Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 126, Nummer 3, 2013

In the third century the Roman Empire was under threat. In reaction emperors appealed to the unity of the realm, and epigraphic evidence testifies to an increasing awareness of the Empire as a whole. Military problems forced emperors to be increasingly absent from Rome, caused a rapid changeover of emperors, and consequently diminished the power of individual rulers. This seems to have had remarkably little impact on the central position that emperors occupied in the eyes of their subjects. However, the increased absence of emperors from Rome, and more importantly their presence at the local level, did change the way in which this central position was portrayed and perceived. Support from armies and provincial elites became more prominent and was more openly expressed. At the same time an analysis of third-century imperial coinage also indicates a changing portrayal of the relationship between the emperor and the city of Rome. This article discusses the (perceived) relationship between the emperor and the various groups within the Roman empire in the third century in terms of the relation between Empire, emperor, and the city which gave its name to the realm.

In order to modify a well-known thesis that relates early modern notions of original sin to the development of science, this article compares the views of Augustine and Melanchthon on original sin, on knowledge in general, and on the importance of natureknowledge in particular. Both Augustine and Melanchthon make man fully responsible for his sinfulness, but Augustine does this by placing sin wholly in the immaterial soul, whereas Melanchthon implicates the body in human sinfulness. Both agree that knowledge does not bring salvation, but that it does bring discipline; while for Augustine this function depends on knowledge being not about the external world but about eternal truths, according to Melanchthon the methodical study of nature provides us with important insight into our sinfulness. This difference is crucial to their evaluation of specific scientific disciplines.

This article shows how decadentism and radical nationalism clashed and combined in the life and works of Gabriele D’Annunzio. Usually D’Annunzio is either dissociated from fascism because of his decadent and elitist sensibilities or seen as one of its great forerunners who largely abandoned his decadentism. In contrast to both these approaches, this article highlights the fascist motives in D’Annunzio’s thought and political practice that arose from the complex relationship between decadentism and nationalism. In D’Annunzio’s life and works the ideal of the autonomous artist, as well as the decadent fascination for corruption, for the subjection of women, and for the destructive beauty of Medusa, fused in a paradoxical and fascist way with nationalistic aspirations and longings for vitality. Although this article thus addresses fascist motives in D’Annunzio’s decadent nationalism, it also reveals substantial differences between D’Annunzio’s art and political practice on the one hand and the spirit of Mussolini’s regime on the other.

After Hitler came to power thousands of people left Germany and many of them moved to the Netherlands. Among them was Helmuth Plessner, who – in Nazi terms – was a Half-Jew and was therefore deprived of his professorship at the University of Cologne. The University of Groningen offered him refuge. Plessner was one of the most important German philosophers of the twentieth century and a founder of philosophical anthropology. This article surveys his life and works, and explores the impact of this period of exile on his philosophy and his thinking about Germany. Plessner’s experience as a philosopher exiled in the Netherlands is also used to challenge some assumptions about integration and intellectual assimilation that pervade exile studies. Hitherto this branch of study has drawn conclusions from studies on German and Austrian scholars emigrating to Anglo-Saxon countries, especially the United States. However, this article examines the life of a scholar who lived in exile in the Netherlands and assesses whether the experience was different for scholars who did not leave the European continent.

The Polish independent trade union Solidarność appeared in a time of rising tension between East and West. This created a dilemma for Western left-wing movements: maintain solidarity with the Polish workers or continue the détente policy of the 1970s? The Dutch social democratic party PvdA and the largest trade union confederation FNV both dealt with this dilemma in their own way. In the PvdA the events caused a fierce debate between ‘solidarists’ and ‘détentists’. In the FNV on the other hand solidarity and détente were not seen as mutually exclusive. Both organisations, however, did not want to harm the détente dialogue with those in power in Eastern Europe, seeing this as a necessary basis for the disarmament talks between East and West. Détente considerations were very similar in both organisations, but the process and outcome were not. The FNV sought to maintain its position as an institutionalised, well-regulated organisation. In this way it could organise contacts and provide useful help, but mainly during the months that Solidarność was legal. The PvdA acted spontaneously in a more ad hoc fashion, with little success in Poland, but better outcomes elsewhere.

Biographies of kings and queens have often been considered a discredited historiographical genre, particularly in the Netherlands, but wrongly so. The dynastic international networks of monarchs and their role in politics provide fascinating insights into national and transnational political history, changing social relations, and the cultivation of rituals. This article outlines the positive appraisal of the royal biography since the late 1980s in the Netherlands, and elaborates more generally what this genre offers to the historiography of political culture. Two recent studies illustrate this: Cees Fasseur’s biography of Queen Wilhelmina (2012) - a short and updated version of his earlier published biography of the Dutch Queen - and the extensive biography of the Belgium King Leopold I (2011) by Gita Deneckere. These two biographies also highlight the paradox of the immense popularity of hereditary monarchy in modern democracies, and how these monarchies adapt to new circumstances and appeal to the imagination of the masses.

This article is a critical review of the historical study ‘Wij weten niets van hun lot.’ Gewone Nederlanders en de Holocaust (‘We know nothing about their fate.’ Ordinary Dutchmen and the Holocaust’, 2012) by Bart van der Boom. Based on the reading of Jewish and non-Jewish war diaries, the Dutch historian Van der Boom claims bystanders and accomplices were not indifferent to the fate of Jews. They were just as obedient or cooperative as Jews because they were unaware of the unfolding Holocaust. According to Van der Boom the ‘guilty bystander’ does not exist. In our article we criticize the argument of Van der Boom and oppose particularly the tendency in the book to equate the situation of Jews with that of the non-Jewish population. We also challenge his interpretation of diaries, his dismissal of the role of antisemitism and the problems involving hiding, as well as his definitions of the Holocaust and ‘knowledge’.