Workshop Choral Societies and Nationalist Mobilization in the 19th Century

National movements in nineteenth-century Europe were carried to an important extent by convivial sociability and cultural interests. A good example is furnished by the rise and function of male choirs from ca. 1810 onwards. Starting from initial foundational centres such as Berlin and Zurich, they obtained rapid popularity, proliferated by inspiring new foundations in an increasing number of cities, then established contacts and federative structures by means of trans-local, regional or nationwide festivals. Most German-speaking cities had their Gesangverein or Liedertafel by 1840, and the formula developed in many other European countries as well. In some of them (e.g., Wales and Estonia) choirs and choral festivals became an important vehicle for the assertion of a separate national identity, carried by large demotic sections of the population.

In spite of its wide-spread popularity and socio-political importance in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Europe, remarkably little attention has been given to this phenomenon by either cultural historians or musicologists.

The workshop is jointly hosted by NISE and SPIN and will take place in Antwerp. The programme has been finalized, no more papers will be accepted, but interested auditors are invited to register: info@spinnet.eu.

In the mid-to-late nineteenth century, male choirs were a feature of public life from Spain to Ireland and Wales and from Estonia to Transylvania. It affected large as well as small countries, established states as well as emergent nationalities. These choirs emphasized, in their choice of repertoire, patriotically-minded songs, which came to be composed in great number for them; conversely, they participated in public festivals and commemorations to add a nationally-inspired lustre to them (e.g. the Schiller commemoration in Stuttgart 1839, and the large choral festivals of Estonia). They galvanized or mobilized the active male part of the population with national fervour at a period before mass media and transregional communication reached full development.

Romantic Rhine Travels

On 21 and 22 October a workshop will be held initiating a thematic research group on the Rhine as a cultural space in romantic nationalism. The participants will discuss the testimonies of generations of travellers from different countries and from different ideological persuasions form Byron to Schlegel and from Arndt to Victor Hugo. A new multinational body of evidence will hence be given on the new investment of the Rhine with both cultural and political meanings.

In the decades around 1800, the Rhine valley became an increasingly prominent feature in travels and travel accounts. As the mode of travel itself underwent a change from the educational Grand Tour to the romantic  pilgrimage-quest for emotional authenticity, the Rhine valley became more than merely a passage between the Alps and the North-Sea, or between Berlin and Paris: travellers began to find in its picturesque landscape, medieval ruins and quaint twons a lieu de mémoire. A hidden valley perpetuating a true medieval-Gothic cultural continuum and harmoniuous between settlement and landscape.

A the same time, the Rhine's geopolitical importance in the Revolutaionary and Napoleon wars and the post-Napoleonic restauration invested it with the fateful ambivalance of being seen either as Germany's borderland or Germany's artery. Access to, and control over, was claimed by all its contiguous states.

This workshop is the initial meeting of what is proposed as a thematic research group on 'The Rhine as a cultural space in romantic nationalism, see: Rhine research group

Linguistic Revival Movements in Europe

On 3-4 June a workshop was held at the Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms in Amsterdam regarding language revivalism that emerged in Europe in the wake of Romantic Nationalism (1810-1880). Possibilities for establishing a research network were explored as well as means for applying for European funding. A comparative workshop will be organized in Maynooth (Ireland) next year.

Programme