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Displaying the Nation: A View of Nineteenth-Century Monuments through a Popular Magazine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Kirsten Belgum
Kirsten Belgum
Affiliation:
University of Texas Austin, Tex
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Extract

National identity is a complex political equation that is nevertheless often represented in a single image. Historically, nation-states have erected monuments to display their power and legitimacy in material form. Yet, despite their apparent physical stability, the meaning of such structures is subject to alteration and reinterpretation. Thus they provide the intriguing possibility of exploring the ambiguities that emerge when a multi-dimensional social phenomenon like the nation is given a unified representation.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 457 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1993

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References

I would like to thank David Crew, Ann Cvetkovich, Michael Hanchard, Irene Kacandes, Rudy Koshar, Anne Norton, and Forrest Novy for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.

1. Nipperdey, Thomas, “Nationalidee und Nationaldenkmal in Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift 206 (1968): 529–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although he advises against drawing parallels between styles in the monuments and specific political significance, Nipperdey outlines a series of typological attributions that are based on a combination of thematic and formal aspects of the monuments. Yet, in presenting a typology of national structures from the nineteenth century, Nipperdey allows for what he calls an unevenness or irregularity of artistic development.

2. Mosse, George, The Nationalization of the Masses (New York, 1975)Google Scholar. Mosse's attention to the use of these structures has inspired similar investigations of folk culture in the national context. See Sprengel, Peter, “Die inszenierte Nation. Festspiele der Kaiserzeit,” Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 40 (1990): 257–78.Google Scholar

3. See Tittel, Lutz, Das Niederwalddenkmal. 1871–1883 (Hildesheim, 1979);Google ScholarNockemann, Georg, Hermannsdenkmal Lemgo, 1975);Google ScholarSchmidt, Hans, Das Hermannsdenkmal im Spiegel der Welt (Dentmold, n.d.).Google Scholar

4. Schmidt, Hermannsdenkmal, 42–43.

5. Anderson cites the spread of printing and the codification of vernacular languages as necessary preconditions for a truly national communication that first occurred in novels and the press. Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1983).Google Scholar

6. Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, 1983), 19–38.Google Scholar These notions also play a major role in Hobsbawm, Eric, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” in Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), 1–14.Google Scholar See also Hobsbawm, Eric, Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge, 1990).Google Scholar

7. Die Gartenlaube was first published in 1853. Although the magazine continued to appear until 1937 (reappearing from 1938–1944 as Die neue Gartenlaube), this essay deals only with its first thirty years of publication, years that were for the most part guided by the first editor and publisher Ernst Keil. All translations into English are by the author.

8. These publication numbers were three to four times higher than for other major illustrated magazines such as Westermanns Monatshefte, Illustrirte Zeitung, Über Land und Meer, and Daheim. The Gartenlaube itself often referred to its growing circulation as evidence of its popularity (over all competitors) and of its ability to satisfy the interests of its audience. The most reliable source for the Gartenlaube's circulation is Kirschstein, Eva-Annemarie, Die Familienzeitschrift. Ihre Entwicklung und Bedeutung für die deutsche Presse (Berlin, 1936).Google Scholar For more circulation statistics see Kirchner, Joachim, “Redaktion und Publikum. Gedanken zur Gestaltung der Massenpresse im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Publizistik 5, 6 (1960), 469–70.Google Scholar

9. Rosenstrauch cites the rather high estimate of 5 million (which would presume fifteen readers of each copy). Rosenstrauch, Hazel E., “Zum Beispiel Die Gartenlaube,” in Rucktäschl, Annamaria and Zimmermann, Hans Dieter, ed., Trivialliteratur, (Munich, 1976), 178.Google Scholar A more conservative estimate might be 2 million, which would constitute approximately 5 percent of the national population of 40 million. Nipperdey has estimated a potential readership of 2 million, but his source for this is not given. See Nipperdey, Thomas, Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866. Bürgerwelt und starker Staat (Munich, 1983), 593.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. The national significance of these other subjects in the magazine is the focus of a larger work in progress.

11. Fränkel, Albert, “Ernst Keil. Ein Lebens- und Charakterbild,” Gartenlaube (1878): 570.Google Scholar For a summary of Keil's early involvement in the press and his initial conception of the Gartenlaube see Feisskohl, Karl, Ernst Keils publizistische Wirksamkeit und Bedeutung (Stuttgart, 1914).Google Scholar

12. The term is Nipperdey's, “Nationalidee,” 551–59. The Gartenlaube discussed monuments in honor of Goethe and Schiller (1857); Kant (1858); Luther (1861), (1867), (1868); Carl Maria von Weber (1862); Schiller alone (1863); Gellert (1865); and Hans Sachs (1868).

13. In the Gartenlaube in 1861, 1863, and 1868, respectively.

14. The magazine pursued some continuity in celebrating older liberal heroes by promoting the statues for Jahn (1872) and Waldeck (1876).

15. Gruppe provides a convincing chronology of the magazine's political tendencies. See Gruppe, Heidemarie, “Volk zwischen Politik und Idylle in der “Gartenlaube 1853–1914 (Frankfurt am Main, 1976), 24.Google Scholar She distinguishes between the traditional liberalism of the period 1853–1870, the national-liberalism of 1871–1878, and the general conservative position of the magazine after Keil's death in 1878.

16. These monuments were discussed and depicted on pages 48–50, 311–16, and 441–45, respectively. The Hermannsdenkmal in the Teutoburg Forest was planned as early as the 1830s, begun in the 1840s, and even discussed in the pages of the Gartenlaube in the 1850s and 1860s, but only in the context of the new Kaiserreich did it receive frequent and extensive attention and become part of the magazine's own construction of the nation.

17. Gartenlaube 20 (1872): 48.Google Scholar See Tittel, Niederwalddenkmal, 1.

18. The weeklies Daheim and Illustrirte Zeitung also commented on the monuments. Monthly magazines, however, such as Westermanns Monatshefte, devoted little space to current events, including the construction and unveiling of monuments, probably due to their inattention to current events in general.

19. Gartenlaube 20 (1872): 314.Google Scholar

20. Gartenlaube 20 (1872): 316.Google Scholar

21. Heyl's early essay in the Rheinischer Kurier (13 April 1871) inspired local and national officials to form committees for the construction of a national monument. See Tittel, Niederwalddenkmal, 4–8. Not surprisingly the language Heyl used in the Gartenlaube essays is similar to that in his earlier Rheinischer Kurier essay that pleaded for the construction of such a monument.

22. Gartenlaube 22 (1874): 536.Google Scholar

23. Gartenlaube 20 (1872): 441–44.Google Scholar

24. The magazine's presentation of monuments was thorough. In the last decade of the century, the Gartenlaube discussed Bismarck monuments in nine articles and devoted three to the Kyffhäuser monument and several to other monuments honoring Kaiser Wilhelm I.

25. Tittel has pointed out that the popularity of “Die Wacht am Rhein” during and after 1870 was indicative of the central role of the Rhine river in a national German consciousness. Tittel, Niederwalddenkmal, 4.

26. The magazine also presented its readers with depictions of the Siegessäule and Friedenssäule on the Augustusplatz in Leipzig, Gartenlaube 24 (1876): 635–37 and 642Google Scholar, and the Siegesmonument in Freiburg (Gartenlaube 25 (1877): 713 and 716).Google Scholar

27. Gartenlaube 20 (1872): 48–50.Google Scholar

28. The same strategy appeared in the Leipzig Illustrirte Zeitung, a weekly smaller in size but with more current events and a greater percentage of illustrations than the Gartenlaube. The cover picture of the issue of 7 August 1875 depicted the immense head of the statue resting on the ground. It dwarfs Bandel, who stands with hammer in hand next to it and beside an even smaller model of the entire piece. Illustrirte Zeitung 65 (1875): 97.Google Scholar

29. Gartenlaube 31 (1883): 635 and 638.Google Scholar

30. “But the trip is supposed to be complicated by numerous difficulties; never before have so many immense and weighty pieces been transported by German trains.” Gartenlaube 31 (1883): 552.Google Scholar

31. Gartenlaube 31 (1883): 553.Google Scholar

32. A similar, but much more explicitly jingoistic centerfold poster of the Hermannsdenkmal appeared in the Illustrirte Zeitung in 1875. Using emblems to encircle the image of the monument, it equated the Rome vanquished by Hermann with the Paris defeated by contemporary Germany. Supplement to issue from 7 August of the Illustrirte Zeitung 65 (1875).Google Scholar

33. The Gartenlaube's own display competed with other reproductions of the national monuments. Replicas could be acquired at the site or purchased through the popular press. Ads for miniature copies of the Niederwald monument in a range of sizes (and including a clock if desired) appeared in the Illustrirte Zeitung. Depicted in Tittel, Niederwalddenkmal, 190.

34. Gartenlaube 32 (1884): 668.Google Scholar

35. Gartenlaube 23 (1875): 360.Google Scholar

36. Gartenlaube 23 (1875): 555.Google Scholar

37. Homi K. Bhabha describes the narration of the nation more explicitly as “complex strategies of cultural identification and discursive address that function in the name of ‘the people’ or ‘the nation’ and make them the immanent subjects and objects of a range of social and literary narratives.” See his “Dissemi-Nation: Time, Narrative and the Margins of the Modern Nation” in Bhabha, Homi K., ed., Narration and the Nation (London, 1990), 292.Google Scholar

38. Gartenlaube 23 (1875): 642.Google Scholar

39. Gartenlaube 23 (1875): 638.Google Scholar

40. Agulhon, Maurice, Marianne into Battle: Republican Imagery and Symbolism in France 1789–1880 (Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar

41. Reinhart Koselleck explores the historically constant function of war memorials in his essay “Kriegerdenkmale als Identitätsstiftungen der Überlebenden,” in Marquarda, Odo and Stierle, Karlheinz, eds., Identität (Munich, 1979), 255–75.Google Scholar Using quite a different set of materials Thomas Laqueur has suggested that through the naming that occurs in the production of a monument to the fallen hero “a space is created in which those left behind remake their lives and culture by infusing meaning into the inert, meaningless, interchangeable remains of the dead.” From an unpublished paper presented at the “Pomp and Circumstance Conference” at MIT, May 1–2, 1992.