oa ‘Waer vriendenmin gaet, hand aen hand, met liefde voor het Vaderland’

Singing Politics. Political song and collective singing practices during the Dutch revolutionary period (1780-1815)

In the Dutch revolutionary period of the late eighteenth century, song was often used as a political tool to construct communities that shared interests, ideologies, and feelings. Abstract feelings of unity were made concrete through the experience of collective singing. Despite being continuously employed as a unifying practice, the ways of singing and the feelings that were involved nevertheless changed in accordance with the turbulent circumstances of the time – from the emergence of the Patriots, to the Batavian Revolution, throughout the Napoleonic years, and towards the establishment of a Dutch monarchy. This essay goes beyond analysing songs as textual sources and investigates when, where, and by whom these songs were sung. By approaching the collective singing of political communities as emotional practices, we can develop a new perspective on this episode of Dutch history, in which we acknowledge the feelings and experiences of the historical actors that shaped the developments of that time.