Band 295, Heft 2 -

The phenomenon of chance in ancient historiography has not yet been exhaustively explored. Using the example of Herodotus, we show how a fictional historiography works validating the expectation that historical consistency is always a construction and how a quite complex theory of historical hermeneutics is contained in the text without direct explication. Herodotus assigns an important heuristic place in historical judgments to chance and contingency. In his work he prominently describes random coincidences of geographically separate events: For example, in his narrative the battles of Salamis in Greece and of Himera in Sicily, distinct events at different geographical locations, were fought on the same day 480 BC.  Similarly, the battles at Plataea and Mycale in 479 BC also took place on the same day, and in addition both at a sanctuary of Demeter. In this narrative Herodotus combines the perspective of his protagonists with the ex-post perspective of the historian. He does this by combining unexpected and surprising events representing chance as random coincidences for the involved protagonists with the explanatory force of historical hindsight from a later context. What appears for the protagonist as chance, the historian transforms into a normative structure (thus narratively useful) of his history. Thus, the historiographical method of Herodotus unmasks chance of its character as merely accidental and assigns chance a place in the process of history.

William Penn’s „An Essay Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe; by the Establishment of an European Dyet, Parliament, Or Estates“ of 1693 belongs to the core canon of texts envisioning European integration. Still, Penn’s work is difficult to assess, particularly if one is interested in the author’s motives for writing the essay. This article provides the first thorough analysis of these questions. It demonstrates that alongside idealistic motives Penn was reacting to very concrete political problems of his time. Moreover, it reveals that Penn was pursuing tangible private interests, as the essay was also an attempt to redeem himself after supporting the losing side in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Finally, the article contextualizes Penn’s essay with his extra-European experiences. It demonstrates that his extended stay in America left only a very indirect mark on his deliberations. All in all, Penn appears to have been more Eurocentric than existing research has it; the article shows that Penn contributed a great deal to establishing Eurocentrism in the first place.

The period 1789–1815 was characterised by „regime change“. New states experienced a profound deficit in legitimacy. In the long term, nationalisms drawing on memories of the period eliminated the deficit. However, in the period itself, other strategies needed to be devised. Enlightenment thinkers had done much to undermine traditional ceremonial. For French revolutionaries, elaborate ceremonial was suspect in that it reinforced the perception that the state stood above its subjects, something that went against their idea of citizenship. However, practical experience of government after 1789 generated a renewed appreciation of the importance of „signs“ in making the state visible. This thinking lay behind the elaborate representational strategies introduced by the Napoleonic state after 1799. In terms of content, the new ceremonial took inspiration not only from themes pertaining to the history of France, but also of the wider French Empire, including the Rhineland. „Borrowings“ from the imperial periphery helped stabilise the centre. It would be misleading, however, to view Napoleonic ceremonial merely as a „top-down“ imposition, designed to overawe ordinary people. Paradoxically, it also provided humble administrés , including marginalised groups like women and Jews, with an opportunity to publicly assert a status that was in other respects denied them. Ultimately, the Napoleonic state’s strategy of representing itself might be dismissed as a failure: after all, the regime fell in 1815. However, this in itself does not discredit Napoleonic methods, as can be seen in the Rhenish context by comparison with the representational deficit that characterised the following Prussian period.

The article explores the thesis that imaginary landscapes can serve as projection screens for concepts of social order and the future of a people. Thus, historians should not attempt to free supposedly „authentic“ landscape images from stereotypes and ideological „distortions“ but investigate these projections in terms of their functions. Imagining a „German“, a „pre-modern“ or a „wild“ landscape serves as a means to naturalise specific ideas of a desired social or political order. Even the „mission“ to realise these ideas can be assigned to a landscape; it then is stylised as a downright actor in history. At the same time, such imaginations often become realised in (landscape) architecture. This connection has to be considered as a multi-layered phenomenon that changes over time and yields different (political) effects. Using the example of the Middle Rhine one aspect of this connection will be discussed. Based on late 20 th century’s culture-pessimistic positions I will ask about the role that (proto-) industrial modernity has played in descriptions of the Rhine since the late 18 th century. It will become clear that the river was read as a – respectively different – chain of signs with which modernity was imagined in a medium called „Rhine“. The comparison of different authors and tourist guides will show that the Rhine’s romantic quality, which is emphasised today, was never pitted against the artefacts and impacts of industrial modernity. On the contrary: during the inter-war period they merged and thus helped to stylise the Middle Rhine as an actor in the national battle against France. The „authentic“, pre-modern Rhine – in contrast – is only an imagination of post-war Germany when the past was romanticised.