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The German glasses of Goeverneur. Cultural transfer in De Huisvriend, 1843-1871
What was the leading foreign language and culture in The Netherlands during the eighteenth and nineteenth century? French, say a number of researchers. Others emphasise the importance of the German culture, at least in the ‘long’ eighteenth century, when – in the words of Leemans – ‘the German translating machine’ worked overtime. Did the machine stop after 1840? When did the English language and culture gain the upper hand? And how best to answer such questions? As a result of developments on the World Wide Web a type of transfer research is now possible which until recently was inconceivable: that of finding the sources of translated works in nineteenth century periodicals. From the analysis of the content of the widely read and respected one-man periodical De Huisvriend, started in 1843, it appears that for personal and practical, as well as financial reasons, editor Goeverneur used German sources almost exclusively, more specifically: German-language journals in which he recognised his antiliberal ideal of the ‘citizen’. The results cast doubt on the opinion of De Swaan and others that French was the exclusive transnational language of art and literature well into the nineteenth century.