Bulletin n. 1/2017
June 2017
INDICE
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Bouwers Eveline G.
    Das Nationaldenkmal als Projektionsfläche. Eine großdeutsche Geschichtsidee von der Romantik bis zur Wiedervereinigung
    in Historische Zeitschrift , Volume 304, Issue 2 (Apr 2017) ,  2017 ,  332-370
    The National Monument as a Space of Cultural Projection: A Greater-German Historical Vision from the Romantic Era to Reunification Abstract During the inauguration of the Walhalla in 1842, King Ludwig I of Bavaria spoke of his hope that “the German will exit it more German, better than when he came”. Writer Karl Gutzkow, however, denounced the Walhalla as a cultural memorial calling it instead the “private chapel of an individual”. This article explores how such divergent evaluations of the Walhalla came into being and how the growing collection of busts related to the changing images of Germany. By way of a long-term perspective – marked by the fall of the monarchy, the end of the NS-era, and German reunification – it shows that even if the Walhalla was time and again touted as a “national monument”, it often represented an understanding of the German nation that due to the manifold of national ideas could neither be enforced nor represent the majority. It was not just the repeated references to the Christian-Catholic Abendland, to the Great-German idea with Bavaria at is centre, and to patriarchy, but also the symbolic suppression of important episodes in German history such as the Reformation and the Holocaust that created a rift between the commemorated and other public concepts of the nation. Indeed, the historical narrative on display in the Walhalla was appropriated by Ludwig, and subsequently by those who were in charge of the admission of new busts after his death, such as the state council, the Reich chancellery, and the Bavarian ministry. While this article shows, through an analysis of the collection of busts against its socio-political backdrop, the altogether peripheral status of the Walhalla within the German monumental landscape, it simultaneously queries the suitability of the concept “national monument” when used for commemorative cultures that were impressed by particularistic interests and individual actors.
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