A Brill Calendar: July 15

Few perspectives in charting, reviewing and interpreting the past are as questionable as nationalist views.

There are many reasons to endorse this proposition. Perhaps the most cogent one is the fact that nation-states as we know them are relatively young political constructs; not much older than the waning of the European Middle Ages; while the deepest one may be the saying of the German cultural philosopher Ernst Curtius: ‘Die Geschichte kennt keines Volkes Anfänge’, history doesn’t know the beginnings of any people’.

The scope of historiography also reflects this problem: the number of historical studies on individuals, families, institutions, cities and European regions – dwarfing the number of nation-states – relates to the number of national and nationalist histories like the Pacific Ocean relates to the North Sea.

Within the context, it is seldom explicitly considered that any culture - when observed closely - dissolves in separate cultures; a basic axiom in social and cultural anthropology. The culture of nations is no exception to this rule.

Education in the Low Countries, after the Napoleonic era transformed into a hereditary monarchy with a constitution, sports this diversity as well. At a primary level culture is intrinsic, autonomous: not subservient to extrinsic parties and interests. The academic heritage in the European delta can not be restricted to the history of Leyden university: ten years after its ‘Dies natalis’ in 1575 the Academy of Franeker opened her doors on July 15 1585, initializing a distinct educational tradition from its founding connected to similar activity in Utrecht, Groningen and Harderwijk. Unlike Leyden this Frisian Academy didn’t survive the Napoleonic era and the advent of centralized nationalist policy.