Borinage

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The Borinage is an industrial landscape around the city of Mons in the Belgian province of Hainaut . Since the 18th century it was one of the most important coal mining areas in Europe.

The name of the region is derived from borin or borain , a French word for mate . The suffix -age here denotes a collective , on the one hand, but also has a thoroughly pejorative connotation.

history

19th century

In the 19th century, the Borinage grew to become the most important industrial center in Wallonia alongside Charleroi . At the end of the 1820s, the Borinage produced almost 1.3 million tons of coal, more than Germany and France combined. The harsh living conditions of the miners impressed Vincent van Gogh , who after his time as assistant preacher in the Borinage (around 1879) decided to become a painter.

The Borinage became a stronghold of the Belgian labor movement. When the Belgian parliament rejected a bill that would have introduced universal suffrage and thus also given the borains a vote, a general strike began in the Borinage on April 12, 1893 (French: Grève générale de 1893 ); the 'Garde civique' was used against him. On April 15, the strike spread in Belgium. On April 17, clashes broke out in several places in Belgium, including Brussels, Mons and Antwerp, in which several strikers were killed. On the same day the miners from Jemappes marched towards Mons. They were shot at by soldiers; seven borains died. Thereupon the Parti Socialiste Belge (PSB) decided to hold its program party congress in the Borinage, in Quaregnon , the following year ; the 1894 party program became known as the Quaregnon Charter .

The Borinage in the Great Depression

The world economic crisis hit the Borinage hard. Thousands of miners were unemployed. Joris Ivens and Henri Storck showed the hardship of the miner's families, but also their resilience during and after the strike of 1932, in their documentary Misère au Borinage ( Misère au Borinage), shot in 1932/1933 and shown for the first time in 1934 . Just as outstanding as this cinematic portrait of the people in the Borinage is the photographic testimony of Sasha Stone . The sociologist and historian Guillaume Jacquemyns researched the consequences of poverty in a groundbreaking study, comparable to the study Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal by Marie Jahoda and Paul Felix Lazarsfeld . The report of the same name by Egon Erwin Kisch made the Borinage known in German-speaking countries.

The era of colliery closings from 1959

After a temporary upswing thanks to the war economy and a surge in demand in the post-war period, it was obvious in the mid-1950s that the mining industry in Borinage had got into an even deeper crisis than the economic crisis after 1929, namely a structural crisis. Due to geological conditions, the mining conditions became more and more difficult (the best deposits were mostly mined), the extraction costs were correspondingly high. The lean coal mainly mined in the borinage cost around 40% more than Ruhr coal of the same quality in 1959. So it was hardly in demand on the market. Systems for coal refinement - such as briquette factories or coking plants - were almost completely missing. Expert opinions of the European Coal and Steel Community ("Montan-Union"), founded in 1951 by six countries (including Belgium) , a nucleus of the later EU, also referred to the hindrance to the fragmentation of the minefields and the ownership of collieries. Of the five Belgian coal mining areas that were producing at that time, the Montan Union only considered the Limburg hard coal area to be competitive, but not the borinage.

On February 9, 1959, the National Coal Council recommended the closure of ten mines in the Borinage district; this should drag on for two years. At that time it was planned to transfer the workforce (altogether 6500 men) to other collieries or suitable jobs. An Action Commune quickly formed in the Borinage , calling on all miners to go on a wildcat strike . They demanded the nationalization of the mines. Two days later the strike hit the neighboring La Louvière district ; At the end of February, almost all of the Belgian mining industry was shut down.

Since the last mines closed in the 1960s - despite the resistance of the miners - the region has had the highest unemployment in Belgium.

literature

  • Egon Erwin Kisch : Borinage, Quadruple Classical Land (1934). In: Ders .: Der rasende Reporter , Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 1953, pp. 9–29.
  • Maurice Arnould: L'Histoire du Borinage . Librairie encyclopédique, Brussels 1951.
  • Constant Malva: Choses et gens de la bure et du Borinage . Plein Chant, Bassac 1985.
  • Alain Audin: Mons-Borinage . Paul Legrain, Brussels 1989.
  • Jean Puissant: L'Évolution du mouvement ouvrier socialiste dans le Borinage . Palais des Académies, Brussels 1982. ISBN 2-8031-0031-2 .

Movie

  • Joris Ivens / Henri Storck: Elend in der Borinage , 28 min, b / w (shot 1932/33, published 1934, set to music in 1963).

Web links

Commons : Borinage  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ^ Adriaan Linters: Architecture industrial en Belgique , Pierre Mardaga, Liège 1986, ISBN 2-87009-284-9
  2. ↑ Arthur Sundstedt: Friend of the Poor - Vincent van Gogh. His life as an evangelist among the Borinage miners . Christian publishing house, Konstanz 1990. ISBN 3-7673-7088-3 .
  3. ↑ Léon Fourmanoit: Des luttes, des hommes, et du Borinage. 1910-1925 chronique . Presse d'Impricoop, Cuesmes 1981.
  4. ↑ Newspaper report from April 20, 1893 (English)
  5. ↑ Bert Hogenkamp: De mijnwerkersstaking van 1932 en de film van Joris Ivens en Henri Storck . Van Gennep, Amsterdam 1983. ISBN 90-6012-538-X .
  6. ↑ Birgit Hammers: The forgotten photographer. Sasha Stone and the Borinage . In: Photo history. Contributions to the history and aesthetics of photography . Vol. 32 (2012), Issue 123, pp. 37-50.
  7. ^ Guillaume Jacquemyns: La vie sociale dans le Borinage houiller. Notes, statistiques, monographies . G. van Campenhout, Brussels 1939.
  8. ↑ Dieter Schlenstedt : On "Belgium's coal country" and "Borinage, four-fold classic country". In: Weimar Contributions. Journal for literary studies, aesthetics and cultural studies. Vol. 31 (1985), pp. 630-646.
  9. ↑ Jens Dither von Bandemer: Problems of hard coal mining. The relocation of workers and production in the Borinage Basin . Dissertation University of Basel 1961.
  10. ↑ Der Spiegel 9/1959: The end of the closed season .
  11. ↑ European Coal and Steel Community, High Authority (ed.): Study of the economic development of the Charleroi, Center and Borinage areas . Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg 1962.
  12. ^ Commission of the European Communities (ed.): Conversion of the coal mines in the Belgian areas (Borinage, Center, Charleroi, Basse-Sambre and Liège) . Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg 1972.
  13. ↑ That ?? Drama of the Borinage. The conflict in the Belgian coal region . In: Social Democratic Press Service of February 18, 1959, pp. 2–3.