A Brill Calendar: March 4

Backhuizen Matriculates

Few people who knew him well can have been surprised when Reinier Cornelis Bakhuizen van den Brink (Amsterdam, February 28 1810 – The Hague, July 15 1865) passed examination as ‘Candidatus’ in the Leyden Faculty of Theology with flying colours on March 4, 1834.

Already as a young intellectual in the Romantic era, and one who inherited the legacy of the European Enlightenment, Bakhuizen’s interests varied as widely as his activities. He studied theology, philosophy and philology without caring or longing for a sedate life as a Professor, and at a time when historical studies were on the verge of becoming a separate academic discipline, emancipating themselves from general erudition.

Bakhuizen travelled widely in Europe, fascinating all & sundry with his intelligence and wit; whilst the pack of parties to whom he owed money came nearer & nearer. In 1843 he escaped to Belgium and then to Austria, not as a spendthrift nobody, but as a man who, in 1838, had started together with his friend Everardus Potgieter an innovative periodical, ‘De Gids’ (‘The Guide’); a publication that quickly became a national platform for new ideas in literature, the arts and general culture after its launch; and still flourishing in 2009.

When Bakhuizen returned to Holland in 1851 – after suitable arrangements with his creditors, the final third of his short life evolved. Friends and relations got him appointed as Adjunct to the Chief of the National Archive of the young Kingdom of The Netherlands. During his exile Bakhuizen had assembled in foreign archives a wealth of documents concerning the still shadowy past of the Low Countries. In 1854, he became ‘Rijksarchivaris’ himself. Until his death he worked tirelessly on collecting and publishing crucial sources documenting the pedigree and birth of his nation; not a character for one single ‘Magnum Opus’, but a one-man fountainhead of studies & essays on the subjects of his passion.