A Brill Calendar: May 6

Prussian Virtues

Few civilizations have been more admired - and vilified - than the one of Prussia.

Originating as an insignificant German State at the end of the 17th century, Prussia reached the next one flamboyantly, enjoying the stature of a Great European Power. It is a tall order for any civilization to be associated directly with – consecutively – Frederick the Great (1712 – 1786), Bismarck (1815 – 1898) and 20th century militarism, including swastikas and perversions of ‘Befehl ist Befehl’, snarled through many B-Movies.

However, truth is rarely as simple or one-dimensional. Prussia was transformed from a rural and agricultural society into a progressive ultra-modern State during the largely Francophone European Enlightenment; starting some five decades after the 30-years War (until 1939 – 1945 the most devastative one in Europe); a growth comparable to the rise of the Dutch Republic a century earlier.

What is best in Prussia is embodied in two brothers, Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, sons of a Prussian army officer and a mother of French Huguenot stock. When Alexander died on May 6 1859, aged 90, he had survived his older brother by some 24 years. Together, the brothers near enough cover the whole range of learning, scholarship and physical sciences. Wilhelm, linguist, diplomat, philosopher, educational reformer and civil servant, created Berlin’s first University in 1809, while Alexander’s expedition to South America, from 1799 until 1804, was already a legend in his own time, and a source of inspiration for Charles Darwin. It was financed by Alexander’s private means. And because of an immense output of splendid publications resulting from it between 1804 and 1827, the Grand Adventure depleted the fortune he inherited from his mother.

‘Bildung’ is a German word beyond translation; two centuries later still an educational icon in central Europe, radiating into its environs. It is seldom, if ever, that a new vision on the value, and values, of knowledge reached maturity so quickly; because of the genius of two brothers