Philhellenism

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The "Temple of Fame" Walhalla , built in Bavaria from 1830 to 1842 based on the model of the Parthenon in Athens, is an architectural example of Ludwig I's philhellenism.

The philhellenism ( German : "friendship with the Greek") is used to refer to people who work for the Greek or feel spiritually united with Greece. Such chronologically distant people as the Roman poet Seneca and the Emperor Hadrian or the American-French director Jules Dassin referred to themselves as Philhellenes . The term is often used to describe the movement of the Philhellenes .

The Philhellenic Movement

The Philhellenic movement was a neo-humanist intellectual current that found following in Europe and even North America in the 1820s . In terms of the history of ideas , philhellenism, like the German enthusiasm for Poland, was a counter-movement to the restoration . One center was Geneva .

The philhellenes it was mostly young men of aristocratic origins and classical education that are as representative and guardian of a great ancient considered civilization and felt called according to the descendants of the ancient Greeks in the struggle for independence against the Ottoman Empire to help. Many of them even joined the troops in the course of the Greek Revolution and took part in battles like Lord Byron .

Many Philhellenes were friends with Greeks abroad or, through contact with Greeks, developed a keen interest in Greek culture in general.

The cultural effects of philhellenism were also heavily criticized, for example by Friedrich Paulsen , who successfully campaigned for the strengthening of the modern language grammar school. A fundamental work is Eliza Marian Butler's The Tyranny of Greece over Germany . Butler described and disseminated the importance of German philhellenism for the English-speaking world. The book itself received devastating reviews in Germany in 1935 and translation was banned. Even after 1945, Butler's German studies were hardly received in Germany. An extension to the foreign and cultural-political role comes from, among others, Suzanne L. Marchand .

history

In August 1821, the revolution had already lasted four months, the first philhellenic organization was founded in Bern . In Germany, Munich had become a metropolis of philhellenism. Here Professor Franz Xaver von Baader headed an important philhellenic society. His colleague, the Bavarian philologist and princess educator Friedrich Wilhelm von Thiersch , advocated the establishment of a “German Legion” that Hellas should support. On August 1, 1821, Prof. Krug published his "Call to the German citizens to form aid associations for Greece" and just two days later the first association with 100 members was founded in Stuttgart. From then on, this was the most important association; further associations and branches were founded in large cities. Jean-Gabriel Eynard made contact with the Greek government. Many club members learned modern Greek or organized "expeditions" to Greece. The movement found supporters even in the highest circles of government. For example, the Bavarian King Ludwig I supported them with considerable donations, which at least indirectly later had an effect in favor of the election of his son Otto as King of Greece . The spelling of the state name Bavaria with "y" goes back to an order by King Ludwig I of October 20, 1825, with which the original spelling "Baiern" was replaced. The replacement of “i” by the “Greek ypsilon ” was the expression that is still significant today for the king's philhellenism.

The Austrian State Chancellor, Prince von Metternich, was considered the most powerful political opponent of this and other independence movements . The Philhellenes, on the other hand, bitterly fought the theses about the Greeks as Graecized Slavs of the historian Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer , who in turn saw the Philhellenes as unworldly romantic enthusiasts.

Phenomena

Phenomena of philhellenism were the Graecization of surnames, the choice of Greek first names, but also place names and names of companies. For example, after the Greek Civil War, the American town of Woodruff's Grove was renamed Ypsilanti (Michigan) , after Dimitrios Ypsilantis .

Philhellenic Societies

Well-known Philhellenes

Arrival of Lord Byron in Greece and reception by the revolutionaries, 1823
Well-known Philhellenes who participated in the Greek Uprising of 1821, National Historical Museum of Athens, Greece

literature

Historical representations

  • Johann Daniel Elster : The battalion of the Philhellenes: Its establishment, campaign and fall . Diebold 1828.
  • Douglas Dakin: The Greek Struggle for Independence, 1821-1833. London 1973.
  • Stella Ghervas: Le philhellénisme d'inspiration conservatrice en Europe et en Russie , in: Peuples, Etats et nations dans le Sud-Est de l'Europe . Ed. Anima, Bucarest 2004.
  • Stella Ghervas: Le philhellénisme russe: union d'amour ou d'intérêt? , in: Regards sur le philhellénisme . Geneva, Mission permanente de la Grèce auprès de l'ONU 2008.
  • Stella Ghervas: Réinventer la tradition. Alexandre Stourdza et l'Europe de la Sainte-Alliance . Honoré Champion, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-7453-1669-1 .
  • Evangelos Konstantinou Ed .: The European Philhellenic Press up to the 1st half of the 19th century . Lang, Frankfurt am Main etc. 1994, ISBN 3-631-46436-3 .
  • Evangelos Konstantinou: Enthusiasm for Greece and Philhellenism , in: European History Online , ed. from the Institute for European History (Mainz) , 2012, accessed December 17, 2012.
  • Harald Lönnecker : “In Hellas the sun of freedom rises!” - Student enthusiasm for Greece since 1820. In: Anne-Rose Meyer (Ed.): Vormärz and Philhellenism . Bielefeld 2013, pp. 39–72.
  • Konstadinos Maras: Philhellenism. An early form of European integration , Würzburg 2012. ISBN 978-3-8260-4801-2 .
  • Suzanne L. Marchand : Down from Olympus. Archeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750-1970 . Princeton University Press 2003, ISBN 0-691-11478-1 .
  • Sandrine Maufroy: Le philhellénisme franco-allemand (1815-1848). Belin, Paris 2011 (= thèse de doctorat Paris VIII 2008).
  • Anne-Rose Meyer (Ed.): Vormärz and Philhellenism. Bielefeld 2013.
  • Melina Philippou: Philhellenism in Germany. Philhellenic manifestations of the Germans at the beginning of the 19th century until the founding of the Greek state. Master's thesis Freie Universität Berlin, Grin 2007, ISBN 3-63893-345-8 , excerpts online .
  • William St. Clair: That Greece Might Still be Free. The Philhellenes in the War of Independence . London 1972.
  • Christopher Montague Woodhouse : The Philhellenes . Fairleigh Dickinson University Press 1971, GoogleBooks .
  • Anne-Rose Meyer (ed.): Vormärz and Philhellenism . Bielefeld 2013, ISBN 978-3-89528-946-0

Philhellenism in Literature

  • Thomas Elsmann: »Wilhelm Christian Müller as a propagandist of national freedom and independence. The songs of the Hellenes and Philhellenes 1820 - 1827 «, in: Wilhelm Christian Müller. Contributions to the music and cultural history of Bremen around 1800 , ed. v. Christian Kämpf, Bremen 2016, pp. 168–181, ISBN 978-3-944552-88-0 .
  • Constanze Güthenke : Placing Modern Greece. The Dynamics of Romantic Hellenism, 1770-1850. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008.
  • Friedgar Löbker: Ancient Topoi in the German Philhellenic literature. Studies on the reception of antiquity during the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829). Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2000 (= Diss. Münster 1998), excerpts online .
  • Lampros Mygdalis: The reception of the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin in Greece. In: Suevica . Contributions to Swabian literary and intellectual history 7 (1993). Stuttgart 1994 [1995], pp. 115-132, ISBN 3-88099-311-4 .
  • Lampros Mygdalis: The unknown speech of a nineteen-year-old student from Tübingen for the Greeks from 1821. On the bicentenary of August Ludwig Reyscher's birthday , in: Suevica. Contributions to Swabian literary and intellectual history 9 (2001/2002). Stuttgart 2004 [2005], pp. 417-445. ISBN 3-88099-428-5 .
  • Lampros Mygdalis: Ο γερμανόφωνος φιλελληνισμός μέσα από την ποίηση = The German-speaking philhellenism through poetry . Publishing house Kyromanos, Thessaloniki 2004:
    • Vol. 1: Swabian Poets , 252 pages. - (Contains 33 poems by 11 Swabian poets .)
    • Vol. 2: The heroes of the liberation struggle of the Greeks (1821-1827) . - 288 pages. - (Contains 45 poems by 16 well-known and 4 anonymous poets.)
    • Vol. 3: Ποιήματα για τις μάχες των ελλήνων στον αγώνα για την ελευθερία τους 1770, 1821-1827 = poems about the battles of the Greeks in their struggle for freedom 1821 (1770, 1827). - 340 pages. - (Contains 76 poems by 26 well-known and 3 anonymous poets.)
  • Alfred Noe (Ed.): The Philhellenism in West European Literature (1780-1830) , Amsterdam-Atlanta 1994, excerpts online .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 1: A-G. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , p. 304.
  2. ^ Eberhard Rondholz : Greece. A country portrait. Ch.links Verlag, Berlin 2012, p. 23