Performing the nation: the Schiller Centenary Celebrations of 1859 and the media

Abstract

The interest of cultural history in the fabrication, negotiation and circulation of meaning and identities has by now entered the traditional realms of political history.1 A classic field with which to study these processes of fabrication and circulation is the public festival. In this paper the author describes and discusses the 1859 celebrations of the 100th birthday of Friedrich Schiller as a juncture in the discourse of German nation-building that is bound to locally bound actors as participants in a discursive contest of performances as interpretations and fabrications of the nation.

Keywords:

• Schiller Centenary 1859
• nation
• nationalism
• German nation building

Notes

 1. For the German discussion see Frevert, Neue Politikgeschichte, Landwehr, Diskurs, Mergel, Überlegungen, and Stollberg-Rilinger, Kulturgeschichte des Politischen.

 2. This paper is based on my forthcoming doctoral thesis: Zur medialen Distribution des Nationalen. Die Schillerfeiern 1859 in Europa und Nordamerika. Gießen 2009.

 3. This goes back to some assumptions Kathleen Conzen has made regarding the development of a unique German-American festive culture in the nineteenth century. See Conzen, Ethnicity.

 4. Tropus, Schiller-Denkmal and Korzbeny, Sammlung.

 5. Endrulat, Schiller-Fest.

 6. Gedenk-Buch.

 7. Schiller-Jubiläum.

 8. Elben, Schillerfest.

 9. Steinebach, Schiller-Feier.

10. Raabe, Dräumling.

11. Ludwig, Schiller.

12. Noltenius, Dichterfeiern. Otto Dann refers to the importance of the 1859 celebrations in his article on Friedrich Schiller as a (former) lieu de mémoire for the Germans.

13. For examples, see Winterstein, Schillerfeiern, Lemberg, Schillerfeiern 1859 und 1905, Weiß, Nach allem Wahren for Europe, Rösch, Die Londoner Schillerfeier for the UK and , Celebrating and Broadbent, Schiller-Centennial for the United States.

14. Conzen, Ethnicity, 49.

15. Düding, Matrix.

16. Hettling/Nolte, Bürgerliche Feste.

17. Requate, Öffentlichkeit und Medien.

18. Ehlich, Politisches Feiern, 124.

19. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 35sq.

20. Butler, Gender Trouble.

21. Toktas, Nationalism, 7.

22. Homann, Soziologische Ansätze, 105–108.

23. Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, 135.

24. Miklautz, Feste, 1999.

25. Düding, Matrix.

26. Noltenius, Dichterfeiern.

27. Dann, Schiller.

28. New York Times, December 9, 1859 (emphasis added).

29. Endrulat, Schillerfest, 40.

30. Green, Fatherlands. See also the studies on German regional identities by Alon Confino.

31. Special Edition of the “Neueste Nachrichten,” Nr. 220 (November 9, 1859).

32. ABPW 1859-1860: Weisung v. 25.10.1859.

33. A good contemporary overview can be found in Die Schillerfeier der alten und neuen Welt .

34. Endrulat, Schillerfest, 13-42.

35. See also Schneider, Concordia, on a similar outcome at the festival in Cologne.

36. Endrulat, Schillerfest, 39.

37. The announcement of the first Berlin programme with the names of all the committee members can be found in all the daily papers mentioned. For example, see Volks-Zeitung 241 (October 15, 1859). The Volks-Zeitung had a circulation of 17,900 in the fourth quarter of 1859 and was therefore the best-selling middle-class newspaper in Berlin, followed by the Vossische Zeitung with a circulation of 14,750, the National-Zeitung (7525), and the Spener'sche Zeitung (6190). All papers supported the bourgeois Schiller festival preparations and provided a total circulation of more than 45,000 copies in the fourth quarter of 1859, representing a broad liberal, democratic, and nationalist readership. Heenemann, Auflagenhöhen. 41.

38. Volks-Zeitung 236 (October 10, 1859).

39. Endrulat, Schillerfest, 39 (my translation).

40. Neue Preußische Zeitung, 255 (November 1, 1859) – 267 (November 15, 1859). This paper's circulation was around 7,000 in 1859. It was the leading conservative newspaper in Prussia, with a aristocratic and conservative readership. For circulation tables, see Heenemann, Auflagenhöhen.

41. Fahrner, Bilddiskurs, 401–10.

42. Schiller-Jubliäum, 3–8.

43. LAB A Pr. Br. Rep 030 Nr. 12948, 12–13.

44. LAB A Pr. Br. Rep 030 Nr. 12948, 14.

45. LAB A Pr. Br. Rep 030 Nr. 12948, 15–17, first published by the Preussische Zeitung October 25, 1859, followed by the Volks-Zeitung one day later.

46. Der Publicist, 246 (October 19, 1859), 253 (October 27, 1859) and 254 (October 28, 1859).

47. Volks-Zeitung, 249 (October 25, 1859), 2.

48. Volks-Zeitung 240 (October 26, 1859), 2.

49. LAB A Pr. Br. Rep 030 Nr. 12948, 7–10.

50. LAB A Pr. Br. Rep 030 Nr. 12949.

51. Neue Preußische Zeitung, November 13, 1859.

52. Steinebach, Schiller-Feier, 66sq. See also Ostdeutsche Post 278 (October 28, 1859). The renaming did not take place immediately. Today's “Schillerplatz” by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was named on the occasion of the unveiling of the Schiller monument in 1876 and is not the original square chosen in 1859.

53. The Times, 23452 (November 1, 1859).

54. LABW E 50/02 Bü 232 (Reports of the Legation of Wurttemberg in Vienna), 13 October 1859 and 19 October 1859.

55. Bundespolizeidirektion Wien, Archiv: Schillerfeier, 100-jähriger Geburtstag 1859–1860: fragment of an undated manuscript (Schuselka‘s speech); Several reports and decrees: November 5, 1859, November 7, 1859, November 9, 1859, November 11, 1859, November 12, 1859, November 13, 1859. The case was also mentioned in the reports of the Legation of Wurttemberg in Vienna, LABW E 50/02 Bü 232 November 9, 1859, 3.

56. LAB A Pr. Br. Rep 030 Nr. 12949, 10.

57. Endrulat, Schillerfeier, 226–7.

58. New York Times, December 16, 1859.