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Jacob Burckhardt: The Cultural Historian as Political Thinker

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Richard F. Sigurdson
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Extract

This article argues, contrary to the analyses of many scholars, that the political thought of the nineteenth-century Swiss cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt is neither frivolous nor irrelevant. More specifically, this essay combines biographical information about Burckhardt with an analysis of his major writings in order to challenge the notion that Burckhardt was simply a cultural historian and not a serious political thinker. The central teaching of Burckhardt's life is that the intellectual in mass society can best serve the community, not by direct political participation, but by working for the intellectual, aesthetic, and moral cultivation of the individual. The central teachings of his political writings are that “great men” often rule but unjustly, that successful leaders approach politics as a “work of art” and master the devices necessary to shape their subjects, that culture should not be subordinated to the state, and finally that individualism, class conflict, mass democracy, and the erosion of culture are both unfortunate and inevitable aspects of modernity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , Summer 1990 , pp. 417 - 440
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1990

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References

Notes

1. A fine exception appeared in this journal exactly fifty years ago. See, Salomon, Albert, “Crisis, History and the Image of Man” Review of Politics 2 (1940): 415–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Still, Burckhardt easily qualified for inclusion in a series of articles on “Neglected Political Authors.” See, Mommsen, Wolfgang, “Jacob Burckhardt — Defender of Culture and Prophet of Doom,” Government and Opposition 18:4 (Autumn 1983): 458–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other recent discussions of Burckhardt as a political thinker include Charles O'brien, H., “Jacob Burckhardt: The Historian as Socratic Humanist,” The Journal of Thought 16:4 (1981);Google ScholarRusen, Jorn, “Jacob Burckhardt: Political Standpoint and Historical Insight on the Borders of Postmodernism,” History and Theory 24:3 (1985);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sax, Benjamin C., “State and Culture in the Thought of Jacob Burckhardt,” Annals of Scholarship 3:4 (1985): 1–35.Google Scholar

2. The outstanding example of this is Werner Kaegi's massive seven-volume study of Burckhardt's life, Jacob Burckhardt, eine Biographie (Basel, 1947–1982), which does not examine sufficiently the two main sources of Burckhardt's later views on politics: i.e., the lectures on the study of history and the letters to Friedrich von Preen, a friend in the German civil service. See also, Löwith, Karl, Jacob Burckhardt: der Mensch inmitten der Geschichte (1936; rpt. Stuttgart, 1966)Google Scholar, which portrays Burckhardt sympathetically as an advocate of apolitical contemplation. Of equal influence is Freidrich Meinecke's assertion that Burckhardt's cultural concerns are entirely in opposition to the political interests of Ranke, Droysen, Treitschke and Dilthey; see, “Ranke and Burckhardt,” the English translation of his 1948 address to the Academy, German of Sciences, in German History: Some New German Views ed. by Kohn, Hans (Boston: Beacon Press, 1954): 141–56.Google Scholar Others have proposed similar interpretations. For Thompson, J. W., Burckhardt is an “ardent aesthete” uninterested in politics, see A History of Historical Writing, II (New York: Macmillan Company, 1942): 452–55.Google Scholar And for Levi, A. W., aesthetic concerns trump moral or political ones at every turn in Burckhardt's thought; see, Humanism and Politics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969): 192–203.Google Scholar

3. See, for instance, Wilkins, Burleigh Taylor, “Some Notes on Burckhardt,” Journal of the History of Ideas 20:1 (01 1959): 123–37;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNichols's, James Hastings introduction to Jacob Burckhardt, Force and Freedom: Reflections on History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964): 3–76;Google ScholarTrevor-roper, Hugh, “Jacob Burckhardt,” Proceedings of the Royal British Academy 70 (1984): 359–78;Google Scholar and Dietze's, Gottfried introduction to Jacob Burckhardt, Reflections on History (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1979): 9–26Google Scholar (quotations and page numbers in the text are from this edition of the Reflections).

4. In an emotional letter, Burckhardt confessed that he had been convinced by Wilhelm De Wette, his theology professor, that the life of Christ was a myth. From then on, Burckhardt was to consider himself an “honest heretic” — i.e., he still had prayer, but there was no revelation. Letter to Riggenbach, Johannes, 28 08 1838, in The Letters of Jacob Burckhardt, ed. and trans. by Dru, Alexander (New York: Pantheon Books, 1955), pp. 35–37.Google Scholar

5. Letter to Burckhardt, Louise, 15 08 1840, Letters, p. 58.Google Scholar

6. Letter to Burckhardt, Louise, 5 04 1841, Letters, p. 60.Google Scholar

7. See, Nurdin, Jean, “Jacob Burckhardt et le refus de la modernité,” Revue d'Allemagne 14:1 (1982): 89.Google Scholar

8. See, Dürr's, Emil explanatory introduction to his, Jacob Burckhardt als politischer Publizist: Mit seinen Zeitungsberichten aus den Jahren 1844/45 (Zūrich, 1937), pp. 7–20.Google Scholar

9. Letter to Kinkel, Gottfried, 21 04 1944, Letters, p. 91.Google Scholar

10. Burckhardt, , in Dūrr, Burckhardt als Publizist, p. 17.Google Scholar

11. On this point see, O'brien, , “Socratic Humanist,” pp. 51–52.Google Scholar

12. Letter to Kinkel, Gottfried, 28 06 1845, Letters, p. 94.Google Scholar

13. Letter to Kinkel, Gottfried, 18 04 1845, Letters, p. 93Google Scholar; see also letter to Hermann Schauenburg, 5 05 1846, Ibid., p. 97.

14. Letter to Kinkel, Gottfried, 12 09 1846, cited in Gitermann, Valentin, Jacob Burckhardt als Politischer Denker (Wiesbaden, 1957), p. 24.Google Scholar

15. Letter to Kinkel, Gottfried, 28 06 1845, Letters, pp. 94–95.Google Scholar

16. Letter to Kinkel, Gottfried, 10 12 1846, Letters, p. 103.Google Scholar

17. Letter to Schauenburg, Hermann, 28 02 1846, in Letters, p. 96.Google Scholar

18. Quoted approvingly by Rūsen, , “On the Borders of Postmodernism,” p. 246.Google Scholar “We have to learn,” Rüsen adds, “that the culture critique from this point of view is a hidden ally of the disaster it laments.”

19. White, Hayden, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth–Century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), p. 236.Google Scholar

20. Reflections, p. 37.

21. Letter to Schauenburg, Hermann, 5 05 1846, Letters, p. 97Google Scholar

22. On this point see, O'brien, , “Socratic Humanist,” pp. 57–63.Google Scholar

23. Age of Constantine, trans. Hadas, Moses (New York, 1949; rpt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).Google Scholar

24. Perhaps, as Peter Gay intimates, that is because the book is “Burckhardt's final reckoning with Christianity, a personal debate with a personal adversary. It stands against piety, edification, and hypocrisy. It is the last reverberation of a private struggle that Burckhardt, had fought out years before in his correspondence and in family discussions” (Style in History [New York: Basic Books, 1974], p. 166).Google Scholar

25. “In an age less unusual Constantine similarly endowed would hardly have attained such historical significance…. But since ‘the power of fate’ placed him at the border of two world epochs and in addition granted him a long rein, it was possible for his qualities as a leader to manifest themselves in much greater variety” (Constantine, p. 336).

26. Reflections, p. 292.

27. Constantine, p. 293.

28. Gay, , Style in History, p. 167.Google Scholar

29. Constantine, p. 293.

30. Reflections, 326–27.

31. Reflections, p. 330.

32. Reflections, p. 332.

33. Reflections, p. 333.

34. Civilization, trans. Middlemore, S. G. C. with introduction by Nelson, Benjamin and Trinkaus, Charles, 2 vol., illustrated ed. (New York: Harper, 1958).Google Scholar

35. For analysis of this thesis and its reception see, Ferguson, Wallace K., The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), chaps. 7–10, 179–328;Google Scholar the Nelson, and Trinkaus, introduction to Jacob Burckhardt, Civilization, pp. 3–19;Google ScholarMuseum of Art, University of Kansas, Jacob Burckhardt and the Renaissance: 100 Years Later (Lawrence, 1960)Google Scholar; Hays, Denys, “Burckhardt's ‘Renaissance': 1860–1960,” History Today 10:1 (01 1960): 14–23;Google ScholarBaron, Hans, “Burckhardt's ‘Civilization of the Renaissance’ a Century after its Publication,” Renaissance News 13:3 (1961): 207–222;CrossRefGoogle ScholarJanssen, E. M., Jacob Burckhardt und die Renaissance (Assen, Netherlands, 1970);Google ScholarRalph, Philip Lee, The Renaissance in Perspective (New York: St. Martin's, 1973);Google Scholar and Kerrigan, William and Braden, Gordon, The Idea of the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

36. Civilization, I: 143.

37. Ibid., p. 22.

38. As many commentators have pointed out, Burckhardt's phrase, “Der Staat als Kunstwerk,” brings to mind the title of Hegel's section on the Greeks, “Das politische Kunstwerk,” in his Philosophy of History. For a critical discussion of the similarities between Burckhardt's cultural history and Hegel's philosophy see, Gombrich, E. H., Ideals and Idols: Essays on Values in History and in Art (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979), pp. 34–42;Google Scholar and Heftrich, Eckhard, Hegel und Jacob Burckhardt (Frankfurt, 1967).Google Scholar

39. Civilization, I: 126–42.Google Scholar For a commentary see, Kingdon, Robert M., “The Continuing Utility of Burckhardt's Thought on Renaissance Politics,” in Burckhardt and the Renaissance: 100 Years Later, pp. 7–13.Google Scholar

40. See, for example, Singleton, Charles S., “The Perspective of Art,” The Kenyon Review 15:2 (Spring 1953): 169–89.Google Scholar

41. Kerrigan, and Braden, , Idea of the Renaissance, p. 55.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., p. 56.

43. Civilization, 2: 442.Google Scholar

44. Nelson, and Trinkaus, , introduction to Civilization, p.19.Google Scholar

45. Historical Fragments, trans. Zohn, Harry as judgements on History and Historians (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958).Google Scholar Cf. Ziegler, Ernst, Jacob Burckhardts Vorlesung über die Geschichte des Revolutionszeitalters: In den Nachschriften seiner Zuhörer. Rekonstruktion des gesprochenen Wortlautes (Basel, 1974).Google Scholar

46. The History of Greek Culture, trans, by Hilty, Palmer (New York, 1963)Google Scholar, is an English version of the 2 vol., abridged German edition. The important introduction to the lectures has, unfortunately, been left out of the English edition. The full work appears in Jacob Burckhardt, Gesamtausgabe, vols. 8–11, ed. Stähelin, Felix (Leipzig, 1930).Google Scholar

47. Reflections, p. 179.

48. In English see, Recollections of Rubens, trans. Hottinger, M. (New York and London: Phaidon, 1978);Google ScholarThe Cicerone: An Art Guide to Painting in Italy, trans. Clough, A. H. (New York and London: John Murray, 1979);Google ScholarThe Architecture of the Italian Renaissance, trans. Palmes, James and ed. Murray, Peter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985);Google Scholar and The Altarpiece in Renaissance Italy, trans, and ed. Humphrey, Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

49. In the introduction to Greek Culture he declares that, “it is the special duty of the educated [das Gebildete] to gain as complete a knowledge as possible of the development of culture; this distinguishes man as a conscious human being from the unconscious barbarian” (Gesamtausgabe, 8: 10).

50. On this point see, Weintraub, KarlVisions of Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 126–37;Google Scholar and Sax, , “State and Culture,” p. 22.Google Scholar

51. Thus David Gross notes a third use of culture in Burckhardt's term Kulturfaulnis —“decadent culture” or what we would call “mass culture.” This sort of culture, Gross explains, “was manufactured for the majority and was designed merely to entertain or titillate, not to elevate.” See, “Jacob Burckhardt and the Critique of Mass Society,” European Studies Review 8:4 (10 1978): 398.Google Scholar

52. Reflections, p. 60.

53. Reflections, p. 139.

54. Reflections: 138–39.

55. Judgements, p. 24; see also Reflections, p. 38: “they are barbarians because they have no history, and vice versa.”

56. Gross, , “Critique of Mass Society,” p. 397.Google Scholar

57. Kuczynski, , Die Muse und der Historiker (Berlin, DDR, 1974), p. 20 and p. 26.Google Scholar The more orthodox Marxist line on Burckhardt can be found in Wenzel, Johannes, Jacob Burckhardt in der Krise seiner Zeit (Berlin, DDR, 1967).Google Scholar

58. Kuczynski, , Die Muse, pp. 20–21.Google Scholar Kuczynski further suggests (p. 19) that Burckhardt's teaching about the state and power renders him “totally unsuitable” to the ideological requirements of the contemporary German bourgeoisie. Burckhardt would have opposed not only the Nazi regime, as numerous bourgeois commentators have indicated, but also the presently resurgent Federal Republic. He would, for instance, align himself with those forces which today are against military aggression and the proliferation of atomic weapons.

59. Mommsen, , “Defender of Culture and Prophet of Doom,” p. 473.Google Scholar

60. See, Giner, Salvador, Mass Society (London: Academic Press, 1976), p. 187.Google Scholar

61. Letter to Schauenburg, Hermann, 5 05 1846, Letters, p. 97.Google Scholar

62. Reflections, p. 126.

63. See, for example, Zeeden, Ernst Walter, “Der Historiker als Kritiker und Prophet,” Die Welt als Geschichte 11:3 (1951): 154–73.Google Scholar

64. Judgements, p. 204.

65. Reflections, p. 205.

66. Letter to Preen, Friedrich Von, 2 07 1871, Letters, p. 147.Google Scholar

67. Judgements, p. 213.

68. Reflections, p. 217.

69. Judgements, p. 214.

70. Judgements, 203–20.

71. Letter to Alioth, Max, 10 09 1881, Letters, p. 205.Google Scholar

72. Letter to Preen, Friedrich Von, 1 05 1881, Letters, p. 202.Google Scholar

73. 28 June 1872, Letters, p. 152.

74. Niebuhr, Reinhold, “The Historian as Prophet,” The Nation 156 (10 04 1943): 531.Google Scholar

75. Reflections, p. 40.