revolt, league, Bohemia, agency

Traditionally, revolts in the Middle Ages are perceived as having been in opposition to the development of the modern state and are seen as moments in which the feudal mentality rose up against processes of modernization.1 This assessment is also applied to noble and patrician revolts. These revolts are considered comparatively fleeting events fueled by lingering elements of an already outdated worldview and are generally criticized for not having had clear political aims and for having served only the interests of those who instigated them without considering or embracing any ambition to change the system.2 Or rather, the fact that the leaders of these revolts did not seek to overthrow the monarchy and establish another political regime is taken as clear proof that their acts had no political significance. I would object to this assessment first merely by sharing the observation that the politicians of today are rarely tempted to introduce new social models and are often just as driven by personal motivations as medieval nobles and patricians allegedly were, but this does not prevent us from considering them as serious political players. In this paper, I would like to move away from these kinds of value judgments and propose a reinterpretation of medieval revolts by exploring the campaign of the Bohemian League of Lords against their king, Wenceslas IV (r. 1378–1419).

To briefly summarize the events, Wenceslas IV had been crowned at the initiative of his father Charles IV in 1363, when he was only two years old. He became full king upon his father’s death in 1378. This means that Charles had feared that the succession would be contested. Problems arose quite quickly during Wenceslas’ reign. There were continuous conflicts among members of the Luxembourg family (which explains the precaution taken by Charles in 1363). Jobst of Moravia (r. 1375–1411) and Sigismund of Hungary (from 1387) could not bear to submit to the authority of their close relative,3 and the high nobility complained of having been bypassed by the lower nobility, which enjoyed the favor of the court. When the always ambitious Jobst attacked his brother Prokop, with whom he cogoverned Moravia, Wenceslas had not deigned to intervene, perhaps preferring to see his relatives disunited, as Jiří Spěváček has suggested.4 In addition, Wenceslas was criticized in the Empire, and he was on bad terms with the bishop of Prague, Jan of Jenštejn. In December 1393, the king was even poisoned, maybe by Sigismund, Jobst, and Rupert III of the Palatinate.5

It is in this context of the troubles and isolation of the king that the League of Lords was formed in May 1394, which led to the first imprisonment of Wenceslas in May–August 1394.6 As Wenceslas continued to fail to respect his promises, he was imprisoned a second time by his brother Sigismund, who took him to Vienna, in 1402–1403.7 After the king’s release, an agreement was reached between him and the nobles in 1405 that put an end to the league, even though the lords had not managed to achieve all their objectives. As a result of this imprisonment, members of the high nobility were entrusted by the king with the supervision of the observance of law in the regions, and they were able to impose their choices for appointments to royal offices. However, the composition of the council remained the prerogative of the king.8

The idea is commonly accepted that the league belonged to the past, while the king’s government was a step in the direction of the development of the modern state (for instance, the use of competent servants from lower social backgrounds, beyond the figure of the favorite). In this paper, I would like to consider the two models as two competing worldviews. In line with “anarchist anthropology,” I intend to show that the lords of the league were political actors who were aware of their choices and who rejected some practices not out of reflex conservatism but out of a motivated hostility to the king’s conception of the state. “Anarchist anthropology” is a means of understanding and of­fering a critical reading of social processes in the world and history based on the choice of objects and an analysis of domination processes, including their adoption or deconstruction. From a retrospective and teleological perspective, “anarchist anthropology” attempts to deconstruct the great narratives of human history, and particularly the earliest chapters of this history (the emergence of the state, domination, coercion), to point towards our unconscious and ideological preconceptions as modern. It was developed in the 1970s, when Pierre Clastres brought to light the existence of a non-coercive power in so-called primitive societies, inviting anthropologists to abandon their prejudices and ethnocentrism.9 More recently, James C. Scott has challenged the idea that the state was the natural consequence of the appearance of agriculture and the adoption of more sedentary lifestyles. Indeed, Scott has highlighted resistance to the development and imposition of the state.10 Some medievalists have taken an interest in this development and the tools it provides better to define certain phenomena of modernity that have their roots in the Middle Ages and differ in their medieval phase from what they would later become.11

Without losing sight of the pragmatic character of political events and al­lianc­es, I am therefore interested (I) in this opposition group and, in particular, in the ways in which it justified its positions and sought to depict itself. I (II) situ­ate it in a tradition of revolts and claims and in a strong ideology developed by the nobility in Bohemia and (III) underline the strategy of the league. My intention is to call attention to a diversity of state models in the Middle Ages and thus go against an essentially canonical interpretation, which had embraced a linear model according to which the modern state (inevitably and evolutionarily) overcame the medieval state.

The League of Lords

At the end of the fourteenth century, the League of Lords emerged as an oppositional group of noblemen dissatisfied with the rule of King Wenceslas. The movement was characterized by a strong group identity. To formalize their action and their mission statement, they published a letter on May 5, 1394:

In Prague, May 5, 1394. We Jošt, Margrave and Lord of Moravia, Henry of Rožmberk and Lord of Krumlov, Henry the Elder of Hradec, Břenek of Skála, Bergow of Bílina, Berka of Hohenstein in Saxony, Wilém of Landštejn, Jan Michalec of Michalovice, Boreš the Younger of Bečov and Rýzmberk, Boček of Kunštátu, otherwise known as Poděbrad, the lords of Bohemia, all confess by this letter, unanimously and manifestly, that we have entered into such a covenant and such a promise between ourselves, and that we all have entered into and are entering into such a covenant, and that we promise to hold one another faithfully without guile under our good faith and honor: that we all will and ought to be in unity, and to seek the good of the land, and to bring forth and do the truth in the land, and so to stand together always, that we may lead all the good of the land before us, faithfully helping one another without guile, according to all our faith and according to our honor, each of us and all of us together, with all the power that we each have without guile. And whosoever any of us or any of ours by any act whatsoever shall by any means press him out of the course of the land, or out of the finding of the manor, he is one of us and we promise faithfully to help and to stand by him, that it may not be done to him, but that it may be done to every man.12

This letter begins with the names of the founding members of the League followed by the “lords of Bohemia,” the few nobles mentioned claiming to embody the interests of the whole group and even of the whole country (the word “land” / zemský – země appears four times in this short excerpt), although they of course spoke only for themselves. This claim to represent all is a typical illustration of repraesentatio identatis (representation-identity), which postulates that the part that represents is totally identical to the whole represented (pars pro toto) and which was formalized during the great councils of the fifteenth century (although this does not rule out its earlier existence).13 Considerable emphasis is put on consensus: “we all acknowledge by this letter, unanimously and manifestly.” This is typical of the medieval nobility: against the power of one monarch, the lords emphasized their communal organization as more valuable because it was more just.14 The action was intended to be in the name of all the Czech lords (the adjective “all” appears seven times), and the vocabulary insists on a promise, communal action, and mutual support within the group. This is called jednota, union, or the pásnká jednota in Czech, and it is usually translated as “league of lords” by scholars.

The lords’ action was given legitimacy by their association as a community and the contention that this community was acting for the common good. This conviction was embedded in the philosophy of Aristotle, who postulated that “any community was made for some good.”15 The “community” was eternal through the perpetual succession of its members (communitas non moritur), and thus it embodied stability. In the hierarchy of medieval values, the collegial structure of the community provided a permanent consensus, very much in contrast with a mortal individual, who was inconstant in action and motivated by his own interests.

The regular emphasis on concepts of “community” and “assistance” over­shadows the fact that the nobility was actually disunited. First, not all of them had joined the league. The loyalists included Prokop of Moravia and Jan Zhořelecký, the cousin and the brother of the king, respectively. On June 7, Jan Zhoře­lec­ký published a manifesto to fight the League. He gathered an army of the king’s loyalists and marched on Prague. The troops secretly took the king away from Prague. After a short stay at the Rosenberg castles of Příběnice, Český Krumlov and Vítkův Kámen, Wenceslas was interned at the Wildberg Castle of Stahremberk in Upper Austria. Jan Zhořelecký eventually obtained his release (August 1, 1394) in return for promises of impunity and certain concessions.16 Secondly, tensions also existed within the league.17

In the letter written by the League, the king was not explicitly addressed, even though the letter implicitly claimed to correct his errors. The Lords indicated that they wanted to protect “the good of the realm” and “increase the amount of truth” in the country, thus implying that “the good” and “the truth” were not respected anymore. The medieval king was bound to the political society under his rule. From the twelfth century on, the Paulinian (and theocratic) concept of power, which had dominated society until then, was replaced by a contractual one, which recognized political society as a partner of the ruler, who could not be the owner of all the property of his subjects anymore.18 With the transformations of the modalities of domination which had led to the increase of central power and, simultaneously, to the increased need for the ruler to be able to count on intermediaries (the nobility, the cities), the idea of representativeness, of adequacy between the policy of the sovereign and the expectations of the community of the land, the communitas regni (zemská obec or community of the land in Czech), had emerged distinctly in the collective imagination.19 Many sources and testimonies clearly show that the capacity to embody the interests of all and to respond as adequately as possible to them had become essential in power struggles, struggles that increasingly involved all subjects, whose appreciation was increasingly decisive because of the generalization of a contractual conception and practice of power.20 In Bohemia, the lords of the League claimed to be the only ones able to ensure the common good.

Appealing to this notion of the common good, the Czech lords attacked Wenceslas for his alleged failures. Their criticism aimed at the king’s purported neglect of political affairs and permanent recourse to members of lower nobility to govern with him. We find here again the topos of the bad adviser, a classic figure in medieval political thought.21 The common good was therefore respected only when the king ruled in concert with the lords, i.e. the high nobility, and took care of the country’s affairs, both being linked: when the king collaborated with the lords, he was taking care of the country.

In Nová rada (New Council), Smil Flaška of Pardubice clearly formulated these claims. Smil’s views capture the perceptions of the frustrated nobility. He had joined the Union in 1395. He was the nephew of Ernest of Pardubice (1344–1364), archbishop of Prague and close advisor to King Charles IV (1346–1378). Another of his uncles, Bohuš of Pardubice, also belonged to King Charles’ entourage. Together with his father William, who had become the sole heir to (and administrator of) the family’s possessions after the death of his brothers (Ernest, Bohuš, and Smil the Elder), our Smil (the Younger) personally experienced the king’s arbitrariness. On the death of Smil the Elder, the king had unjustifiably exercised the right of escheat and had seized the town of Pardubice from his family. Smil and his father had embarked on a legal battle (1384–1385) which had ended in defeat. In 1390, when they had appealed, the royal court (zemský soud) had rendered its verdict in favor of the king.22

In Nová rada, which became a major text in Czech literature, the new, inexperienced king summons the animals to give him advice “for the country’s order and peace” (line 50).23 44 animals give their advice. There are 54 in all, if we add those who are mentioned but do not speak. The lion is thus a good king, respectful of his collaborators and concerned with their advice for the common good. The calls to sleep soundly (made by the bear, 588), to eat and drink beyond measure (made by the bear, 587, the wolf, 702, 707, and the goose, 992), to follow one’s desires (made by the fox, 1398–1401), or to isolate oneself and shirk responsibility (made by the cockerel, 1330–1332) correspond to the vices attributed to Wenceslas IV, who did not hesitate to isolate himself in his residences in Křivoklát or Kunratice, in the middle of the forest, to escape the tumult and his responsibilities and to indulge in hunting.24 Along with the wolf, who is already looking forward to the feasts he will be able to have in exchange for services rendered to the king (730, 738–740), and the fox, who hopes to manipulate the king by flattering him (1382–1387), they all embody bad advisors of low social backgrounds, with whom Wenceslas allegedly had surrounded himself.

The leopard explicitly advises the king not to take commoners (488) but only “noble men” into his council, which should be small (491). He also enjoins him to respect the order and precedence of everyone (508) and not to neglect the prelates (510). The lesser nobility and merchants are openly scorned by the crane for their greed and their craving for social ascendancy via the purchase of offices (crane 645–675), a remark that directly echoes the criticisms of the League of Lords but is also a leitmotif of nobiliary literature.

In Smil’s text, the bad influence of these advisors is canceled out by the good advice given by the other animals and especially by the final prayer of the swan. Written by one of the members of the league, Nová rada delivered a powerful message in these troubled times. From its foundation, the League had a strong identity, inscribed in a century of vernacular literature, which founded Czech noble ideology.25

The Czech Nobility, a Tradition of Revolts and Claims and a Strong Ideology

Although they did not formulate any clear program in writing, the lords’ revolt and their demands were part of a long tradition. Written around 1310, the Chronicle of the so-called Dalimil represented the first formulation of the political program of the lords in the context of succession crises after the extinction of the Přemyslid dynasty in 1306. Such a crisis was an opportunity to reconfigure the political order. Dalimil (the alleged author, though it is worth noting that the chronicle contains information from other chronicles written in Latin) took advantage of the threat of the Habsburgs to point out the danger represented by all Germans, even those of Bohemia, and thus to cast suspicion on the burghers of the country who were mostly German. At the same time, he showed that a good king was a king who worked with the lords, calling on the latter to fulfill their mission, i.e. to watch over the king and intervene if he were to prove too abusive. Dalimil condemns dissent motivated by personal aspirations.26 Nevertheless, there are cases when revolt becomes necessary. Three great revolts (1247–1249, 1276–1277, and 1288–1290) were considered justified: the nobles opposed the pro-German policy of the kings Wenceslas I (1205–1253), Přemysl Ottokar II (1253–1278), and Wenceslas II (1278–1305) and their resulting exclusion from political affairs.27 Dalimil presents these revolts as having been a necessity for the common good.

Dalimil goes so far as to wish for a new type of political system in which the king would be elected by the community of the land, i.e. the lords, in accordance with the principle of representation-identity mentioned above, according to which the part that represents is absolutely identical to the whole represented. He claims to be concerned about the risks involved in the link between power and the person of the king in the context following the murder of King Wenceslas III, and he insists that the king is stronger if elected.28 In reality, if the king were to be elected, the nobility would be stronger as the main agent in the decision making process. Only through powerful noblemen could the state (and the ruler) enjoy greater stability. We have here an illustration of the theory of the king’s two bodies. The political (or mystical) body is embodied by the community of the kingdom, itself represented by the nobility, and is able by its nature to overcome all the misfortunes (disease, aging, unexpected death) which can befall the king.29

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the nobility had developed a strong political self-awareness thanks to texts presenting its views and claims and the repeated crises, which allowed its members to become active again regularly and thus consolidate and even expend their achievements. The first such crisis occurred just after the death of Přemysl Ottokar II (1278). His young son Wenceslas II was kidnaped by his regent, Otto of Brandebourg. During the king’s absence (1279–1283), the nobility ruled the country, convening the kingdom’s first general diet in 1281.30

The second crisis started after the death of Wenceslas III, which led to the extinction of the Přemyslid dynasty. Following the short reign of Rudolf of Habsburg on the Czech throne (1306–1307), the new king, Henry of Carinthia, failed to win unanimous support in the kingdom. The abbots and lords of Bohemia began to negotiate with their suzerain and the new king of the Romans, Henry of Luxembourg (1308–1313). Henry’s son Jean de Luxembourg became king (1310–1346). The newly elected King of Bohemia had to accept many demands from the nobility in the form of the Inaugural Diplomas. According to some stipulations, he could name only Czechs to principal offices and as members of his council. He also had to seek authorization from the lords to levy taxes.31 The Czech nobility managed to use the weakness of the king, a young foreigner, to impose itself as the embodiment of the nation and thus as the king’s indispensable partner.32

A new conflict between the lords and King John of Luxembourg which occurred in 1315–1318 confirmed the lords’ achievements of 1310. In 1313, the death of Henry of Luxembourg meant for John the loss of the support of his father and the title of imperial vicar, which had given him the right to have foreign advisors as an imperial vicar. The attacks of the Hungarian magnate Máté (III) Csák († 1321) and the lasting instability it created in Moravia further complicated the situation. The king needed the support of the Czech lords, whose military aid in the Moravian crisis came with the condition that the king would dismiss his foreign advisors and officers. In October 1315, Henry of Lipá, leader of this tumultuous nobility, was arrested under the pressure of the queen and accused of having plotted with John’s adversary Frederick of Habsburg. At the same time, John had to leave Bohemia to support Louis of Bavaria and to settle the equally complex situation in Luxembourg. The Czech lords intended to exploit the lack of a central authority. Henry of Lipá was released in April 1316 thanks to the pressure of his ever-growing camp. Ostracized, Queen Elizabeth had appealed to foreign mercenaries to assist her in her task, which further increased her political isolation. John came back to Bohemia in November 1317. At the same time, Henry of Lipá formed an official alliance with Frederick of Habsburg (December 27, 1317), which was joined by a great part of the nobility. Faced with this ever-stronger opposition, John called on Louis of Bavaria for help. Louis arrived at Cheb (Eger) on March 20, 1318. John wanted to organize a military expedition with the emperor against the treacherous barons, but the other players wanted to avoid such a risky conflict. The consequence was the signing of the Domažlice agreements on April 24, 1318. John had to confirm the commitments of the Inaugural diplomas.33

The nobility had also taken a stand against Charles IV and his project of bringing the nobility into line with the Maiestas carolina, a legal code written in 1350–1351 the aim of which was to increase royal power. Included among its provisions were sections granting the right to judge criminal cases solely to the king and other rights giving the king greater control over functionaries to increase royal revenues. In 1355, the nobility finally rejected the code at the General Diet. Rather than let the matter come to an open conflict with the nobility, Charles preferred in the end to abandon the whole project.34

By the end of the fourteenth century, the nobles had merged their stances during these episodes into a coherent synthesis, combining the political vision of the aforementioned Chronicle of the so-called Dalimil and a developed legal literature. The Romžberk Book (Kniha Romžberská)35 was a handbook intended for the noble land court or “šlechtický zemský soud.” It dates from the first half of the fourteenth century, but additions were regularly made to it during the fourteenth century, depending on the needs of the nobility. It is the oldest legal book written in Czech. The book systematically codifies the common law and includes contemporary regulations. It contains not only legal provisions, but also advice on how to use them in practice. The book was the initiated by Petr I of Rožmberk, “nejvyšší zemský sudí,” i.e. the High Court Judge of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Through his position and high office, Petr embodied the ideal of the great lord who worked with the king and was aware of and attached to the privileges of the nobility.36 He belonged to an important noble family and had married one of the daughters of the aforementioned Henry of Lipá.

Another particularity of the nobiliary culture at the time of the League was, paradoxically, its appropriation and assimilation of Charles IV’s legacy, despite its opposition to the Maiestas Carolina four decades earlier. In the time of John on Luxembourg (1310–1346), the nobility had similarly presented itself as the guarantor of the Přemyslid legacy against the so-called “foreign king.” This was despite its enduring conflict with the Přemyslid kings during the thirteenth century.37 Once dead and extinguished, the king and the dynasty no longer represented any threat. The dead king and the dynasty served as symbols of the state under the rule of a failed sovereign, as John of Luxembourg and Wenceslas IV were in the eyes of the Czech nobility. They also allowed the nobility to affirm itself as the defender of this state or statehood which was not attached to the ruling king but to a tradition, and thus depersonalized. An idealized vision of Charles IV was soon used to criticize Wenceslas IV, who was presented as his antithesis.38 The shadow of Charles IV is easily identifiable, for instance in the manuscripts possessed by the Romžberk family, a powerful family which had taken part in all campaigns and plots against the Bohemian kings from the thirteenth century to the time of the League.39 Of the 23 manuscripts of the Maiestas Carolina (twelve by Charles and eleven by his brother John-Henry, then heir to the Bohemian throne), two (one of each) were kept in the Romžberk Archives in Český Krumlov, while the others were kept in the Royal Archives.40 Only the Romžberk family possessed this text, testifying to their power and their interest in it. The manuscript ÖNB, cod. 619 [1396], held at the Austrian National Library and containing the Vita Caroli IV (Charles IV’s autobiography) and the Ordo ad coronandum Regem Boemorum (Coronation Order of the Bohemian kings, written by Charles IV), was also in possession of the Romžberk family before it became part of the collection of the Austrian National Library.41 The destiny of Ondřej of Dubá (circa 1320–1412/1413) is another example of this new interweaving of Charles’ legacy and the nobiliary ideology, emerging at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Ondřej belonged to the high nobility of Bohemia (lords of Dubá, Benešovici). He joined the League after briefly supporting Wenceslas. In 1394–1395 and again in 1402, however, he wrote a legal book, Zemské právo, which quoted extensively from the Maiestas carolina.42 A convolute reconstituted by Naďa Štachová offers an illustrative example of this new and surprising synergy. This convolute contained three medieval manuscripts, Cerr. A, Cerr. B, and Cerr. C, named after the collector, Cerroni. This enormous set included both Dalimil’s nobiliary chronicle and the chronicle of Pulkava of Radenín, written for Charles IV, as well as Ondřej of Dubá’s legal book and the Book of Rožmberk.43 Despite his desire to bring the nobility into line, King Charles managed to symbolize the unity between the nobility and the state as St. Wenceslas had done for the nobility of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This does not mean that the nobility did not change over time (quite the contrary). But the group had succeeded in establishing a process of resistance to the ruler by systematically presenting itself as the protector of the common good and accumulating and synthesizing in its favor voices from many different horizons.

The Strategy of the League, Agency, and the Meaning of Revolt

The main grievance of the lords was the hegemony enjoyed at the court by the king’s favorites of low social background, to the detriment of the high nobility, especially the high positions occupied by Zikmund Huler, a burgher from the town of Prague, Jira of Roztoky, and Jan Čůcha of Zásada, both members of the low nobility.

However, as shown by Robert Novotný, Wenceslas’ court was, on the contrary, marked by an overrepresentation of the high nobility in comparison with his contemporaries, such Rupert of the Palatinate, Ludwig III of the Palatinate, or the Dukes of Bavaria,44 and also in comparison with his predecessor Charles IV, as shown by Peter Moraw.45 If we look at the list of the podkomoří (chamberlains) of Bohemia, the most important office of the kingdom, we can observe that the change had started already under Charles IV, the last member of the high nobility occupying this prestigious office having been Henry of Lipá under John of Luxembourg.

Robert Novotný found 160 speakers and advisors at Wenceslas’ Court. He could not identify the social origins of seven of them. 46 belonged to the clergy. 108 were lay people. Among the latter, seven were of burgher origin, 32 belonged to the lower nobility, and 61 belonged to the higher nobility.46 It was thus precisely when they were most favored and when they actually dominated Wenceslas’ court that the lords decided to rebel. Robert Novotný considered this a paradox which could only be explained by tensions and divisions within the nobility and competition among the main families of the kingdom, based on long-standing power-kinship ties, though he does not explain which ones were at play.47

If the lords were dominant in state structures, why were they complaining? This is a judgment that has traditionally been made about revolts. The actions of the nobles appear so unsuited to the context. But it would be a mistake to look for coherence in reactions, especially in the political sphere. It is a bias of the historian to expect more coherence from individuals of past societies than from his contemporaries. We are not surprised by the incoherence of the politicians of our time, and we should accept that people capable of similar incoherence in the Middle Ages. Moreover, it is a misconception to link revolts to injustice, oppression, or misery. If injustice and oppression were present in the discourse of medieval rebels, they were not necessarily realities. As Ernest Mandel has shown in his work on May 1968 and the contradictions of neo-capitalism, an economic boom and access to a more comfortable standard of living generated new needs, and this in turn allowed for a more accurate grasp of the existing inequalities, which increased resentment and frustration until these sentiments ultimately tore apart the social frameworks.48 Similarly, it was precisely the domination of the state apparatus by the Czech high nobility that allowed the lords to revolt at the end of the fourteenth century. The lords were not driven by injustice and demands made by the king. Rather, they merely intended to take advantage of the strong position they enjoyed, while gaining even more power and profiting of the weakness of Wenceslas’ rule in Bohemia and in the empire.

Studies of medieval revolt have almost invariably organized themselves around the concept of the state as the arena within which the revolts take place and take on meaning. Whether from a top-down perspective. as in the case of the histories written in the nineteenth century, or from a bottom-up Marxist perspective, as in many of the twentieth-century narratives, revolt is seen as an anomaly and a reaction against either arbitrariness or state excess. More recently, historians have increasingly shown that the “rise of the state” was a dialogic process in which the governed had considerable agency, often clamoring for more government rather than less.49 We have to interpret the acts of the lords from this perspective: the members of the League were protagonists in the political sphere with their own views, their own forms of agency, and their own expectations.

The League of Bohemian lords was neither the result of a moment of panic among desperate members of an old, frail nobility (as the traditional secondary literature has tended to claim)50 nor a disorderly and thoughtless attempt to preserve the feudal system or to satisfy the interests of the nobility (as the more recent literature has suggested). The creation of the League and the various steps it took were part of a political undertaken aimed at increasing the power of one clan over another in much the same way as the political parties of today clamor and scheme for power. No one would qualify the behavior of today’s political parties as immature or inconsistent, and we should be similarly cautious about applying these kinds of terms to political protagonists of the past. The Czech lords were merely playing the political game of their time.

Conclusion

Modern historiography has been dominated by the Weberian concept of the state’s “monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order.”51 Violence exerted by “non-state” or “non-royal” actors is then logically considered inherently a disorderly usurpation of governmental prerogatives, which is also in line with the view expressed by the central authority. However, the state in the late Middle Ages was much more polycentric, multi-layered, and diffuse than modern governments.52 For this reason, some historians, such as John Watts, are hesitant to speak of a state and prefer to use the word “polity.”53 Even if the debate is open-ended,54 I still prefer to speak of a state insofar as medieval sources attest the existence of a central and sovereign authority that had developed during the Middle Ages, with its own bureaucracy and specific regalian rights.55 The action of the League should be situated in this multi-layered and fluid architecture.

To consider the members of the League real political protagonists is also to distance oneself from the traditional, teleological, and ideological narrative on the history of the state, as described by Ian Forrest:

Generally, state growth is treated as a “good” (without justification) because in most liberal historiography and social science writing modern states are considered as good, and all that stands in the way of this growth is discredited. We see this in the language used to describe change in the history of state power: the verbs “to grow” and “to decline” set the pattern of positive/negative binaries, while abstract nouns such as “consolidation” and “fragmentation,” and adjectives like “strong” and “weak” add to the normative discourse in which political history is habitually written.56

As a group that destabilized the king’s authority, the League was necessarily seen as an immature and thoughtless enterprise driven by the interests of a disunited nobility.

In reality, the League offered an alternative view on the state through a political culture synthetizing the traditional nobiliary expectations as presented in the Chronicle of the so-called Dalimil, Smil Flaška’s New Council, and the legal literature with Charles IV’s legacy. By using the same infrastructure and the same ideology as the ruler and the state apparatus, the League contributed to develop and consolidate the state and statehood. Generally, protest does not reflect unease with the growing reach of government, but dissatisfaction with its limitations.

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* With this contribution, I present one of my new research topics. This work therefore consists more of hypotheses and avenues for reflection than of tangible findings.

Smokescreens and Smear Campaigns: The Dutch Communist Party in Times of Crisis

Thomas Buijnink

Doctoral School of Sociology, Eötvös Loránd University

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 1  (2024):80-106 DOI 10.38145/2024.1.80

This article seeks to establish how different crises in the Eastern Bloc affected the political standpoints of the Communist Party of the Netherlands, Communistische Partij Nederland (CPN), through an analysis of publications in affiliated party magazines between 1953 and 1981. This analysis is conducted within a framework consisting of party change theories and the literature about Eurocommunism as a Europe-wide phenomenon. The analysis indicates that the CPN went from supporting military interventions in Germany, Poznan, and Hungary to condemning them in Czechoslovakia, initially while maintaining ideological distance from political opponents in the Netherlands. This changed in 1981, when the CPN seemingly without restraint joined the mainstream political parties in condemning the introduction of martial law in Poland and the Socialistische Partij (SP), the Socialist Party of the Netherlands, took over the CPN’s position as a political outsider. This indicated a shift in the party’s stance from a niche to a mainstream positioning against Moscow.

Keywords: Communist Parties, Eastern Bloc, Eurocommunism, Netherlands

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union largely lost its previous exemplary function for communist parties outside of the Eastern Bloc.1 Communist parties in western and southern Europe underwent political, ideological, and organizational changes which have been characterized as a transformation into Eurocommunism. Eurocommunism could be described as a modernization attempt by such parties to appeal to a broader electorate. A new course fit for such purposes practically meant a step away from Moscow with a renewed focus on national circumstances. Armed interventions by the Soviet Union against protests and social movements in its satellite states, such as during the East German Uprising or the Hungarian Revolution, were met with heavy criticism in Western Europe. Scholars have attributed different levels of significance to the effects such events had on the development of communist parties in Europe. The secondary literature puts considerable emphasis on the communist parties in France and Italy,2 both of which were countries in which the communists at one point came close to parliamentary majorities. It is thus important to note that Eurocommunism is a broad umbrella term which hardly does justice to the differences among the various communist parties of Europe.

What makes the Dutch case interesting in comparison to France and Italy is that within the Dutch political landscape the CPN had always remained a small but constant factor. After World War II, the CPN performed relatively well and acquired ten seats in the national parliament.3 This success was due to the role of the Soviet Union in the war and to the CPN’s resistance to the German occupying forces. In the postwar years, the CPN even became the biggest party during the municipal elections in Amsterdam. During this period, the CPN was known as anti-German, anti-American, and also as a vocal supporter of Moscow. Since the mid-1960s, the CPN became more detached from Moscow due to the Sino-Soviet split until its ties with Moscow were renewed in the 1970s. During the Cold War, the CPN became less and less popular. In 1989, the CPN merged with other parties into GroenLinks, the Green Left.4

The secondary literature on Eurocommunism and party change theories could shed interesting light on the developments within and evolution of the CPN. The whole premise of Eurocommunism falls in line with party change theories. These theories indicate that the political standpoints of mainstream political parties are rationally altered to suit changing external circumstances. The literature on Eurocommunism proposes a narrative in line with this assumption, as communist parties all over Europe changed their political standpoints as a reaction to changing national political circumstances. However, this would require that communist parties be defined as mainstream parties. If not, party change theories would lack explanatory power for the emergence of Eurocommunism, since, if communist parties were to be defined as niche parties, they would theoretically remain unaffected by changing external circumstances and stick to their predetermined policy positions. By addressing the specific policy changes of the CPN towards the crises in the Eastern bloc, this article only addresses a fraction of an array of factors which could indicate a shift to Eurocommunism. Singling out crises in the Eastern Bloc as an explicitly party external factor offers the benefit that party change theories can indicate if a shift to Eurocommunism correlates with a shift from a niche to a mainstream political course. This leads to the fundamental question I address in the discussion below: How did the CPN react to political crises within the Eastern Bloc, and did its political standpoints develop as a response to these events?

Table 2. An overview of the election results of the CPN in general elections in relation to the crises in the Eastern Bloc

Source: PDC. “CPN en de Tweede Kamerverkiezingen tussen 1946 en 1986.” Reference work Dutch Parliament. Accessed 25 June 2021, https://www.parlement.com/id/vhsdgb8b3t09/cpn_en_de_tweede_kamerverkiezingen.

Literature Review

In a substantial article about the Hungarian Revolution and anti-communism in the Netherlands, Duco Hellema addresses the Hungarian Revolution and the Dutch response from an international relations perspective. In general, the political attitudes of Western European states towards the Hungarian Revolution could be described as rather passive. Hellema attributes the overall lack of action to a sense of cautiousness due to the constant threat of nuclear war. A second factor is that in November 1956, France and Britain were preoccupied with the Suez Crisis. The Dutch attitude became something of an exception.5 Hellema states that the Dutch public reacted “vehemently,” as in comparison to other European states, the Dutch had a more outspokenly anti-communist reputation. According to Hellema, this came from a sense of conservatism which had its roots in a widely shared sense of discontent with the rapid modernization and societal changes after World War II. A factor which led the Dutch government to practice a cautious foreign policy was the loss of its former colonies. As a result of this, the Dutch government was forced to redefine its position on the international playing field and had no firm or predetermined Ostpolitik. In the postwar period, the Netherlands was governed by a Roman-Red coalition (a coalition of the Dutch labor party De Partij van de Arbeid, or PvdA and the Catholic People’s Party, or KVP), the foreign policy of which was characterized by an anti-communist attitude and could be summarized as cautious. The developments in the Eastern Bloc were therefore not followed with great interest but rather with suspicion. As soon as the situation in Hungary escalated, the Netherlands had no specific criteria or Ostpolitik to fall back on. Eventually, the Hungarian revolution was considered a window of opportunity to reduce the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. The attitude of the Dutch government thus became impatient in comparison to the other Western European states. At the same time, the Dutch government acknowledged that it could only wait and see. The military intervention which brought the Hungarian revolution to an end was sharply condemned by the Dutch press and prompted large demonstrations. One of the main targets of indignation was the CPN.6 Ultimately, no major sanctions were imposed on the Soviet Union. Hellema concludes that the Dutch people reacted fiercely to the events in Hungary and that this was somewhat reflected in the choices made by the Dutch government.7

The assumption that Dutch anti-communism has its roots in conservatism could be challenged. According to Revel, the staunchest anti-communists in Europe have always been the social democrats.8 The anti-communist sentiments in the Netherlands and in other northwestern European states could therefore be explained by the strong presence of social democratic parties. This is important for the framing of the rise of Eurocommunism in the 1970s and 1980s: “The fundamental controversy about Eurocommunism in Europe is thus not a debate between the Right and the Left but between two Lefts. The question is which trend of European socialism, the Leninist or the social-democratic, will prevail.”9

In West European Communism after Stalinism. Comparative Approaches, Maud Bracke and Thomas Ekman Jorgensen offer an overview of the different ways in which Eurocommunism has been addressed by various scholars.10 In the late 1970s, many articles and books were published about the political and ideological changes which Western European communist parties underwent in the 1970s and the 1980s. Consequently, much of the literature on this topic suffered from the political burden of being directly linked to the Cold War. According to Bracke and Ekman Jorgensen, this context made it difficult for many scholars to approach the topic from a neutral perspective. Contemporary studies in Eurocommunism thus could benefit from a different and more neutral approach.11 A second observation they make is that Eurocommunism has mainly been studied in countries where communist parties were more influential. Thus, within the literature on Eurocommunism, there is a strong focus on southern Europe.12

According to the same authors, one of the main motivations behind the transition to Eurocommunism was an increasingly critical attitude towards the lack of internal democracy in communist parties. At the same time, many party members realized that communist parties would not be able to obtain a leading role in modern protest movements which emerged outside of the working class, such as student protest movements and women’s rights movements. The sense of insecurity within communist parties peaked in the 1960s because of the Sino Soviet split and because the New Left was increasingly winning political terrain. It must be noted, however, that the development of Eurocommunism cannot be entirely generalized due to large differences between communist parties.13 In the 1960s, when it became increasingly urgent for communist parties to adapt to changing social circumstances, some of these parties were already far removed from their origins. Unique party cultures, histories, and circumstances gave each of them a unique societal dimension. In Italy and France, the communist parties in particular emerged as influential political actors after World War II, a position which they initially managed to maintain in the 1950s. By comparison, the communist parties in the Scandinavian states were small and marginal.14

Scholars have attributed different levels of significance to the effects of the Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring on the development of Eurocommunism. The Hungarian Revolution is considered a turning point by some authors, but other scholars argue that the ideological crisis for communist parties began no earlier than the 1970s. Gombin argues that the 1950s were formative for the French Communist Party and the emergence of the New Left.15 This was partly due to the Hungarian Uprising but also to the Algerian War: “Marxism lost its doctrinal primacy among an entire generation of young intellectuals and workers concerned with politics.”16 Jane Jenson draws a similar conclusion and considers 1956 a pivotal year for the communist party in France and “a high point between rise and decline.”17 Nevertheless, other authors claim the opposite. Roy Macridis18 and Hadley Cantril19 conclude that consternation within the French Communist Party was not particularly relevant for most of its members but mainly for its intelligentsia and leadership.

According to A. J. Liehm, the intended reforms proposed during the Prague Spring reflected and to a certain degree represented the ideal of Eurocommunism. Liehm concludes that the military interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, together with the general rejection of fundamental freedoms in Eastern Europe, were major reasons for the schism between eastern and western communist parties.20

Theoretical Framework

The circumstances under which political parties change their views are addressed widely within the field of political science. Several major studies have been bundled by Andreas Fagerholm in his 2015 article, Why Do Political Parties Change their Policy Positions? A Review.21 Among the studies on policy position change, two traditions can be distinguished. The first tradition was initiated by Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda.22 Their general assumption is that political parties are conservative organizations which are averse to any form of change. If a political party changes policy positions, this is most likely because of internal party factors, such as leadership change. Alternatively, change could occur because of factors outside the party, such as disappointing electoral results or a shift in public opinion.23 The second tradition, heavily influenced by the work of Ian Budge,24 assumes that political parties rationally change their standpoints based on the political and societal circumstances they encounter while they engage in active political competition with one another. Budge identifies several factors which could indicate how likely it is for political parties to change their political standpoints.25 These include external factors, such as change of public opinion, undesirable electoral performance, creating distance between ideological rivals, and position within government or opposition. Also, internal factors are addressed, such as change of party leadership and internal party structures.

It is important to note that niche and mainstream parties have different tendencies when it comes to how they react to these factors. Adams et al. address changes in political standpoints in the context of Western European niche parties. This research concludes that while mainstream political parties’ policy shifts correspond to shifts in public opinion, niche parties do not display similar tendencies to adjust their policy preferences. A potential explanation for this phenomenon is that niche parties might have established their policy positions beforehand in such a way that they are already aligned with their rank and file.26 While there is consensus that there are relevant differences between niche and mainstream political parties, the literature is more ambiguous about how niche political parties should be identified. This leads to an important question in this theoretical framework, namely if in a Dutch context the CPN should be defined as niche or mainstream. Fagerholm emphasizes that an important distinction between niche and mainstream political parties is the degree to which they seriously compete during elections. However, a second definition is also widely used; Adams et al. argue that a party should be qualified as niche based on its ideology. If a party adheres to a niche ideology, such as communism or a far-right ideology, it should be qualified as a niche party. In the case of the CPN, both definitions of a niche party are applicable to a certain degree. One of the key features of the CPN is that it initially related itself to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in an outspoken manner, which is something no other political party in the Netherlands did. In an ideological sense, as hardline communists, it should be defined as a niche party. However, when it comes to electoral performance, a different categorization might be appropriate. Even though the CPN had never become a serious candidate for government, they were consistently represented in the Dutch parliament. In the postwar years, the CPN was represented in the opposition with ten seats. Its popularity slowly declined until it was disbanded, while over the years maintaining between two and eight seats. As such, the CPN had something to lose during the national elections and therefore had to compete seriously. In this sense, the CPN might have been sensitive enough to external circumstances to adapt its political standpoints under the influence of factors indicated by Fagerholm, even though, in an ideological sense, the party could still be considered niche.

Research Methodology and Case Selection

This article seeks to establish how such crises in the Eastern Bloc affected left wing party politics in the Netherlands and specifically the political standpoints of the CPN. This will be done through a discourse analysis of articles related to this topic from party affiliated newspapers and magazines. These publications mainly originate from the CPN newspaper De Waarheid, but they are contextualized with publications from Socialisme en Democratie and Paraat from the PvdA) as well as articles from de Tribune from the Socialist Party Socialistische Partij (SP). The analysis of such documents offers multiple benefits in comparison to other options. The first benefit is that during the twentieth century, these party magazines and newspapers were published on a regular basis and formed an important means of communication. Most party magazines were issued at least monthly, and some party-affiliated newspapers were even published on a daily basis, allowing the parties to reach out to their electorates regularly. This regularity enabled political parties to address the issues of the day quickly and react to developments as soon as they occurred. As these publications were an important way to communicate with the masses, any changes in a party’s political and ideological stance to appease public sentiment are also likely to have been addressed here.

I have not collected or analyzed the data in accordance with a strict code book. The reason for this is that the data has been selected from fundamentally different sources covering a span of almost forty years with large time intervals. The analysis of data focusses on five reoccurring elements during each moment of crisis. These elements partly fall in line with some of the relevant factors listed by Fagerholm.

1. Close attention is paid to how the uprisings against the socialist regimes were addressed.

2. Attention is also devoted to the attitudes expressed towards the initial reaction by the national government. The analysis considers which desires were expressed by the Dutch political parties towards the national authorities of the state in which the crises took place.

3. Indications of support for or criticism of military interference are also considered. Each of the political crises was brought to an end by military interference, always backed up by or under pressure from Moscow.

4. Attention is paid to whether political parties expressed a preference for a hardline or a more liberal approach to state socialism.

5. The dynamics between Dutch political parties are also taken into consideration, as is the question of whether they supported or reprimanded each other for their responses to the crises.

The East German Uprising of 1953

During the East German uprising in 1953, demonstrations against work quotas developed into mass protests against the East German government. After the Soviet forces stationed in East Germany intervened, it took until June 24 before the situation was fully deescalated.27

The protests in East Germany, consistently described in De waarheid as provocations, were addressed for the first time on Wednesday, June 17, 1953.28 The claim was made that the social unrest in East Berlin had been organized by the West German government under Adenauer in cooperation with the United States. According to De Waarheid, the “provocateurs” were inhabitants of West Berlin to whom the East German authorities responded in a measured and appropriate manner.29

De Waarheid considered the protests an attempt to divert attention away from the conciliatory measures proposed by the East German government. The local correspondent claimed that the following alleged circumstances had been essential factors in the outbreak of open conflict or clear signs of provocation from the West: the visit of Jakob Kaiser (minister of all-German affairs) to Berlin; the spread of propaganda from West to East Berlin; wounded insurgents having been taken to West Berlin; and the fact that the provocations had taken place near the Western border. The actual inhabitants of East Berlin were reported to have defended their city against the provocateurs.30 According to De Waarheid,the unrest among workers due to higher labor norms was immediately exploited by Western sabotage agencies, even though the East German government had acted quickly and adequately by altering their plans.

On June 18, it was stated by De Waarheid that American officers had been involved to such an extent that that they had walked through East Berlin in uniform and distributing orders. This was explicitly associated with Germany’s Nazi past. People were reported to have sung the Horst Wessel song and chanted, “We want Hitler back!”31

The events in Berlin were also addressed by Marcus Bakker, a board member of the CPN. He stated that the Soviet Union had made many proposals which would further a peaceful solution to global issues. A peaceful foreign policy and potential German reunification, Bakker continued, were against the interests of the United States. The recent economic and political successes of East Germany had rendered the West German smear campaign irrelevant. This smear campaign, according to Bakker, had been conducted by the United States and West Germany to provoke conflict. This plan has failed because the DDR government had recognized and addressed its previous mistakes, and the provocateurs had shown their fascist nature.32

In Socialisme en Democratie, distributed by the PvdA, J. in ‘t Veld considered the turmoil in the Eastern bloc as an indicator of success for the West’s cautious foreign policy.33 In the following edition, J. Barents addressed the geopolitical implications of the East German Uprising.34 The death of Stalin and the “workers revolt in Eastern Berlin” were interpreted as factors which could indicate an approaching change of the status quo: “One of the clichés destroyed by the East German uprising was the assumption that nations living under police and state terror could never rise up against their oppressors.”35 Barents considered the East German Uprising confirmation of Adenauer’s insistence on free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

1956 Poznan Protests

The Poznan uprising was the first full uprising which occurred after Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1956. A peaceful strike in Poznan grew into a two-day fight between insurgents and the Polish army. Later that year, some of the demands which had been made by the insurgents were met. The uprising caught a lot of international attention, as a large number of representatives of the foreign press had been attending an international fair in Poznan.36

In its reports on the Poznan Uprising, De Waarheid contended that imperial agents and reactionaries had attempted to exploit Poland’s economic difficulties.37 Implying that the disturbances were prepared provocations by foreign actors, De Waarheid characterized the demonstrations as unjust, as the Polish government had already addressed the grievances voiced by the protestors.

The next day, it was alleged in De Waarheid that it was foreign provocateurs who had motivated the workers to go on a strike. “The situation escalated when provocateurs and underground groups started to shoot near the security police building.”38 The correspondent reported that order had been quickly restored after the army had opened fire on the provocateurs. Reportedly, the real workers had not been harmed, as they had nothing to do with the outbreak of violence.

In the article Workers and terrorists, the uprising in Poznan was linked to the protests in Berlin: “We have to say that it is easier to get a general overview of the events in the Polish city of Poznan than was the case in 1953 with the riots in Berlin (…) This is because the number of proponents of the Cold War has reduced since then.”39 The fact that there were economic and administrative issues in Poland was acknowledged, but the contention was also made that the government had devoted considerable effort to solving these issues. Looting and arson were considered indications that the disturbances had been instigated or carried out by professional foreign provocateurs. The Polish government was reported to have met the provocations with a continuation of “international and domestic détente.”40 In the next edition of De Waarheid, the American offer to supply Poznan with food was condemned as “malicious propaganda.”41 The disturbances in Poznan allegedly could be traced back to the United States, which had “a hundred million dollars on their budget for sabotaging socialist countries.”42

In the July 4 issue of De Waarheid, the contention was made that most of the workers had left the protests as soon as the provocateurs had become violent.43 CPN member F. Baruch argued that the American involvement in Poznan had been hinted at by Dulles himself, as he had implicitly mentioned the Poznan uprising before it had taken place, and the whole provocation had been part of an effort to create a smokescreen to hide the USA’s failing foreign policy.44

In the PvdA magazine Paraat,the Poznan uprising was explicitly addressed by Alfred Mozer.45 Mozer interpreted the protests in Poznan as an event of great importance because they had led to significant internal changes in Poland and pushed back the Russian sphere of influence. However, he stated that the situation might be more complicated than it initially seemed.46 According to Mozer, the death of Stalin implied that the conditions for the Stalinist model had ceased to exist, and this has led to an attempt by Moscow to ease relations with its satellite states by allowing them to liberalize to a certain extent. However, this attempt would always fail, Mozer suggested, since “hunger comes while eating.”47

In PvdA’s Socialisme en Democratie, Dedeijer expressed his faith in Władysław Gomułka’s ability to solve the issues at hand: “Not only in his political postulates, but also in his behavior as a man, in his intellectual integrity and his rationality.”48 De Kadt stated that the pretenses of communism had been utterly destroyed, and the ideology had been reduced to what it truly was: “An enforced system that by an immense waste of human lives, human happiness, and human dignity reaches only meagre results.”49 Goedhart took a critical approach to the concessions made by Moscow in 1956, as the easing of strict policies in Poland and Hungary could not be considered a logical outcome of the communist system and therefore could not be used as an argument in defense of communism.50

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956

On October 23, 1956, students gathered in Budapest to demonstrate against one-party rule and demand more political, economic, and democratic rights. The protests soon escalated, and fights broke out countrywide between the insurgents and the army. The revolutionaries believed they had succeeded, as the Soviet troops retreated from Budapest, to which the government responded by requesting military support from the Soviet Union and the reinstalment of Imre Nagy as the prime minister. Nagy’s decision to resign from the Warsaw Pact did not have the desired effect. In early November, Khrushchev crushed the revolution by sending the Red Army to Hungary. The international response which Nagy had hoped for did not come. After the revolutionaries were defeated, the government fell into the hands of the reorganized and purged Hungarian communist party.51

On October 24, 1956, the disturbances in Budapest were mentioned in De Waarheid. It was reported that counterrevolutionary gangs had conducted bloody attacks on soldiers and civilians. This allegedly had led the Hungarian government to announce martial law and to ask the Soviet troops to help restore peace.52 In a second article, Imre Nagy was paraphrased: “hostile elements joined the peaceful demonstration of Hungarian young people. They misguided the working people and acted against the popular-democracy and power.”53

The next day, De Waarheid addressedthe situation in Hungary, recognizing that the demonstrations had been provoked by the irresponsible behavior of leading politicians. Therefore, they expected the new Hungarian government to introduce far-reaching reforms once peace had been restored.54 Marcus Bakker blamed the Dutch media for not expressing solidarity with the Egyptians during the Suez Crisis, as they done with the Poles and Hungarians: “We are also deeply affected by the events in Hungary: while a people rose for a changed and improved construction of socialism, irresponsible elements made use of the situation to turn the desire for progress into a contra-revolution.”55 The Hungarian attempt to leave the Warsaw Pact was criticized the next day, as the only opponents of this pact would be “Adenauer and his Hitler-generals.”56 This assumption was illustrated by the example that fascists were reported to have sung “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.”57

On October 30, the CPN offered a statement about the situation in Hungary and the alleged anti-communist campaign in the Netherlands: “The party administration makes a call for all peace-loving Dutch citizens to recognize the true and dangerous character of the events and to take a stand against the campaign of incitement.”58 The CPN also claimed that even though there was no clear overview of the situation in Hungary, all available data pointed towards a putsch. It linked “this counterrevolutionary adventure” and the interests of “American pro–Cold War politicians.” The Dutch reaction to side immediately with this “counterrevolutionary coup d’état” showed the hypocrisy of other political parties: “The lament for the faith of the Hungarian people sounds especially false from the mouths of those who prepare an atomic war against the peoples of Eastern Europe and assist the rearmament of the SS in West Germany.”59 The worries about Hungary were interpreted by the CPN as “having the goal of diverting attention away from the deteriorating economic circumstances in the Netherlands and creating a false sense of unity.”60

On November 2, it was reported that there had been Western intervention in the events in Hungary, as planes from the Red Cross had dropped weapons and supporters of the previous Horthy regime had crossed Hungary’s Western border.61 A similar interpretation could be found the next day: “Under the cover of smokescreens of talking about a ‘heroic uprising’ and ‘Soviet Troops,’ Western circles do everything in their power to restore the old reactionary regime in Hungary.”62

On November 5, it was announced in De Waarheid that the new Hungarian government, under the leadership of János Kádár, along with the socialist forces of Hungary and the Soviet Union, had succeeded in their task.63 Any attempts to discuss the situation in the forums of the United Nations were deemed unlawful, as the uprising had been a strictly domestic affair. Assaults on the properties of the CPN in the Netherlands were also addressed: “It had nothing to do with an indignant crowd, but everything with organized destruction commandos.”64 On November 6, the alleged underlying motivations of the anti-communist riots in the Netherlands were addressed in more detail: “They attempt to conceal the dangerous situation, which is the result of the British-French aggression against Egypt, behind the curtain of Hungary hysteria.”65 The PvdA was especially blamed for this, with their “unreasonable disruptions about Hungary.”66

The tenth edition of PvdA’s Paraat from 1956 was dedicated entirely to the events in Hungary and Poznan, obviously siding with the revolutionaries: “For the first time in history an oppressed people, by its own force, has triumphed over a modern dictatorship while the same people has been handcuffed again by brute military force.”67 The author asks how the situation will develop and whether Moscow would “[u]nashamedly, brutally, and cynically lower the Iron Curtain over Hungary again (…) Moscow does not believe in tears, blood, and freedom. A people is being suffocated under the chokehold of Communism.”68 In another article, the authors of Paraat stated that the CPN had always been a “slavish imitation of the foreign communist parties that remain a slavish imitation of the Russian communist party.”69 The PvdA explicitly presented itself as an anti-communist party: “Now the terrible events in Hungary have united the PvdA, together with all other democratic parties, to take a stand against communism; to us this is a confirmation of our principal standpoint that we have drawn a line, which we have always followed as long as we have been democratic socialists.”70

The Prague Spring 1968

In 1968, Alexander Dubček introduced far-reaching reforms which opened the way for a ten-year transition plan. His intention was to re-popularize socialism by removing its most oppressive features. In practice, this led to the socialist government and the Soviet Union being openly criticized. The Soviet Union perceived the Prague Spring reforms as a threat to the unity of its bloc. On August 20, WTO forces occupied Czechoslovakia. Immediately, all reforms were undone, and Czechoslovakia entered a period of “normalization.” Within one year, the government re-established full censorship.71

In April, De Waarheid addressed the reforms of the Prague Spring. Its attitude towards these developments was positive under the precondition that the reforms would help build a stronger socialist state and the new foreign policy would remain in line with the foreign policies of other WTO members.72 On August 21, it was reported that WTO troops had unannouncedly entered Czechoslovakia and occupied the most important political centers. De Waarheid mentioned that the Soviet press bureau reported that these troops had come to Czechoslovakia’s aid only after the Czechoslovak government had requested armed support.73 Directly next to this article, a commentary by the CPN was placed in which the CPN distanced itself from the armed intervention: “Over the course of recent months, the Communist Party of the Netherlands has repetitively and with great emphasis expressed its stance against any sort of intervention, military or anything else, in the affairs of Czechoslovakia.”74 The CPN was convinced that this intervention would have “harmful consequences to the necessary battle against American capitalism and West-German revanchism.”75 The CPN also stated, however, that the Western press had done everything in its power to escalate the conflict. In a later article, the CPN announced that, “[i]t is up to the Czechoslovak people and the Czechoslovak communists to decide how the affairs of their country should be dealt with in the continuing construction of socialism. Interference, in whatever form, can only do damage and lead to great harm.”76

A week later, the front page of De Waarheid was covered by a manifesto of the CPN in which it strongly condemned the use of military force in Czechoslovakia: “The administration of the CPN declares with great emphasis that such conduct is unacceptable, that it has nothing to do with communist principles, and that it violates all decisions and declarations of the international communist movement.”77 The CPN stated that the crisis in Czechoslovakia had been caused by the former government under Antonín Josef Novotny, which Moscow had always supported. The Soviet Union thus had failed to deliver any justification for its interference. This made it the “most shameful breach of the principles of Leninism yet committed.”78 They stated that this interference took place with the silent approval of American imperialists, who seized the opportunity to nurture and inflame anti-communist sentiments. The CPN called for the Dutch working class not to be misled by the pro-Czechoslovak front of Dutch political parties. They felt that the other parties had used the situation in Czechoslovakia to cover up their support for the American war in Vietnam and German revisionism. However, the CPN also continued to present itself as a critic of the Soviet Union: “For years, the Communist Party of the Netherlands has been criticizing the leadership in the Soviet Union, much to the dismay of all anti-communists and the ‘official circles’ in our country.”79 The CPN then announced that they had cut off all ties with the leadership of the Soviet Union and its supporters: “The CPN insists that the current leadership in the Soviet Union cannot and should not in any way be identified with the Soviet Union or with the ideas of communism.”80 The CPN expressed the conviction that it was “the only party in the Netherlands with the moral right to stand up to the violation of communist principles being committed by the current Soviet leadership.”81

The Prague Spring was addressed in two articles in Socialisme en Democratie. Cees Laban spoke of the Czechoslovak people and politicians with great sympathy, concluding that

it is clear that one is looking for a form of communism that is in line with humanism and the principle of freedom, which is rooted in the people, and which also has an economic effect that will give the population greater prosperity (…) Therefore, the moral duty rests on us to provide support for this people cautiously and by using all appropriate, however limited, resources at our disposal.82

In another article, another PVDA politician strongly condemned the Soviet intervention but simultaneously argued in support of continuation of the détente policy: “It is the only policy that can lead to real cooperation between East and West.”83

Martial Law in Poland 1981

In the early 1980s, the Polish governing party (PZPR) was in crisis and rapidly losing influence. The opposition was gaining strength in the form of the Solidarność trade union and political movement under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. The PZPR perceived Solidarity as the cause of the economic recession and accused its supporters of leading Poland into a civil war. The prime minister, Wojciech Jaruzelski, believed that the only way to maintain control and avoid Soviet intervention was to introduce martial law, marking a period of severe repression of the opposition and other far-reaching restrictions. Despite the severe measures, martial law did not achieve all the goals set by the PZPR, as Solidarity managed to remain active underground.84

On December 13, De waarheid stated on their front page that the Polish army had seized power and had announced a state of martial law.85 On the same page, the CPN condemned the coup d’état by the Polish army: “This seizure of power underlines the bankruptcy of the Polish United Workers Party and the urge to innovate as was expressed by the population and the trade union movement in Poland.”86 The CPN was convinced that this provided proof of “the failure of a one-party system, and that broad coalitions, separation of powers, and a deepening of democracy are necessary prerequisites for socialism.”87

In the December 15 issue of De waarheid,it was announced that the Amsterdam departments of the CPN and PvdA, together with three other progressive parties, had published a response to the coup d’état by the Polish army.88 Only a democracy, it was stated, could lay the foundations for political solutions.

On the next day, it was mentioned that a petition had been sent to the Polish ambassy in The Hague signed by the CPN, the PvdA, and, remarkably enough, three conservative political parties. Marcus Bakker, by then the leader of the CPN faction in the Dutch Parliament, was quoted: “In Poland, the point is that there was an opportunity to create real democratic socialism; but instead of seizing this opportunity, they intervened by military means. That is contrary to what we consider socialism.”89

In Paraat, political relations between the PvdA and CPN were explored. The discussants addressed the CPN’s political standpoints towards Eastern Europe and specifically their standpoint regarding the introduction of martial law in Poland. It was stated that the CPN had lost many members to the PvdA because its attitude towards Moscow had not been rectilinear. According to one of the discussants, the CPN had sometimes been critical of Moscow in the 1960s, but in the 1970s, the CPN had reorientated itself towards Moscow, and this had been something, the discussants contended, that the CPN’s electorate had not found encouraging. The discussants did not believe that the CPN being critical of Moscow was necessarily very substantial: “I miss a story from the side of CPN about the current situation in Eastern Europe, what the balance of power there is. A cohesive story, and not a sum of incidents.”90

In Poland: an “internal affair” for democratic socialism, Paul Kalma and M. Krop suggested that the PvdA had reacted reasonably to the introduction of martial law. Immediately, a statement of protest was written, and two demonstrations were organized. “However, this position does not undo the lukewarmness and half-heartedness that have characterized the reactions in the party to the events in Poland for the last year and a half.”91 One of the reasons for a lack of support, the authors supposed, was that the PvdA still had an old-fashioned concept of détente politics. It was therefore suggested that practical support of liberation movements in the Eastern Bloc should be taken more seriously: “Such support undoubtedly increases the tension between East and West, but that is the price which must be paid.”92 They argued that it would be key for successful détente politics to differentiate between the relaxation of relations between East and West while simultaneously acknowledging the changes to the European status quo. This way, a political course could be followed by the PvdA which would fall more in line with that of the United States.

De Tribune,the magazine of the SP, dedicated a large article to the introduction of martial law in Poland. In their view, Solidarity had become the mouthpiece of economic dissatisfaction. However, the Polish government had met most of the economic demands which could justifiably be made by a trade union. They did not consider Solidarity to be in the position to make any demands other than economic ones.93 According to De Tribune, the establishment of Solidarity as the third power beside the Church and state would inevitably lead to political confrontations. After martial law went into force, the army became the fourth power: “A drama is unfolding in Poland, let’s face it. A drama that for all progressive people will be experienced as a setback. But that is not yet a reason to cry with the CDA [Christian Democratic Appeal] and VVD [People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy] wolves” 94 (as the CPN allegedly had done). De Tribune concluded that none of these four powers in Poland had the mandate or the popular power to solve Poland’s economic issues. It therefore recommend that “Poland can only be drawn out of the economic swamp by an utmost concerted effort of these four powers, supported by the population.”95 In the article Washington, it was reasoned that while the situation in Poland dominated the news, many North American misdeeds had not been properly addressed.96 A similar way of reasoning can be found in a later article: “Poland is met with hue and cry, while Minister Haig97 praises Turkey, (…) They are using the Polish crisis to start a new anti-communist smear campaign and as a reason to sweep the disarmament talks off the table.”98

Analysis

An analysis of the discourse used by each of the political parties reveals that during each of the crises, all parties took clear and unambiguous positions. The PvdA systematically condemned all Soviet interventions in the Eastern Bloc. Among the many parties, the standpoints of the CPN changed the most significantly, as they went from fully supporting military interventions to completely condemning them. However, there were some steps in between. Regarding the East German Uprising, the CPN did not take the political and economic discontent of East Germans (except for the workers of the Stalin-Allee) strongly into consideration. Most of the uprising was framed as the work of fascists and foreign agents, which the East Berlin workers allegedly had nothing to do with. During the protests in Poznan and Budapest, the CPN already acknowledged to a larger extent the possibility that political and economic discontent existed among workers and citizens. However, the CPN still insisted that the Polish and the new Hungarian government had already solved or would soon solve the issues that had given rise to expressions of discontent. Initially, the CPN put trust in Nagy’s government to get hold of the situation in Hungary. However, as soon as Hungary left the Warsaw Pact, Nagy’s revolutionary government could no longer count on the CPN’s sympathy. The suppression of the Prague Spring was the first military intervention which was fully condemned by the CPN. The CPN supported the liberal policies of the Prague Spring, under the precondition that they would help further the construction of a better socialism. The CPN sympathized with the government of Czechoslovakia and stated that only the Czechoslovaks could solve the problems at hand, without any meddling by the WTO or Western powers. The CPN did not believe Moscow’s claim that Prague had asked the Soviet Union to remove fascist elements from the Czechoslovakian elite circles, so the CPN considered the intervention illegitimate. This led it to condemn the invasion of Czechoslovakia sharply and to cut ties with Moscow. However, the CPN still insisted that the situation had escalated due to Western Powers, which had put up another smokescreen to cover up German rearmament and the Vietnam War. During each of the four crises, the CPN repeatedly argued that the events in Eastern Europe were being used as smokescreens to hide American misdeeds and as part of smear campaigns to discredit communism. The introduction of martial law in Poland was therefore the second intervention which was fully condemned by the CPN but the first during which the CPN did not accuse any Western Powers of being involved. It is also important that, in contrast to its response to the events of the Prague Spring, during the introduction of martial law in Poland, the CPN contended that a democratic system was a prerequisite for socialism, not a one-party state. The SP interpreted the introduction of martial law as the result of the Poland’s poor economic circumstances and Solidarity, as a trade union, having intervened too much in politics instead of focusing on labor policies. It observed that none of the actors involved (the army, the Church, the state, and Solidarity) had either the popular support or political mandate to solve Poland’s (economic) issues. Therefore, the SP proposed that all actors cooperate. Despite this seemingly neutral position, it was still suggested in Paraat that the situation in Poland was being used by the Western Powers to start an anti-communist smear campaign to sweep disbarment talks off the table.

When the dynamics between the political parties in the Netherlands are considered, a few significant observations can be made. During the East German Uprising, the Poznan Protests, and the Hungarian Revolution, the dynamics remained largely consistent. The PvdA condemned military intervention and supported a more liberal and democratic political course. The CPN blamed the Western powers for allegedly organizing the crises and vocally supported the Soviet Union. On a national level, the CPN blamed the other political parties for utilizing the crises in the Eastern Bloc for their own gain, either to start anti-communist smear campaigns to divide the Dutch working class or to create smokescreens to hide the failing policies of the Dutch government. Simultaneously, the PvdA emphasized its anti-communist stance and called out the CPN for being a slavish imitation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This dynamic changed with the end of the Prague Spring in 1968. This time, even the CPN distanced itself from Soviet intervention, though it was not yet willing to take a collective stance towards Moscow with other political parties. The CPN stressed that it was the only political party in the Netherlands with the moral authority to condemn the WTO intervention. The other Dutch political parties were considered hypocrites for meddling in these affairs, as they did not even support the Dutch working class. Therefore, the CPN was unwilling to cooperate with initiatives and demonstrations organized by other political parties. The only crisis which the PvdA and CPN interpreted and acted on in the same manner was the introduction of martial law in Poland. Both parties considered this crisis symptomatic of a failing one-party state and acknowledged that the introduction of a multiparty system was much needed. The PvdA and CPN not only reached the same conclusion, they also acted in unity.

In 1981, the CPN adopted a very conventional and mainstream political standpoint towards the introduction of martial law in Poland. On this specific matter, the party acted together with the PvdA and even with conservative parties, such as the VVD and CDA. The SP explicitly placed itself outside of this cooperation. It also condemned the introduction of martial law, but the SP still did not want to work together with the other Dutch political parties. In fact, the SP framed the other parties as hypocrites and considered the international outrage little more than a smokescreen to get disarmament talks off the table. The SP publicly called out the CPN for its alleged hypocrisy on this issue. In this specific context, the SP in 1981 willingly took over the CPN’s position as a political outsider. It is therefore clearly the case that left-wing political parties in the Netherlands did strongly react to political crises within the Eastern Bloc. In particular, the CPN’s political standpoints towards these crises changed drastically over the years.

Conclusion

At the beginning of this discussion, I proposed to consider how the CPN reacted to political crises in the Eastern Bloc and whether its political standpoints developed in response to these events. An analysis of how the CPN presented itself in De Waarheid offers reason to assume that the party was motivated by the desire to appeal to a broader electorate, as it called public attention to its changed political standpoints. The CPN made considerable efforts to communicate its firm condemnation of the oppression of the Prague Spring and the introduction of martial law in Poland. It did this by placing elaborate statements in De Waarheid, which sometimes even covered full front pages, or as was mentioned in De Waarheid, by making a television appearance to express support for Solidarity.

The desire to keep ideological distance from political rivals seems to have played a role in how the left-wing parties in the Netherlands positioned themselves towards one another and the crises in the Eastern Bloc. In 1968, the CPN put in a lot of work into its efforts to underline its ideological distance from the PvdA, even though both parties condemned the Soviet Union’s response to the Prague Spring. However, as the standpoint of the CPN towards the introduction of martial law in Poland became mainstream and the CPN started to act accordingly, the SP took its place as the political outsider. The suggestion that the PvdA should adopt a more pro-active stance towards détente politics also fits the narrative of creating ideological distance. A bolder approach towards crises in the Eastern Bloc would have distanced the PvdA further from the new course of the CPN. Simultaneously, the PvdA took a critical stance towards the new course of the CPN by doubting its substantiality and integrity.

As is addressed in the literature on Eurocommunism, many factors led communist parties in Western Europe to change their political standpoints in the 1960s and 1970s. Therefore, it remains difficult to say whether the CPN’s political standpoints changed as a reaction to the crises in the Eastern Bloc or the CPN’s reactions to these crises reflected earlier changes in political standpoints. However, within the framework of party change theories, the CPN seems to have become increasingly reactive to the reoccurring crises by changing its policies towards Moscow. It thus acted more like a mainstream party to appeal to a broader electorate, as the literature on Eurocommunism presumes.

This tendency can also be observed when the election results are coupled with the analysis of policy change in the CPN towards Moscow.99 The CPN lost four seats during the 1959 elections, which were held two years after the Poznan protests and the Hungarian uprising. During the election of 1977, the CPN lost five seats. Therefore, it is remarkable that large electoral losses during the elections of 1959 and 1977 were followed by significant changes in the CPN’s political standpoints during the subsequent crises in the Eastern Bloc, which occurred in 1968 and 1981. This indicates that the changes in political standpoints of the CPN towards the crises in the Eastern Bloc were seemingly affected by disappointing electoral results. Again, this indicates that the CPN acted in line with the presumptions in the theoretical literature on Eurocommunism in an attempt to appeal to a broader electorate.

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The First Generation of Architectural Historians in Modern China: Their Studies and Struggles

Shanshan Liu

Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 1  (2024):59-79 DOI 10.38145/2024.1.59

This paper examines the intellectual history of the first generation of architectural historians in China, with a focus on the activities of Liang Sicheng and his colleagues from the 1920s to the 1950s. It analyzes the various oppressive forces they encountered during this period. Initially, they challenged Western and Japanese hegemonies in Chinese architecture research. Following World War II, they faced off against Soviet Union experts to safeguard China’s architectural heritage. The paper evaluates their successes and failures in achieving academic and social goals, their impact on the preservation of Chinese heritage, and their ongoing influence in academic and societal spheres. Additionally, it explores how professional ethics were utilized to dismantle colonial narratives and perceptions in China, suggesting that professionalism can serve as a mode of intellectual opposition.

Keywords: Modern China, intellectual history, architectural historian, Liang Sicheng

The intellectual history of architectural historians in China from the 1920s to the 1950s, particularly focusing on the endeavors of Liang Sicheng and his contemporaries, reveals a dynamic interplay between scholarly pursuits and sociopolitical contexts. This period witnessed the multifaceted engagement of these historians with various oppressive forces, from the challenges they issued to Western and Japanese hegemonies in Chinese architectural research to confrontations with Soviet Union experts in the immediate postwar era in their efforts to safeguard China’s architectural heritage. By examining the successes and failures of their academic and social initiatives, as well as their enduring influence on the preservation of Chinese heritage, this paper sheds light on the intricate relationship between professional ethics and intellectual opposition.

Western and Japanese Hegemonies in Chinese Traditional Architecture
Research before the 1930s

When the first generation of Chinese architectural historians started their academic research at the beginning of twentieth century, they faced two different hegemonies, Western hegemony in the international academic community and Japanese hegemony in the East Asian academic community.

Both colonial powers attempted to reconstruct the history of Chinese architecture by promoting their own favorable historical narratives in part to diminish the historical achievements and artistic status of Chinese architecture and gardens, thus serving their agendas of cultural oppression. Western hegemony, for instance, sought to discredit the evolutionary development of Chinese architecture, criticizing it as an ahistorical style and thus denying the significance of Chinese architectural culture in world architectural history. Meanwhile, Japan aimed to elevate the artistic value of Tang and Song architecture, indirectly elevating the status of Japanese architecture and positioning itself as the heir to the highest achievements in Eastern architectural art.

In the second half of nineteenth century, in the context of the political, economic, and cultural confrontation between the East and the West, Western scholars devalued Asian arts as a whole. This situation had partially changed at the beginning of the twentieth century because of the propaganda of the Japanese government. Western society had begun to appreciate Japanese art and Chinese art before the Tang and Song Dynasties (960–1279 AD).

However, Chinese architectural historians found themselves under the second culture hegemony caused by this situation. Japanese scholars had a reason for placing emphasis on the importance and value of Chinese art before the Tang and Song Dynasties. It was impossible to deny the Chinese origins of many aspects of Japanese culture, so they emphasized that Japan, instead of China, was the heir to the Chinese culture of the Tang and Song Dynasties. Thus, they sought to establish the dominance of Japanese culture in Asia. As a result, Chinese architectural historians needed to challenge the dual hegemony, in the world of scholarship, of the West and Japan when starting research on the history of Chinese architectures.

Western Hegemony before the Twentieth Century

Before the twentieth century, the international image of Chinese architecture and garden arts underwent several transitions. The Western world first learned of Chinese architecture and gardens from the writings of explorers and missionaries. Before the sixteenth century, The Travels of Marco Polo introduced the cities and architecture of China to the West. This was the first work to offer Westerners detailed impressions of Chinese architecture.

From the sixteenth century to the eighteenth, Westerners were full of curiosity about Chinese architecture and gardens. In the seventeenth century, Western missionaries developed a strong interest in Eastern art and culture, and they naturally paid attention to the unique Chinese architecture and garden art. Texts and drawings depicting Chinese architecture and gardens were brought to the West. Westerners loved the naturalistic styles, and they imitated these styles in architectural design and gardening practices. Designers from the United Kingdom absorbed the aesthetic elements of Chinese gardens and created English landscape gardens characterized by structured informality, which made free layout garden design increasingly popular across Europe. Between 1757 and 1763, Swedish-Scottish architect William Chambers caused a sensation in Europe by introducing Chinese architecture into the garden during the renovation of Kew Gardens in London.

At the end of the eighteenth century, Chinamania began to cool down. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the deepening of the western invasion of China, Western opinion on Chinese culture changed from positive to negative. Western attitudes towards Chinese architectural arts also changed from admiration to derogation.

In 1793, the Macartney Embassy visited China. All the members of the embassy described Chinese architecture and gardens in their travel notes. The accompanying painter William Alexander depicted Chinese cities along the way in watercolors. Mission member John Barrow made negative comments on Chinese architecture and cities in his book Travels in China, arguing that Chinese architecture is not as grand or artistic as the architecture of European countries. He commented in his book that “their architecture is void of taste, grandeur, beauty, solidity, or convenience; that the houses are merely tents, and that there is nothing magnificent, even in the palace of the Emperor.”1

In 1896, British scholar Banister Fletcher (1866–1953) published his masterpiece of world architectural history A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method.2 In this book, he included an illustration that reflects the genealogy of the world’s architectural development, which is the famous “Tree of Architecture.” Fletcher regarded ancient Greek and ancient Roman buildings as the main trunk of this “tree,” from which the Romanesque style developed. After the development of Gothic and Renaissance styles, the tree of architecture finally flourished in Europe and the United States. At the same time, Fletcher placed the styles of Chinese and Japanese, Peruvian, Mexican, Indian, and other non-European styles on the branches roughly in the same period as ancient Greece, thus implying that these styles did not evolve over time.

Before the twentieth century, the West lacked an in-depth understanding of the true characters of Chinese architecture. The Western attitude towards Chinese architecture was constantly changing as the various imaginative visions of China changed. These shifts were driven first and foremost by changes in the political and economic relationships between China and the West, but also by competition between China and Japan.

Japanese hegemony at the beginning of twentieth century

In the late nineteenth century, Western interest in Chinese art gradually began to diminish, while interest in Japanese art increased. This situation continued until the 1930s. This understanding of the differences between Chinese art and Japanese art was partially the result of intentional propaganda by Japanese political and cultural figures. Since the Meiji Restoration period, Japan had strategically propagandized Japanese culture in the West to build its international status. Under the guidance and promotion of Fukuzawa Yukichi’s(1835–1901) “Theory of Civilization,” Japan looked for elements in traditional culture to compete with the West. Japanese politicians and literati constructed the conditions that could make Japan a “civilized” country. They sought to reexamine traditional Japanese culture from a modern perspective, and they actively carried out activities in the public sphere to shape the national image.3

However, for Japan, which came from the East Asian cultural context, Chinese culture was a rather awkward rival. Japan had the advantage over China of having started the process of westernization before China and thus having a more active presence in the international discourse earlier. The Japanese government recruited and hired foreigners to carry out cultural construction in Japan. When these people returned to the West, they became the authorities on Eastern art, and they took with them the prejudice that Japanese culture was superior to Chinese culture. At the same time, Japanese critics also took advantage of their relationship with these orientalists to further propagate the alleged superiority of Japanese culture. Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908), who was recruited by the Japanese government to teach at Tokyo Imperial University at the end of the nineteenth century, was one of the representative figures. Fenollosa’s student Okakura Tenshin (1863–1913) went a step further, advocating the “leadership” of Japanese culture in East Asia.

In the propaganda of Japanese critics and Western critics, the rhetoric of contrast was repeatedly used. Chinese art was always used as a foil to Japanese art. Although no one could deny that the origins of numerous elements of Japanese art lay in Chinese art, this did not in any way enhance the status of Chinese art in the international discourse. Western critics often criticized the alleged stagnation of Chinese art after the Song Dynasty. They claimed that only the Chinese art from the period before the Song Dynasty merited praise, while Japan had avoided stagnation by learning from the nature and thus had become the successor of the culture of the Chinese Tang and Song dynasties. This argument mirrors the image of China being closed and conservative and Japan’s westernization and progressiveness at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and it had many negative consequences from the perspective of the protection of and research on traditional Chinese architecture for Chinese scholars.

Japanese architectural historian Itō Chūta (1867–1954) argued that, “[t]he culture in the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD) is not only the culmination of Chinese civilization, but also the successor of Central Asian, Indian, Greek and Roman civilizations, while Japanese culture combines native Shintoism with Tang culture, thus representing the essence of Asian culture. Therefore, the Japanese culture is sufficient to lead Asia.”4 Chinese architectural historian Lai Delin incisively pointed out the intentions of Japanese scholars at that time: “If Chinese architecture begin to decline after the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD), then what were the representatives of East Asian architecture in the Ming and Qing Dynasties? (Japanese architecture).”5

The First Generation of Chinese Architectural Historians and Their Studies from the 1920s to the 1940s

The first generation of Chinese architectural historians, represented by Liang Sicheng(1901–1972), Lin Huiyin(1904–1955), Tong Jun(1900–983), and Liu Dunzhen (1897–1968), started pursuing research on and make efforts to protect traditional Chinese architecture and gardens in this unfavorable international cultural context.

Having received systematic professional education in the West, these architects had a clear understanding of the value of architectural historical narratives for national cultural identity and the international status of culture from the outset. Liang Sicheng, Lin Huiyin, and Tong Jun all graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. They received a systematic education on Western architecture. While pursuing studies in the United States, they were deeply influenced by Western history, culture, and aesthetics. But they did not agree with the Western views on traditional Chinese architecture and garden arts.

During their stay in the United States, they realized that European countries attached great importance to the study of their own architectural history and achieved fruitful results. A group of architectural historians also emerged in Japan. They made great achievements in the study of the ancient architecture of their country and extended their range of study to Chinese architecture. This situation brought a sense of urgency for Chinese scholars. They started research on Chinese architecture and gardens in part out of fear of leaving this field of research under the domination of Western and Japanese hegemony.

Liang Sicheng was the eldest son of Liang Qichao, a prominent politician and historian in modern China who was one of the leaders who advocated for the Hundred Days’ Reform. Liang Qichao deeply understood the importance of architectural history in national culture. Therefore, he had high hopes for Liang Sicheng and his daughter-in-law Lin Huiyin’s research on Chinese architectural history. During their studies in the United States, Liang Qichao sent them the recently rediscovered Chinese traditional architectural technical treatise Yingzao Fashi (Treatise on Architectural Methods or State Building Standards), first printed in 1103. He inscribed a message on the title page, urging them to conduct in-depth research: “This masterpiece from a thousand years ago can be a great treasure for our cultural heritage.”6 Therefore, during their studies in the United States, Liang and Lin had already begun to attempt to create a modern Chinese national and social identity through their research on traditional Chinese architectural history.

Lin Huiyin hailed from a distinguished background and had already established herself as a celebrated poet, novelist, and literary figure prior to her engagement to Liang Sicheng. During their studies at the University of Pennsylvania, she encountered barriers in pursuing the study of architecture due to its male-dominated nature at the time, leading her to enroll in the art department while auditing courses in architecture. In contrast, Liang Sicheng faced no such impediments in the architecture department. Despite encountering discrimination, Lin excelled academically and was appointed as a teaching assistant in the architecture department. As the sole woman in the field of modern Chinese architecture, Lin endured unfair treatment throughout her life, yet her exceptional talent ensured that her accomplishments were not overshadowed by her husband. Her exceptional literary abilities and profound insights rendered her writing accessible to the public, and her scholarly works and essays contributed to the heightened recognition of ancient Chinese architectural art among the broader public.

Northeastern University and Chinese architecture education

When the first generation of architectural historians came back China from their studies abroad, they built education in modern Chinese architecture from its foundations. In 1928, Liang and Lin returned to China after having graduated. They joined the architecture department at Northeastern University in Shenyang. The department had been founded a month earlier, and Liang and Lin became the only two teachers in the department for the first academic year. In 1930, Tong Jun also returned from the United States, and joined them as a colleague.

The three earliest teachers at Northeastern University graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. They built the architectural curriculum on the basis of the fine arts Beaux-Arts traditions in the United States. Meanwhile, they began to construct the discipline of Chinese architectural history. In the following years, they started three courses for East Asian arts studies: History of Oriental Architecture, History of Oriental Sculpture, and History of Oriental Art.

Liang Sicheng also started to survey and study traditional Chinese architecture in this period. He believed that, in order to sort out the development process of Chinese architecture, modern architectural theories and methods must be adopted. He therefore attached great importance to the investigation of architectural heritage. In one article, he made the important statement concerning methodology that, “[t]he study of traditional Chinese architecture cannot be conducted without field investigation, surveys, and mapping.”7 Moreover, he sought to confirm the descriptions and records in historical architectural documents such as Yingzao Fashi by discovering evidence.

Shenyang had once been the capital of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. There were many royal buildings in the city, which undoubtedly provided rich cases for Liang Sicheng’s study of traditional architecture. Liang’s first survey subject was the Northern Mausoleum of the Qing Dynasty, the Zhaoling Mausoleum, located in the suburbs of Shenyang. The experience he gained from this project became the foundation for his future fieldwork in architecture investigation and research.

He also began his efforts to further the preservation of traditional architectures in China in this period. According to Fei Weimei,8 the mayor of Shenyang decided to demolish the old Bell and Drum Towers on the grounds that it was a hindrance to traffic. When Liang heard this news, he approached the municipal authorities, hoping to preserve the ancient buildings and find another solution to the traffic problem. However, his proposal was rejected. This incident became one of the considerations that prompted Liang to resign from Northeastern University.

In the winter of 1930, Lin Huiyin returned to Peiping (Beijing) to recuperate due to a relapse of tuberculosis. In February 1931, Liang Sicheng handed over his work in the Architecture Department to his colleague Tong Jun. He left Northeastern University in June, returned to Peiping and joined Yingzao Xueshe (The Society for the Study of Chinese Architecture).

A mere three months after Tong Jun had taken over as dean of the department, Japanese troops invaded northeast China. Tong strove to meet his responsibilities during the war. He led the teachers and students of Northeastern University into exile in the south. He endeavored to give lectures to the remaining students until they graduated.

Yingzao Xueshe and the study of traditional Chinese architecture

Yingzao Xueshe, or the Society for the Study of Chinese Architecture, was founded by Zhu Qiqian (1872–1964) in 1930. It was the first academic group in modern China for the study of traditional architecture. Liang and Lin became the leading members of the society after they had fully enrolled in 1931. Another leading member was Liu Dunzhen.

The scholars of architectural history had a clear understanding that their work could serve as a means of resistance against colonial narratives. In 1932, Lin Huiyin published an article titled “On Several Characteristics of Chinese Architecture,” in which she pointed out that

Chinese architecture is the most prominent independent system in the East, with profound origins and a simple evolutionary process. Throughout the ages, it has maintained a consistent inheritance and orderly development, without undergoing complex changes due to external influences. ... Compared to architectural styles from various Eastern and Western traditions, it represents an exceptionally unique and coherent system. ... However, the national history of this architecture is not simple, and it is not lacking in various religious, ideological, and political transformations.

This argument was a candid refutation of Fletcher’s “Tree of Architecture,” and Lin Huiyin also noted that,

[b]ecause the subsequent Chinese architecture reached a level of complexity and exquisite artistry in structure and art, its external appearance still presents a simple and unadorned atmosphere. Ordinary people often misunderstand Chinese architecture as fundamentally crude and underdeveloped, inferior and immature compared to other architectural styles. This misconception originally stemmed from the careless observations of Westerners toward Eastern culture, often leading to hasty and rash conclusions that influenced Chinese people themselves to excessively doubt or even disdain their own art. ... The contributions of outsiders to the discourse on Chinese architecture are still very few, and many areas still require urgent attention from our architects to pursue material research, correction of misconceptions, and valuable exploration, thus rectifying many misunderstandings and errors made by outsiders.9

These scholars were always patriots, and their love of their country was intertwined with their dedication to their work. Their research on Chinese architecture was aimed at glorifying their motherland and resisting the Japanese.

In June 1932, Lin Huiyin wrote to Hu Shi,10 mentioning Liang Sicheng’s departure to investigate the Baodi Guangji Temple, saying, “[w]e are waiting eagerly for his detailed survey maps and reports to be published, which will surely astonish the Japanese scholars.” In 1935, when the Japanese brutally shut down the Da Gong Bao (Impartial Daily) newspaper and launched the Asian People’s Newspaper, she was outraged and wrote to Shen Congwen11 to encourage him to condemn the Japanese.12

That year, Japan’s imperialist ambitions in China had become apparent, and the situation was increasingly tense. Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin felt immense pressure to complete the survey of ancient buildings in northern China before the aggressors invaded on a large scale, fearing that once the war had broken out, the essence of these national cultural treasures would be reduced to ashes in enemy fire. Liang Sicheng said, “[o]ur days of working in northern China are numbered. Before we are stopped from doing so, we have decided to make full efforts in this area.” The Japanese claimed that there could not possibly be Tang Dynasty wooden structures in China, and Chinese people could only go to Nara to see them, but Liang and Lin always believed that there must still be Tang Dynasty wooden structures in China, and he decided to go on a difficult search. After the Lugou Bridge Incident in July 1937, Lin wrote to her nine-year-old daughter, telling her that “the Japanese are coming to occupy Peiping, and we are all willing to fight” and asking her “not to be afraid of war, not to be afraid of the Japanese.”13

From 1932 to 1937, the members of the Society led by Liang Sicheng and Liu Dunzhen conducted a large-scale survey of traditional works of architecture. With the results of the survey, they conducted in-depth research on important issues related to the history of Chinese architecture, and they made many achievements that have had an important impact on the field. Before the Second Sino-Japanese war broke out in 1937, the members of the Society led by Liang and Liu had successively investigated 1,832 works of traditional architecture in 137 counties and cities, surveyed 206 groups of works of traditional architecture in detail, and completed 1,898 survey drawings.14

The first field investigation led by Liang was for the Mountain Gate of the Du Le Temple Kuanyin Pavilion in Ji Count in 1932. The research was published in the Bulletin of the Society for the Research in Chinese Architecture (vol. 3, no. 2).15 After the report was published, it attracted great attention among academic circles at home and abroad. It was the first time that Chinese scholars had studied a work of traditional Chinese architecture with modern scientific methods, and it thus become a milestone in the study of traditional Chinese architecture.

The survey by Liang’s team confirmed that the mountain gate of the Du Le Temple had been built in 984 AD under the Liao Dynasty. It was the oldest wooden structure in China known at that time. Liang analyzed the dimensions of the building structures in the Du Le Temple, and he compared the construction dimensions of the buildings with the recordings from the era of the Song Dynasty in Yingzao Fashi. The structures intuitively show the basic patterns of architecture from the Song Dynasty. Thus, on the basis of the evidence found in the Du Le temple, the written records in Yingzao Fashi had been interpreted clearly and accurately. Thus answered many questions which, until then, had puzzled scholars.

In 1937, Yingzao Xueshe accomplished another important achievement. The team led by Liang and Lin discovered and surveyed in detail the wooden structure of the Fo Guang Temple in Wutai Mountains, which had been built in 857 AD under the Tang Dynasty.

Tang Dynasty architecture represents the highest achievements of ancient Chinese wooden architecture. At the time, no one knew whether there were any remaining examples of wooden structures from the Tang Dynasty in China. Japanese scholars asserted that there were no wooden structure remains from the Tang Dynasty in China, and they claimed that wooden structures from the Tang Dynasty had only been preserved in Nara, Japan.

Liang believed that there were still Tang Dynasty structures in China. When he was sorting out the materials of the Mo Kao Grottoes in Dunhuang in the Gansu province, Liang noticed a temple in the murals painted under the Song Dynasty in cave No. 61. He realized that the edifice might still exist because of its remote location. With this hope in mind, Liang took the Fo Guang Temple as his first choice for investigation when he was planning his fourth visit to Shanxi. Their investigation found that the main building of the Fo Guang Temple was well-preserved, and its wooden structure was a typical example of the Tang Dynasty architectural style.

Precisely when Liang and Lin set out to survey the Fo Guang Temple, Japan intensified its war against China. Liang and Lin had to end their project in a hurry and return to Peiping. After that, the Yingzao Xueshe was temporarily dissolved. The members left Peiping and began to live in exile in the southern provinces. After the Yingzao Xueshe began to function again in Kunming, Yunnan province, Liang and his colleagues continued their research under extremely difficult circumstances. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, members of the Society lacked funds and research materials, and it was difficult for them to ensure their own personal safety. These difficulties notwithstanding, they kept on with their academic research. The Society carried out surveys of works of traditional architecture in southwest China another three times.

The research findings concerning the Fo Guang Temple were not systematically published on schedule because of the outbreak of war. In July 1941, Liang published an article in English in Asia Magazine titled “China’s Oldest Wooden Structure.”16 The article focuses on the investigation process of the Fo Guang Temple, which did not include the surveying data. Although the research findings were not fully revealed, Liang confirmed that the main building of Fo Guang Temple is a wooden structure from the Tang Dynasty, and this revelation came as a shock to academic circles. In 1944 and 1945, Yingzao Xueshe published the last two issues of the Bulletin of the Society for the Research in Chinese Architecture (vol. 7, no. 1 and 2) in Lizhuang, Sichuan. In these two issues, the discovery of the Fo Guang Temple discovery and related research findings were finally announced.17

At the same time, the focus of the work of the Society shifted to research on previous documents. Liang and his colleagues pursued penetrating research on Yingzao Fashi. They sorted out the development process of traditional Chinese architecture and compiled The History of Chinese Architecture, which included the findings of their investigations. The History of Chinese Architecture18was completed in 1944. At the same time, Liang began to write the English version of the book, A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture: A Study of the Development of Its Structural System and the Evolution of Its Types,19 which was published in the United States in 1984. In the book, Liang specifically drew several illustrations to show the evolution of Chinese architecture, in part as a protest against Fletcher’s contentions concerning Chinese architecture.

The research by Chinese scholars surpassed the work of their foreign peers. Architectural historian Fu Xinian later commented on the survey report of the Du Le Temple, saying, “[t]his work not only surpassed the level of European, American and Japanese research on ancient Chinese architecture at that time, but also surpassed the depth of Japanese research on Japanese architecture at that time, it was the in-depth exploration of ancient architectural design pattern through form.”20

Before Liang Sicheng and his colleagues began to study traditional Chinese architecture, Japanese researchers made several contemptuous comments concerning the efforts of Chinese scholars. Japanese architectural historians Ito Chuta21 and Tadashi Sekino both contended that the study of Chinese architectural history could only be done by the Japanese, since Chinese scholars allegedly lacked the skill for scientific surveys and investigations (Ito Chuta, Chinese Architecture History, 1925; Tadashi Sekino, Relics of Ancient Chinese Culture, 1918).22 However, after the publication of research conducted by the Chinese architectural historians, they no longer made these kinds of comments. And in their study of Chinese architecture, they often cited publications by Chinese researchers.

The protection of traditional cities during World War II

In the later stages of World War II, Liang Sicheng and his colleagues began to use their professional literacy to help further the protection of traditional cities from the destruction of war. During the final stage of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Liang Sicheng and his colleagues helped the Allied and People’s Liberation Army compile catalogues of cultural relics on many occasions. Many sites in cities in China and even in Japan were spared damage as a consequence of their efforts.

In 1944, the Allies planned to strike back against Japan in a comprehensive, devastating manner. In the summer, Liang went to Chongqing to help mark culture relics on military maps. His work included not only maps of mainland China, but also maps of Japanese cities, including Kyoto and Nara.

In order to ensure that the cultural relics and historical sites were not damaged during the attack, Liang marked the locations of historical sites on the maps and compiled a catalogue of cultural relics and buildings in both Chinese and English. The complete catalogue consists of eight volumes, including nearly 400 buildings which are important cultural relic buildings, covering 15 provinces and cities in the occupied area.23 He also included a note on the “Principle of Identification of Ancient Buildings” at the beginning of each volume.

In the spring of 1949, in order to protect the cultural relics from damage during the civil war, Liang Sicheng was commissioned by the People’s Liberation Army to organize the teachers in the Department of Architecture of Tsinghua University to compile a “Brief List of Important National Cultural Relic Buildings.” This was the first important document on the history of cultural relics’ protection in the People’s Republic of China. Most of the participants were members of the Yingzao Xueshe, and they used the survey data accumulated by the Society. Therefore, this document should still be regarded as the last academic achievement under the name of the Yingzao Xueshe.24

Protection of Chinese Traditional Cities after World War II (1950s)

A failed reform of architecture education

In October 1946, Zhu Qiqian, Liang Sicheng, and Tsinghua University signed an agreement to merge the Yingzao Xueshe into Tsinghua University. The materials and collections of the Society were also transferred to the Architecture Department of Tsinghua University. This marked the end of the history of Yingzao Xueshe as an independent academic research institution.25

From 1946 to 1947, Liang was invited to serve as a visiting professor at Yale University and to attend the International Symposium on Far Eastern Culture and Society hosted by Princeton University.26 After returning to China from the United States, Liang proposed reforming architectural education according to the new trends in modern architectural education in Europe and the United States. He advocated abandoning the traditional “Beaux-Arts” curriculum, which approached architecture as one of the fine arts, and using the Bauhaus method for teaching.27

In the 1920s and 1930s, architecture theories in Europe and the countries of North America changed dramatically. An approach based on a classicism aesthetics was replaced by modernist trends. The Bauhaus method was a new teaching method which adapted to this new trend and was widely accepted. It became the mainstream in architecture education. Liang believed that the Bauhaus method represented the new direction in international architectural education, and in his assessment, it was more suitable for educating the future architects for the reconstruction of postwar China. He suggested that Tsinghua University adopt the new Bauhaus education system.28

His new curriculum plan also reflected strong liberal education characteristics. It included social science courses, such as Sociology, Economics, Physical Environment and Society, Rural Sociology, Urban Sociology, Municipal Management, and courses on architectural history and art history, such as the History of European and American Architecture, the History of Chinese Architecture, the History of European and American Paintings and sculpture, and the History of Chinese Paintings sculptures.29 Together with more narrowly specialized courses in the profession, these courses offered a comprehensive curriculum which offered students a rich knowledge in the fields of society, engineering, and art. The new curriculum was intended to stimulate the modern architect’s research interests and enhance his or her sense of social responsibility.30

Liang’s education reform only lasted from 1947 to 1952. After 1952, the Soviet model of higher education gradually became dominant in China. The mainstream architectural style in the Soviet Union during this period changed from constructivism to classicism. And the Soviet architectural education program also completely returned to the traditional system resting on an approach to architecture as one of the fine arts.31

Soviet experts such as A. S. Mukhin and E. A. Ashchepkov came to China and brought with them the concepts of Soviet architectural education. Soviet experts’ opinions became decisive in the formulation of the syllabuses in departments of architecture. Many colleges and universities adopted the architectural education system of the Soviet Union. The Department of Architecture at Tsinghua University gave up the newly adopted Bauhaus teaching mode and focused on principles of classical aesthetics.

Ashchepkov came to the Department of Architecture at Tsinghua University in 1952. He had developed an architecture curriculum in the Soviet Union in 1948, and he specified a new teaching plan with the reference to the “plan proposed in the summary of the Tenth Congress of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1951.”32 Drawing on the Soviet model, Tsinghua University revised the curriculum according to the template of the Moscow Institute of Architecture. The exploration of modern architectural education in Tsinghua was suspended.

Struggles to protect architectural heritage

Another one of Liang Sicheng’s contributions in the 1950s was to call for the protection of architectural heritage, particularly the old city of Beijing, also named Peiping before 1949. Since the tenth century AD, the city had served as the capital of China for five different dynasties. After having been chosen as the capital of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing faced the challenges of large-scale urban renewal to cope with the pressure of the official entry of the Central People’s Government.

In January 1949, Peiping was peacefully liberated, and most of the traditional architecture was saved from damage. What was even more valuable was Beijing’s overall layout as a traditional ancient capital. Liang repeatedly emphasized that Beijing’s special value lies first and foremost in its urban layout as a whole. For this reason, he suggested “first recognizing the excellent structure of Beijing City’s layout, and the architectural monuments in Beijing should be protected as a comprehensive system. They are the world’s best-preserved, most special, and most precious masterpieces of art.”33

After the government agencies moved into the city, the urban area of Peiping became crowded. Many palaces, temples and old buildings were in danger of being requisitioned by the government. Due to the lack of systemic regulations, the new construction work in Peiping was also in a disorderly state.

The protection of the old city of Beijing in the urban renewal plans was a foremost issue among Chinese experts and scholars. As a member of the newly established Peiping Urban Planning Committee, Liang wrote to the new mayor of the city in 1949, expressing his concerns about the disorderly development and putting forward suggestions on how to solve this problem.

In May 1949, the Peiping Municipal Government organized a meeting to discuss the plans for the new urban area in the western suburbs of Peiping. Liang Sicheng and other scholars were invited to the meeting. Liang pointed out that the administrative center of Peiping and the central government should be positioned in the new urban area in the western suburb. The old city of Beijing would thus be surrounded by the city wall, and the Forbidden City, which would be the center, would remain intact. The future development of Beijing, he felt, should be founded on this idea. The municipal government showed keen interest in the plan for the new western suburb at the meeting.

However, the situation changed when Soviet experts arrived in Peiping. In September 1949, the Soviet Union sent a group of 17 municipal experts led by P. V. Abramov to Peiping. Their goals were to guide the urban construction in Beijing, drawing on the experiences gathered during the construction or reconstruction of Soviet cities. The Peiping Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government quickly changed their opinion on the plan provided by Chinese scholars and agreed with the urban plan proposed by Soviet experts. One of the key changes made by the Soviet experts was the choice of the location of the administrative center. The new administrative center was set within the original urban area, more specifically, the new urban plan was set with the Forbidden City as the center.

At the city planning report meeting in November 1949, Liang Sicheng and other Chinese experts had an intense discussion on the report submitted by the Soviet experts. Liang Sicheng did not agree with the Soviet experts on multiple issues. The Soviet experts also expressed their opinions on the reports of Liang and sharply criticized him. Abramov claimed that his design ideas were based on the opinions of the leaders of the Communist Party of China. He criticized the European and American urban planning and heritage protection concepts reflected in Liang Sicheng’s speech. And he cited in particular the case of the reconstruction of Moscow as his supporting example to criticize Liang Sicheng’s idea of putting the new administrative center in the western suburbs in order to protect the old city of Beijing.

Liang Sicheng did not agree with the Soviet experts at the meeting. Regarding the importance and urgency of formulating an urban plan for Beijing, Liang and planning expert Chen Zhanxiang felt that it was necessary to express their understanding comprehensively in a detailed counterproposal. In February 1950, Liang and Chen completed the “Proposal on the Location of the Administrative Central District of the Central People’s Government,” which was later called the “Liang-Chen Proposal.” In this proposal, they offered a detailed urban plan for the new administrative central district in the western suburbs of the city.

To win more support, Liang and Chen printed more than 100 copies of the proposal at their own expense and distributed the copies among the officials of the Beijing Municipal Government. However, two months passed and they did not get any feedback. In April, Liang wrote to the Premier Zhou Enlai, hoping to gain an opportunity to introduce the proposal to him. He did not get any reply.

Over the course of the next few months, the Liang-Chen proposal drew criticism from different parties. The main accusation was that it was an objection to the opinions of Soviet experts. The attempt to build the new administrative center outside the old urban area of Beijing failed. In 1952, Soviet experts became the main sources of decisive guidance in all professions. Chinese experts such as Liang were marginalized.

The construction of the new administrative center in the old urban area of Beijing caused massive, chaotic upheaval. Many buildings that were part of China’s architectural heritage in Beijing were at risk. One demonstrative example was the demolition of the city wall of Beijing.

In Liang’s opinion, the city wall of Beijing was an important part of China’s cultural heritage as a whole. Liang had once provided a design to transform the old city wall into a high-rise park around the city. In his design, the main body of the city wall was preserved as a recreational area for the citizenry, and new city gates could be opened to adapt to new transportation demands. Regarding the protection of elements of China’s cultural heritage under the new construction project, Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin raised a number of objections in different forms. However, they often failed in their struggle. The city wall and many traditional buildings in Beijing were demolished in the later years.

Conclusion

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the study and struggle of the first generation of architectural historians showed many respectable qualities of Chinese scholars. They started their research as part of an effort to challenge Western and Japanese hegemonies. They introduced modern architectural education in China from abroad. In the 1930s, they investigated and surveyed a large number of Chinese architectural monuments and gardens to fight against prejudices in the international academic world against Chinese culture.

After the beginning of World War II, they struggled to continue their teaching and research under Japanese occupation. While their personal safety was threatened by the war, they strove to pursue their research and professional practice. They also managed to transfer their students and to continue their teaching.

After the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, they started the reform of architectural education and called for protection of important elements of China’s architectural and landscape heritage in the industrialization movement in the 1950s. The Liang-Chen Proposal, Liang’s urban planning proposal to preserve old Beijing, was turned down due to the objections made by Soviet experts. Liang protested many times against the demolition of important historical works of architecture.

Whether oppression came from the West, Japan, or the Soviet Union, the first-generation architectural historians in China always kept their independent mind and professional attitudes. They faced many setbacks in their efforts, but their research saved many historical works of architecture and important elements of cityscapes from been ruined by the war, both in China and Japan. Their surveys and investigations offered invaluable documentation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage that disappeared in the war and in the subsequent industrialization movements. Their ideas still play an important role in Chinese cultural heritage conservation today. They established the modern discipline of architecture in China. Their persisting struggle revealed the unyielding independence and dignity of modern Chinese intellectuals.

Bibliography

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Historians Resisting Tyranny: A Preliminary Evaluation

Antoon De Baets

University of Groningen

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 1  (2024):39-58 DOI 10.38145/2024.1.39

Since time immemorial, dictators have censored the writing of history and persecuted its practitioners. This policy of history censorship has had many effects, some of which were unintended, such as the development of strategies to counter the distortion of history. This essay therefore opens with a summary overview of the intended and unintended effects of the censorship of the science of history. Against this backdrop, the essay then focuses on one unintended effect of this censorship: resistance to the distortion of history. A tableau is given of the repertoires of available types of resistance under dictatorships and, for comparative purposes, in democracies. The essay uses these repertoires to analyze the resistance of the historians under dictatorships from four perspectives: actors (historians and others); conduct (acts and omissions), motives (ethical, moral, professional, and political), and impact (short-term and long-term). The essay is intended as a tribute, both to historians who once resisted tyrannical power and to historians who retell their stories as an inspiration for present and future battles.

Keywords: actors of resistance, conduct of resistance, censorship of history, professional solidarity, repertoires of resistance.

History says, Don’t hope

on this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

the longed-for tidal wave

of justice can rise up,

and hope and history rhyme.

Seamus Heaney1

You did not survive in order to live

your time is short you must bear witness

have courage when reason fails have courage

in the last count only that matters.

Zbigniew Herbert2

Introduction

Over the course of the ages, dictators have often censored historians, and this policy has had multiple intended and unintended effects. Some of the intended effects of censorship have undermined historical writing directly. Censorship produces a shredder effect, when it leads to the destruction of data, a distortion effect, when it falsifies or invents data, and an omission effect, when it conceals data.3 The cumulative result of these three effects is a survivorship bias at the level of sources and their analytical treatment: censorship distorts the overall record of the past.4 The intended effects of censorship may also undermine historical writing indirectly via the impact on historians and their audiences: censorship produces a corrupting effect,when historians are co-opted or seduced into collaborating with the repressive system or into tolerating its propaganda and distortions; a chilling effect, when it intimidates and deters the expression of opinions, meanwhile encouraging obedience and self-censorship in censored and third parties; an elimination effect, when it removes unwelcome critical actors from the historiographical scene, either temporarily or permanently; and a sterility effect, when the caricatural history created by censorship and propaganda discourages openness, diminishes creativity, and creates a credibility gap, provoking a crisis of public trust in historical writing which can last far beyond the abolition of the dictatorship and its censorship apparatus.

Censorship has unintended effects as well, that is, unintended by the dictators and their censors. These effects emanate from the targets of censorship and counter the intended effects. The most important direct unintended effect is the backfire effect, which emerges spontaneously when the weak credibility of official versions of history in nondemocratic regimes directs collective curiosity toward the historical taboos created by these regimes. Other direct unintended effects are less spontaneous and are rather a calculated product of individual and collective decisions to form counterstrategies to stop the assaults launched by power. They include a resistance effect, when historians oppose censorship privately or publicly, passively or actively; a solidarity effect,whenthird parties start supporting censored historians openly or covertly, materially or morally; a substitution effect, when novelists, poets, and filmmakers take the place of censored historians and become vicarious messengers of history; and a rescue effect, when censorship triggers attempts to save manuscripts, books, archives, and heritage at risk of destruction. Some direct unintended effects appear immediately after the collapse of a dictatorship, such as a restitution effect, when censored works are republished in their original versions, and a survival effect, when censored historians are rehabilitated after the abolition of censorship, leading to at least a partial restoration of the previous situation.

In the longer term, unintended indirect effects may also emerge: an integrity effect, when the distortions of history are exposed, thereby restoring intellectual honesty and protecting the integrity of history; a memory effect, when stories of resistance and courage in the face of censorship are told and retold and inspire; a therapeutic effect, when these stories suggest remedies to act; and, finally, a preventive effect, when the cumulative unintended effects of censorship help safeguard responsible notions of historical truth, reestablish public trust in history and prevent the recurrence of censorship.

In the following reflections, I examine ways in which historians have organized resistance to censorship under dictatorships all over the world since 1945, often at great risk. When battling tyranny, historians have of course been active in other roles, for instance as academics, journalists, politicians, and human rights and peace activists, but these kinds of roles are only relevant here to the extent that they have a clear link with the past. In addition, it is worth keeping in mind that resistance to censorship in the historical profession was usually the affair of a minority. This does not mean that the majority was a homogenous and willing mass. Some actively collaborated with the dictator, while others merely acquiesced to their fates. As we shall see, the historians who remained silent were the hardest to gauge.5

Readers who are looking for specific examples of acts of resistance by historians will be disappointed. I have given examples of such acts in abundance elsewhere.6 This time, my purpose is different. I reflect on the evidence on a global scale and embark on a preliminary attempt to evaluate the results of the resistance to the distortion of history, discussing in the process whether acts of resistance actually furthered the ultimate goal: saving the integrity of memory and history. First, I give an overview of the repertoires of available types of resistance to the distortion of history under dictatorships.7 In order to put this into a comparative context, I also review the repertoires of types of resistance used by historians against the distortion of history in democracies. I then discuss the resistance of historians from four perspectives: the actors of resistance (historians and others); the conduct of resistance (acts and omissions), the motives for resistance (ethical, moral, professional, and political), and the impact (short-term and long-term) of resistance.

Repertoires of Resistance to the Distortion of History under Dictatorships

In the following overview of the repertoires at the disposal of dissident historians to resist the distortion of history under dictatorships, twenty-five types of resistance are distinguished.8 They cover a broad range of activities in four concentric layers: resistance from prison, private resistance outside prison, public resistance outside prison, and, finally, outsider shows of solidarity, usually by actors living in democracies but sometimes also by people living under other dictatorships. The general line is to start with the more invisible and private activities and move gradually to more public and defiant ways of resistance, although it proved difficult to catch the diverse reality of resistance on a simple scale from invisibility to publicity.

Table 1. Repertoires of resistance to the distortion of history under dictatorships9

Resistance from prison. Prison may seem an unlikely place to start an overview of repertoires of forms of resistance, but there are relatively numerous reports about historians who read history in their cells and kept diaries or notebooks in which they penned thoughts of a historical nature. Some inmates who were not historians, when given the opportunity, were able to obtain history degrees through correspondence courses. A few authors drafted historical novels in prison, and others were able to conduct some historical research and work on historical manuscripts. A few also knew of channels with which they could smuggle their writings out of prison. Next to these usually solitary activities, there were also more interactive moments, for instance when detainees taught history to their fellow inmates. However, this happened only rarely.

Private resistance outside prison. One cannot save a profession when its professionals are left in the dark. Many historians living in repressive contexts have demonstrated solidarity with their persecuted colleagues and discreetly supported them. The Czechoslovak philosopher of history Jan Patočka, one of the dissident intellectuals who deeply thought about the phenomenon of resistance, called this the “solidarity of the shaken.”10 I call it “insider solidarity.”

At the level of historical knowledge, academics, teachers, and students were sometimes able to organize petitions to rescue innovative history textbooks or to protest against biased ones. When circumstances allowed, historians who were internally displaced in times of civil war helped set up refugee campuses in remote areas of their home countries. Occasionally, archival information was smuggled abroad. Undercover teaching and unofficial lectures during secret seminars were options in several countries. This secret teaching and lecturing sometimes spilled over into unofficial discussions held on a small scale in private homes. These informal gatherings were the metaphorical oxygen which sustained underground historical writing in many dictatorships.

Dissident historical research could take different shapes. Some historians witnessed the repression unfolding before their eyes and documented it as eyewitnesses in real time to rescue sources and create a basis for future study. Another mode of resistance was the secret collection and analysis of data, for example by copying documents clandestinely. Not surprisingly, such covert research concentrated on the blank spots of history. In semi-repressive or politically hybrid contexts, it was sometimes even possible to publish reports about the repression experienced by the historical profession. A few historians became attracted to the gray zones, blank spots, and black holes of censorship and shifted their research toward the historical taboos, or if they had already made these areas the focus of their work, then they stubbornly refused to shift away from them or to withdraw into safer spaces of research. Writing about the past to critically comment on the present was a frequent technique of historical analogy which was intended to call telling precedents to mind to arouse historical consciousness and briefly create a sense of connection over time. Numerous historians preferred to publish their manuscripts in self-made editions and distribute them in small underground circles.

Public resistance outside prison. Some historians opted for public confrontation with tyranny by attacking, if not destroying, the historical myths that buttressed dictatorial power. They openly doubted the authenticity of ancient legends that supported the legitimacy of the authoritarian political system, and they endured much hostility for having done so. Others criticized the official rewriting of history with its blank spots by publicly and directly advocating a right to historical truth and by defending the intrinsic value of the methodical search for such truth. Another powerful public tool was the organization of peaceful public commemorations, for example, at the foot of a well-known monument, on a significant historical anniversary, or during the funeral of a colleague or public figure. If these kinds of commemorations served as rallying points for political opposition, they were frequently perceived as threats to the public order.

Sometimes, historians secretly collected sources to indict the leaders of their countries in the hopes of someday even seeing them actually be prosecuted. In some countries, appeals were issued to prosecute deceased leaders for the human rights violations that they had ordered or committed during their rule. Though legally impossible (since the dead cannot be indicted or prosecuted), such appeals were nevertheless powerful history lessons. Surprisingly enough, there were several such calls to indict deceased leaders, and some even led to posthumous trials against deceased heads of state.11

On multiple occasions, dissidents emphasized the unbreakable bond between a free and responsible historical profession and democracy, arguing that a democratic society alone respects the human rights necessary to allow the historical profession to thrive. Some even sent dramatic appeals to the head of state with complaints about the deplorable conditions of the historical profession. If the letters were private, they could be neglected, though they could also spark harassment of and persecution against their authors; if these letters were (or became) public or when they were cast and distributed as public memoranda, they often made retaliation against their authors unavoidable if the regime did not want to lose face, though this was a risky strategy that could backfire.

Some historians defied the repression of their craft by making gestures of disobedience calculated for maximum symbolic impact. They usually proceeded by surprise, and mostly at great personal sacrifice. In this sense, giving public talks with a critical approach to history was often an act of bravery. Resigning from one’s job or position or refusing to sign a loyalty declaration or take a loyalty oath to the ruling elite or ideology were other signs of courage.

Sometimes resistance came with a delay, when a single copy of a book believed to be entirely destroyed suddenly emerged after years or decades and led to reprints. Likewise, now and then, manuscripts that had been thought lost were rediscovered. Although often the product of coincidence but not infrequently also of secret rescue plans, such discoveries offer us glimpses of the survival and rescue effects and the subtle satisfaction of delayed revenge. We could call this resistance after the fact.

Outsider solidarity. If historians living under dictatorial regimes dared take advantage of international conferences abroad as platforms to publicize their plight, they faced expulsion or charges of “enemy propaganda” or “treason” upon their return, if they were allowed re-entry at all. When we turn our attention to the historians who lived in exile, we see that many of them smuggled sources and works from abroad back home or stayed discreetly in contact with those left behind via networks of messengers. A significant minority of these exiled historians established publication outlets and historical institutions abroad, including study centers and universities in exile, to make the critical voices about the history of their home countries heard. Much of this work was public and sometimes highly visible. The same could be said about signs of moral or material solidarity by diaspora historians with their persecuted compatriots, such as signing petitions in protest against the dictatorship’s history politics or as part of efforts to boost the morale of those left behind.

Many of these types of resistance to dictatorships were strengthened by tokens of professional solidarity in democratic or even in other dictatorial countries. This outsider solidarity was not free of risk. The harshest punishment for historians living in democracies who wished to help repressed colleagues living under dictatorships was to end up on a visa blacklist, which in many cases forced them to change specialisms or even careers. As a sign of moral solidarity, some waged campaigns for their persecuted colleagues, for instance by signing petitions and statements or writing letters of protest to repressive authorities.12 National history associations sometimes refused to send their delegates to conferences in problematic countries, and international history associations could block certain countries from acting as hosts for their congresses. Some scholars resigned their membership in foreign academies or returned distinctions. And many historians used their freedom to write or teach uninhibitedly about the controversial aspects, blank spots, and falsified histories of tyrannical regimes. These gestures were signs of moral and symbolic solidarity.

Some went further and organized forms of material solidarity by creating safe havens in democratic countries. Much cultural heritage was safeguarded in this way, including archives. Material solidarity also extended to people. When they were lucky, refugee historians were offered a welcome and sometimes employment upon arrival in their host countries. In short, transnational networks of solidarity played their own role in the history of resistance.

The repertoires of resistance under dictatorships presented above need further refinement and are far from exhaustive. Nevertheless, as they are based on dozens of post-1945 examples collected from all over the world, they should give a reliable picture of the tools available to historians living under repressive regimes. How many historians actually used them depended on many variables, such as the intensity and duration of the dictatorship, the strength of its repression apparatus, the population size and mobilization power of the historical community and institutions, and the connections this community had with the outside world. In the case of the more public activities identified above, we are certainly talking about a small minority of historians in any given dictatorship.

Repertoires of Resistance to the Distortion of History in Democracies

It would be a serious mistake to believe that democracies were immune to assaults on the integrity of history and memory—and that the historians in these democracies were therefore unfamiliar with the phenomenon of resistance. The difference with dictatorships is not that democracies endure fewer attacks on the historical profession but that these attacks are less devastating in their effects and are usually countered at an early stage and with less fear of retaliation. The paramount cause for this difference is, of course, the stronger position of the right to freedom of expression in democracies.

In myriad ways, historians living in democracies could and did actively contribute to the creation of a domestic and global climate in which history is studied responsibly. The following bird eye’s view of seventeen modalities gives an impression of the array of tools at their disposal.

Table 2. Repertoires of resistance to the distortion of history in democracies13

The search for historical truth so central to the work of historians harbors several dimensions of resistance. Some overlap, such as, for example, the refutation of historical myths, historical disinformation, and propaganda on the one hand and the fight against the intentional denial of corroborated past genocides and other crimes on the other. The uncontested proliferation of myth, falsity, and denial, especially online, undermines society’s trust in the reliable knowledge produced by responsible history practitioners. Another dimension starts from the premise that it is the task of the community of historians to study the past in its entirety, including its dark episodes. If this premise is valid, it follows that it is historians’ collective duty to pay due attention to the taboos of history and areas of history shrouded in secrecy.

Explicit and structural attention to the ethical and moral dimensions of historical scholarship is often still lacking in scores of academic history curricula, yet where it is taught, it can contribute powerfully to a climate of responsible history. Part of this dimension lies in developing an awareness of the presence of abuses of history and of the different modes of opposing them: prevention, investigation, disclosure, and sanction.

Campaigning for effective laws that encourage freedom of expression, freedom of information, and archival access is a long-term legal strategy which requires perseverance. Denouncing laws with provisions that unreasonably limit access to records is usually part of this strategy. More generally, any laws that produce chilling effects on the freedom of expression about the past (for example, defamation laws that impose criminal sanctions or disproportional damages) should be denounced. The tendency of states to promulgate memory laws that prescribe the desired content of historical debate and/or proscribe alternative views of the past also inhibits a broad understanding of the past from multiple perspectives. It is a sign of the judicialization of historical content and should be opposed.

Action can shift from the legal to the political level. Attempts of the government to interfere with history works it has itself commissioned should be and have been opposed. The refusal to sign loyalty declarations or take loyalty oaths was another strategy. Historians living in emerging democracies that have to deal with a repressive past of lies and secrecy may fulfill a political duty by participating in initiatives that foster transitional justice (historians’ commissions, truth commissions, tribunals, reparation and reconciliation efforts). One poignant part of this effort could be a soul-searching operation into the role of the historical profession in the previous era of repression and violence accompanied, if need be, by public apologies for its mistakes and distortions.

Recent historical injustice can be tackled with measures that fit the United Nations Reparation Principles. These principles distinguish five types of reparation: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, prevention, and satisfaction.14 The last type, satisfaction or symbolic reparation, in particular is relevant to the field of memory and history. It includes measures such as truth-finding, the search for dead bodies, posthumous rehabilitation, official apologies, commemorations, and history education about the violent episodes of the past. The number of websites dedicated to historians who suffered political repression and lost their lives is increasing.15

Outsider solidarity with those persecuted under dictatorships connects resistance under dictatorships with resistance in democracies. Similarly, solidarity can also be openly shown with domestic colleagues who have been attacked or unjustly penalized or dismissed.

Scores of historians have participated in one or several of these resistance acts in democratic contexts. The democratic repertoire is discussed here mainly for comparative purposes, as the differences between forms of resistance under dictatorships and forms of resistance in democracies are large.

Actors of Resistance

The repertoires of types of resistance available under dictatorships will now be analyzed from four perspectives: agency, conduct, motivation, and impact. The purpose of this analysis is to answer the question whether resistance to the distortion of history under dictatorships, as part of the wider history of resistance and freedom, made any difference. Let us first look again at the actors in the four layers of resistance: resistance from prison, private resistance outside prison, public resistance outside prison, and outsider solidarity.

Resistance from prison constitutes a special category. Doing historical research and writing history from prison, if tolerated at all, were survival strategies first of all, devised as a means of somehow giving long and tedious prison years a purpose. Resistance to the system was usually a secondary effect here. Teaching history in prison, because of its direct effect upon other inmates, served resistance purposes most. If works written in prison had any resistance effect after their publication outside prison, it was usually unintended at the moment of their creation, and the effect always came later. This did not prevent some historical works from causing a stir upon publication, not the least because of the special appeal that works written in prison have. Some became bestsellers.

Outside prison, modalities for resistance were greater, although in repressive societies the margins of freedom remained narrow and fragile. It is difficult to tell whether resistance to censorship performed outside prison generally made a difference. Private resistance was often invisible except among the smallest of circles. This makes any evaluation of its frequency and importance impossible. Public resistance regularly produced a rescue effect: the mission to safeguard sources, works, and monuments could be fulfilled in a variety of ways. When publicly protesting historians were silenced, often the substitution effect came into play. Novelists, playwrights, journalists, storytellers, and singers then took care of suppressed historical interpretations, sheltering them and keeping them alive when collective memory was in danger of extinction because the silenced and silent historians were not able to refute the heralded truths of official historical propaganda.

In addition, historians sometimes acted without intending to be part of any form of resistance, although their conduct could be or was interpreted as such. Many historians who were in prison or who remained in the privacy of their homes did not particularly identify themselves as opponents of the system. In a dictatorial context, however, merely performing the role of a professional scholar (methodically and responsibly collecting and analyzing past data, no matter where this led) was already a very political act. This is so because the scholar’s findings, when disclosed, are received in a nervous political atmosphere in which they risk rejection, regardless of the scholar’s intentions. All historians, including the most apolitical, knew that they were putting themselves in danger merely by practicing their profession in an uncompromisingly responsible manner.

If we leave the repressive context and look at outsider solidarity (i.e. gestures of moral and material solidarity made in other countries), we can speculate with a little more certainty. The success of outsider solidarity was heavily influenced by factors such as the strength of the historical craft in the country before it succumbed to tyranny; the continuity, once the dictatorship was installed, of pre-existing networks with the outside world; and the historical ties between assisting and receiving countries. But displays of solidarity always had something unpredictable: depending on political or other fashions, some countries, some historiographical traditions, some individuals, and some works aroused more sympathy than others.

If we look at the four groups of resisters more generally as intellectuals, they can enrich typologies and theories about intellectuals,16 whether or not the latter are construed according to criteria such as independence from authorities, visibility in public forums, intentionality and intensity of activity, or levels of professional, political, and social engagement. This is so because the repertoires do not show that resistance is necessarily the opposite of the ruling power. Rather, it can pervade all segments of society, including government itself. Leading intellectuals, court historians, and official historians often had small margins of freedom and criticism, and some skillfully exploited these margins, tweaked too much rigidity, or tolerated niches of resistance in and outside the official historiographical bureaucracy. Purely instrumental views of these historians as willing tools of the regime fail. Even intellectuals close to the centers of power could operate in a resistance mode now and then.

Conduct of Resistance

Any analysis of the conduct of resistance should begin with some caveats about the role of silences, the selectivity of data, and the low comparability of resistance types. To begin with, the notion of “conduct of resistance” should not be interpreted too narrowly. Resistance is usually expressed as an act. However, precisely in situations of repression, disagreement and resistance can also be expressed as an omission rather than an act, for example, when historians refuse to comply with an order or when they meet dictatorial orders with indifference, if not passive resistance. Now and then, silences are telling.17

In the same way, not all conduct of resistance is analyzed here. Many stories were not included in the database that constitutes the basis for this evaluation because they were unknown (either generally or by me). The low-profile character of private, anonymous, or pseudonymous resistance is the primary reason why much relevant conduct remains invisible. In addition, many historians very likely took care to erase all or most traces of their resistance out of safety concerns. Were these unnoticed gestures of resistance done in vain and doomed to oblivion? Do acts of resistance have to be witnessed in order to be meaningful? The answer is that every act of resistance is witnessed by at least one person, namely the actor. Any act, however small and difficult to trace, could linger on, sometimes for a fleeting moment, sometimes for years, in the mind of its creator at least, who may have felt heartened by it. Or it may have been noticed by a few others and inspired them instantly or long after the fact. Therefore, even hidden or quasi-invisible acts or gestures of resistance are meaningful. Despite this, it remains true that a regime paradox is at work: given the unequal tolerance of criticism in different regimes, there is less information about more resistance in dictatorial societies and more information about less resistance in democratic societies.

Finally, types of resistance are difficult to compare, as they span a multi-faceted spectrum of private and public activities, from silent support for clandestine acts to symbolic gestures and occasional contributions to acts of open defiance. Some acts consisted of small offstage acts done without fanfare and often hidden behind a screen of ambiguity or silence, while others required public bravery or quixotry. Some were spontaneous, occurring in a flash, while others were carefully planned or deliberately provocative and continued for years.

With these caveats in mind, it is possible to draw three cautious conclusions about the conduct of resistance. The first regards the specificity of history as compared to other scientific disciplines. Although the types of anti-dictatorial resistance presented here were deployed in the realms of history and memory, most could serve mutatis mutandis as resistance formats for other scientific disciplines as well. Helping someone flee a country, for example, basically involved a range of acts regardless of whether the refugee was a historian, a sociologist, or another type of scholar. Very few types of resistance seem unique to the historical profession, though these types include the subversive use of historical analogies to convey covert criticism of present-day politics, the brave exposure of historical taboos and myths, the courageous plea in defense of the basic principle of historical truth, and the somewhat odd practice of bringing accusations or charges against deceased leaders. These types of resistance are difficult to replicate in other disciplines.

A second conclusion is that inspiration for resistance can circulate among countries and across eras. An excellent example illustrating both is the organization of clandestine history classes or underground history seminars. This was a typically Polish medium of resistance under Russian rule before World War I, under German rule during World War II, and under Soviet rule between 1977 and 1989. In neighboring countries of the post-1945 Eastern European bloc, similar initiatives popped up. Likewise, the samizdat version of resistance, while not absent in the rest of the world, is typically associated with anti-communist resistance in the USSR and its satellite states.

Finally, the question arises as to what extent the modes of resistance under dictatorships and democracies were comparable. Undoubtedly, a similar spirit of courage and perseverance pervades the acts in both regime types, although the risks were evidently extremely unequal. Under dictatorships, the main problem for resisters is to invent ways to circumvent the repressive apparatus. The suppression of history not only engenders infertility (referred to as the sterility effect in the introduction) but also stimulates its opposite, the creativity to escape control, although sometimes only at the cost of a huge investment of effort. The preferred environment to perform acts of resistance seems to be a small community or network, either clandestine or not, with a minimum of interaction with the outside world.

In democracies, the threat of repressive power is generally low (but certainly not non-existent) and the challenges are comparatively less exacting. The spheres of action the study of which is complicated under dictatorships (prison and private activities) are less important in democracies, because there are fewer historians in prison and people have fewer reasons not to speak in public. Paradoxically, however, the larger freedom in democracies seems to generate a greater variety of forces that can impose restraints upon historians. Under dictatorships, the pattern is clear, at least in principle: the powers that restrict the historians’ work are the dictator and his apparatus of formal institutions (including the parliament, the courts, the leading political party, the police, military, and security, and the censorship bureau) and informal means (thugs and death squads operating in the shadows). In democracies, states can impede historians directly or indirectly (although in less violent ways and less unchecked than their counterparts under dictatorships), but the censorial role of semi-public and private lobbies, groups, and individuals is potentially larger. The paramount difference between the two regime types for the successful organization of resistance in the fields of memory and history, then, is the degree of freedom of expression, including the ability to conduct open, adversarial debates about the past.

Another thought worth pondering is the plight of historians in societies that are in transition from dictatorship to democracy. A counterintuitive observation is that the life of a historian in a time of transition may be riskier than in a time of dictatorship. Entrenched dictatorships, because they wield ruthless power, firmly deter and block incriminating historical research. In contrast, freer conditions in emergent democracies prompt or encourage bold historical research into the crimes of previous dictatorships or into past instances of systemic violence. However, in these transitional times, the safety conditions are usually weak, transforming historians into targets of the military and allies of the military who seek to install or restore authoritarian rule. Consequently, strategies of resistance are precarious even under circumstances in which expectations and perspectives for better professional lives rapidly increase.

Motives for Resistance

When we ask why some historians feel the need to express criticism under circumstances of persecution and censorship, many motives play a role or act together, but the most important ones are ethical, moral, professional, and political.18 Each motive serves different purposes, but the boundaries between them are fluid.

Ethical motives reflect the question of how to live a good life. Resisters have ethical motives if they follow their conscience and act regardless of how others behave. At a certain moment, they have decided that the situation is unbearable, and they want to express their protest (cautiously or recklessly) even if they are the only ones and regardless of examples, followers, and consequences. Some perform small gestures to illustrate principles, while others risk their jobs or lives.

Moral motives reflect the question of how to behave toward others. Resisters have moral motives if they aim to inspire and mobilize others to support them silently (passive resistance) or to follow their example openly (active resistance) and together form an expanding pool of protest.

If historians act for what they call professional motives, these motives are usually a combination of ethical and moral reasons applied to the historian’s craft. Resisters have professional motives if they think that professional duties (such as sincerity and accuracy), professional standards of methodology (such as following the rules of logic), and professional procedures (such as peer review and debate) have to be respected and protected at all costs and/or to set an example for present and future generations. Convinced of the professional and social importance of a responsibly produced history or judging that the attack on the integrity of memory and history or the injustice done to historians has become unbearable, they act out of principle and/or with the intention of inspiring others.

Sometimes, political motives come on top of the other reasons. They reflect the determination to influence and change the political system. Resisters have political motives if they aim to criticize the political system with a view to change it radically. Whereas in a democratic context change means perfecting the system, in a dictatorial context, change means replacing it.

Impact of Resistance

Given the heterogeneity in terms of agency, conduct, and motivation, how can we evaluate the impact of resistance to the distortion of history under dictatorships? A necessary step is to distinguish immediate and remote impact. It is too simple to evaluate resistance only in the short term, that is, when the dictatorship is nascent or unfolding or at the moment of its downfall. We should also measure the less visible long-term impact on the psychological condition of all those involved, including contemporaries and future observers.

Turning to the short term, one can take the pessimistic or the optimistic view. One must admit that, from a pessimistic perspective, resistance did not (and simply could not) counterbalance systemic violence and organized attacks on the historical profession. Dictatorships ruined much of the historical profession with ruthless power. We will never know which historical sources and facts, and which innovative interpretations and arguments about the past, were lost forever when and because historians were persecuted.19 In many cases, it took years, if not generations, to rebuild only partly what was torn asunder. And often losses and disappearances were irreparable.

From an optimistic perspective, the harvest of resistance is rich: in the end, much was also saved at the material level of archives, manuscripts, works, monuments, and education, as well as at the symbolic level of principles and values. Attacks were countered, secrets uncovered, distortions denounced, indifference neutralized, sterility fertilized, distrust disarmed, and principles affirmed, with timidity or with confidence.

Looking at the long term, a surprising number of acts of resistance inspired and became examples or precedents of moral courage. Two types in particular, it seems to me, have this special potential. The first is when the resisters proceeded as they thought they should in order to exercise their craft responsibly with reckless disregard of warnings and consequences and without chasing any effects. The second special type of resistance which gets easily etched in memory occurs when the act was performed with a certain bravado, for example, when daring historical analogies were used or when historians began reorienting their work toward the eras and topics considered taboo. Something extraordinary happens when a given conduct transforms into example and precedent: the epistemological status of that conduct alters under the gaze of those watching it because more information on how to live can be extracted from it.

Once instances of moral courage are perceived as examples or precedents, they comfort those who otherwise feel alone and powerless in the same or in similar repressive contexts. Likewise, they can enlighten future generations as precedents long after the events to which they refer have disappeared. As long as stories of commitment and integrity are told and retold or even only fleetingly referred to, they inspire hope and pride, not only in the spur of the moment but also over time. In short, they create a memory effect. One then feels part of a proud tradition of holding the standards of scholarly integrity aloft in the face of likely censorship. This is a tradition to be aware of, to care for, and to strengthen. The memory effect of resistance, either in its immediate or remote form, is an underestimated force. This article aspires to be part of that memory effect: it is a tribute both to those historians who once resisted tyrannical power and to those who retell their stories as an inspiration for present and future battles.

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