Overview

During the Enlightenment, people from the middling sort organised themselves into 56 patriotic societies in Denmark, Norway, and the German duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The number of members totalled several thousand. They undertook educational and industrial reforms and participated in public debates on the need for social and political modernisation. The founding of patriotic societies was a widespread European phenomenon and they played a key role in the Nordic Enlightenment. Yet, they have not been the subject of European or national studies before. Their emergence reflected that modern bureaucratic states were in the making, and that public administrative infrastructures and welfare institutions were expanding. These developments created a need to integrate citizens and imbue them with a spirit of community. This monograph presents the first coherent investigation of the patriotic societies in a large, European multinational and multilingual realm. Its comparative outlook situates the intellectual and cultural developments in the Nordic countries as an integral part of the European Enlightenment. Furthermore, it offers new perspectives on tensions between patriotism, nationalism and universal values as they developed during the Enlightenment, as well as how freedom, the buzzword of the Enlightenment, implied new forms of discipline.

Full Product Details

Author:   Juliane Engelhardt
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
Imprint:   Voltaire Foundation
Volume:   2024:05
ISBN:  

9781802075618

ISBN 10:   1802075615
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   14 May 2024
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

List of illustrations (1) Introduction Patriotism in the age of Enlightenment Setting the scene: the Danish composite monarchy Patriotism and enlightenment in the North Historiographical overview: research in patriotism, the associational world and the public sphere (2) Associations as fields of democratic practice Associations in the long eighteenth century Survey of the patriotic societies in the Danish composite monarchy Economic societies Societies for poor relief and philanthropy Societies for education and enlightenment The Royal Agricultural Society of Denmark Early Norwegian societies Denmark and Schleswig–Holstein: two waves of activity International influences Cooperation with the absolute monarchy The organisational structure of the patriotic societies Conclusion: associations as new forms of communities (3) Political ambitions The form of state and the form of government Patriotism as love for the paternal monarch Contract theory Freedom of speech and transparency in public affairs Conclusion: the small society and the large society (4) Patriotism as economic reform Visions of economic growth Economic protectionism Manpower and raw materials Arguments for economic freedom Distribution of prizes Spinning schools: a wonderful remedy for rapid enlightenment Spinning schools in the Danish composite monarchy and in Northern Europe Spinning as moral reform Conclusion: economy of time as a strategy for economic growth (5) Civilising the subjects of the state General enlightenment Enlightenment for citizens and for human beings Libraries and reading groups Schools State reforms and private reforms Conclusion: Enlightenment between emancipation and discipline (6) The limits of patriotism: forging a bourgeois identity Citizenship Patriots and nobility: asceticism as a social distinction Dannekvinde: patriotic notions of republican motherhood Danish, Norwegian and German identity (7) Conclusion: the pragmatism of the Scandinavian Enlightenment Patriotism and national identity Bibliography Index

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Author Information

Juliane Engelhardt is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen. Her research centres on the intellectual and cultural history of the European Enlightenment. She has published in leading international journals such as Nations and Nationalism and Historische Zeitschrift, and is currently leading a research project on radical Protestantism.

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