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Preaching, a Ponytail, and an Enthusiast: Rethinking the Public Sphere's Subversiveness in Eighteenth-century Prussia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
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Recent work on the eighteenth-century public sphere has recast the debate about the Enlightenment's responsibility for the French Revolution. Historians have argued that the print public sphere and its concomitant forms of sociability, such as salons, reading clubs, and coffee houses created social spaces from which criticism of the state emerged. This elite criticism corroded the Old Regime's foundations and the revolutionary crash of 1789, if it was not directly the intellectuals' fault, was sufficiently related to their mental labors to show that enlightened publicness had consequences.
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References
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22. Anthony LaVopa emphasizes the Lutheran Church's role as mediator between God and the people in LaVopa, Anthony J., “The Philosopher and the Schwärmer. On the Career of a German Epithet from Luther to Kant,” Huntington Library Quarterly 60, no. 1 and 2 (1999): 85–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23. See Werner Schneider's discussion of German debates about the Enlightenment's, “true” nature in Die wahre Aufklärung: Zum Selbstverständnis der deutschen Aufklärung (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1974).Google Scholar
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26. All the books and pamphlets written in response to the Edict on Religion are now available in a single microfiche collection: Kemper, Dirk, Missbrauchte Aufklärung? Schriften zum preussischen Religionsedikt vom 9. Juli 1788 (Hildesheim, 1996).Google Scholar
27. Schwartz's Kulturkampf is the classic work in this tradition. It is often cited as support for negative views of Woellner. See also Tradt, Johannes, Der Religionsprozess gegen den Zopfschulzen (1791–1799): Ein Beitrag zur protestantischen Lehrpflicht und Lehrzucht in Brandenburg-Preussen gegen Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main, 1997)Google Scholar. Fritz Valjavec's “Das Woellnersche Religionsedikt und seine geschichthche Bedeutung” takes a different approach, avoiding the entire Enlightenment/Counter-Enlightenment question by putting Woellner and the edict into a broader historical framework. See Valjavec, , Ausgewählte Aufsätze (Munich, 1963), 294–322Google Scholar. For a different view of Woellner and the edict, see Saine, , Problem, 286–94.Google Scholar
28. The historical background is based on Tradt, , Religionsprozess, 5–21.Google Scholar
29. This section is based partially on documents published during the controversy. Amelang, Karl Ludwig, Religions-Process des P. Seh. zu G. nebst dessen eigener gerichtlich übergebener Vertheidigungsschrift seiner Lehren (1792)Google Scholar; Amelang, , Vertheidigung des Prediger Schulz in der zweiten Instanz (Hamburg, 1798)Google Scholar; Amelang, , Zur Vertheidigung des Prediger Herrn Schulz zu Gielsdorf Wilkendorf und Hirschfelde (Berlin, 1792)Google Scholar; Volkmar, Leopold, Religions-Prozess des Predigers Schulz zu Gielsdorf genannt Zopfschulz, eines Lichtfreundes des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1846)Google Scholar. Schulz and Bussmann had quite a history. Bussmann had married Schulz's sister, despite the preacher's disapproval, and the two had already come to blows over the content of his sermons. (Tradt, , Religionsprozess, 14.)Google Scholar
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32. In keeping with its Protestant origins, the consistory was divided into two halves — one lay, the other clerical. When Frederick William II ascended the throne in 1786, the consistory had the following members. Clerical: Anton Friedrich Büsching, Johann Samuel Diterich, Friedrich Samuel Sack (who had recently succeeded his father August Friedrich Sack), Johann Esias Silberschlag (the consistory's lone pietist; he also died in 1786), Johann Joachim Spalding, and Wilhelm Abraham Teller. Lay: Friedrich Gedike, Thomas Philip von der Hagen, Karl Friedrich von Irwing, Johann Friedrich Lamprecht, Johann Christian Nagel. In 1788, Johann Friedrich Zöllner would join the clerical side. See Schwartz, , Kulturkampf, 18–34Google Scholar, for a thorough, though opinionated, discussion of the membership.
33. Amelang, , Vertheidigung, 20.Google Scholar
34. In 1723, Frederick William I expelled Christian Wolff from Prussia because his philosophical determinism supposedly legitimized military desertion. The idea was that if everything was determined, then deserters could not be held responsible for their actions. In 1740, Frederick II invited Wolff back. See Beck, Lewis White, Early German Philosophy: Kant and his Predecessors (Cambridge, 1969), 256–75.Google Scholar
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37. On this point, see Tradt, , Religionsprozess, 17–18Google Scholar. Tradt's narration of the legal events is excellent, and I have relied on it heavily for the next few paragraphs. For the entire exchange between Schulz and the consistory, see Amelang, , Vertheidigung, 20–36.Google Scholar
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39. Ibid., 36.
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55. In this Zedlitz anticipated the arguments von Humboldt, Wilhelm made in “Ueber die Religion.”Google Scholarvon Humboldt, Wilhelm, Wilhelm von Humboldt: Werke in Fünf Bänden, ed. Flitner, Andreas and Giel, Klaus (Stuttgart, 1960), 1: 1–32.Google Scholar
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58. Amelang, , Vertheidigung, 53.Google Scholar
59. I have used a later edition of this work: Schulz, Johann Heinrich, Erwis des himmelweiten Unterschieds der Moral von der Religion, nebst genauer bestimmung der Begriffe von Theologie, Religion, Kirche und (protestantischer) Hierarchie, und des Verhältnisses dieser Dinge zur Moral und zutn Staate (Frankfurt, 1788)Google Scholar; Amelang, , Vertheidigung, 78.Google Scholar
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62. Schwartz, , Kulturkampf, 11.Google Scholar
63. Tradt, , Religionsprozess, 21.Google Scholar
64. Amelang, , Vertheidigung, 64.Google Scholar
65. Ibid., 77.
66. Ibid., 82.
67. Volkmar, , Religions-Prozess, 167.Google Scholar
68. ADB, 32: 747.Google Scholar
69. Carl Friedrich Bahrdt's anonymously published Das Religions-Edikt is the harshest example of the response.
70. Eisenberg, to Woellner, , 10 05 1796, Brumbey, Prediger in Berlin 1796–97, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz (hereafter GSta PK). I. HA Rep. 96, Nr 222D.Google Scholar
71. Eisenberg, to Woellner, , 10 05 1796, Brumbey, Prediger in Berlin 1796–97, GSta PK. I. HA Rep. 96, Nr 222D.Google Scholar
72. Among the 118 published texts that are available in Dirk Kemper's microfilm collection Missbrauchte Aufklärung? eight cover Schulz's dismissal, while not one covers Brumbey. (One text on Brumbey did appear, but it was published in Amsterdam. See Aktenmässige Darstellung Der Ideen, Handlungen Und Endlichen Schicksale Des Dimittirten Predigers Brumbey Und Seines Anhangs Zu Berlin: Nebst Einer Kurzen Geschichte Von Der Entstehung Seiner Konventikel (Amsterdam, 1797).Google Scholar) A similar situation obtains for the journal literature on the edict. Although Schulz's tribulations appear three times, Brumbey's dismissal merited no comment. This is the case for all of Germany, and not just the increasingly conservative Prussia. (I have relied on the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen's indispensable Index deutschsprachiger Zeitschriften: 1750–1815 to verify this fact. The text version of the index is Schmidt, Klaus, ed., Index deutschsprachiger Zeitschriften: 1750–1815 (Hildesheim, 1996.)Google Scholar The online version is available at www.gbv.de.)
73. See LaVopa, , “Philosopher,” 85–91Google Scholar, for a discussion of the philosophical relationship between Schwärmerei and Enthusiasmus in the German Enlightenment.
74. Eisenberg, to Woellner, , 10 05 1796, Brumbey, Prediger in Berlin 1796–97, GSta PK. I. HA Rep. 96, Nr 222D.Google Scholar
75. See Schwartz, Paul, “Die beiden Opfer,” 102–55, 96–122.Google Scholar
76. Woellner, to William, Frederick II, 16 02 1796, Brumbey, Prediger in Berlin 1796–97, GSta PK. I. HA Rep. 96, Nr 222D.Google Scholar
77. Ibid., 22 February 1796.
78. Memorandum, 18 February 1796, Brumbey, Prediger in Berlin 1796–97, GSta PK. I. HA Rep. 96, Nr 222D.
79. In this context, Zöllner is especially notable for having sparked the “What is Enlightenment?” debate of the 1780s and 1790s. His “What is Enlightenment?” query first appeared in a footnote in an article on religion and marriage. Zöllner, , “Ist es rathsam, das Ehebündniss nicht ferner durch die Religion zu sanciren?,” Berlinische Monatsschrift 4 (1783): 508–17.Google Scholar
80. Zöllner, Johann Friedrich, “Vergleichung der Aktion des Predigers mit der des Schauspielers,” Berlinische Monatsschrift 1 (1783): 168–177.Google Scholar
81. Ibid., 171.
82. Ibid., 174.
83. The Marienkirche survived the Second World War relatively unharmed, and the pulpit from which Zöllner preached can still be seen.
84. “Ueber Prediger-Kleidung,” Journal von und für Deutschland 7, no. 10 (1790): 321–23Google Scholar. Leopold Friedrich von Göckingk, a member of the enlightened Mittwochsgesellschaft, published this journal.
85. Ibid., 322.
86. Ibid., 323.
87. “Nachtrag zur Abhandlung von der Predigerkleidung im XI. Stück dieses Jahrgangs “Journal von und für Deutschland 7, no. 12 (1790): 556.Google Scholar
88. “Ist es wahr, dass der Redner auf der Bühne stärker rührt, als der Redner auf der Kanzel?” Magazin der Sächsischen Geschichte, no. 7 (1790): 613.Google Scholar
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90. See, for example, Nisbet, , “Aufklärung,”Google Scholar and O'Neill, , Constructions.Google Scholar
91. Habermas' Structural Transformation is one of the most famous examples of too strong a reliance on Kant's vision of enlightenment. See also Nisbet, , “Aufklärung;”Google ScholarSchmidt, , “Enlightenment;”Google Scholar and the introductions to Bahr, , AufklärungGoogle Scholar; and Schmidt, , Enlightenment.Google Scholar
92. Kant, , “Beantwortung,” 485.Google Scholar
93. Rathgeber, Christina, “The Reception of Brandenburg-Prussia's New Lutheran Hymnal of 1781,” Historical Journal 36, no. 1 (1993): 115–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
94. On this issue, see also LaVopa, Anthony J., “The Politics of Enlightenment: Friedrich Gedike and German Professional Ideology,” The Journal of Modern History 62, no. 1 (1990): 34–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
95. Kant's article originally appeared in the Berlinische Monatsschrift. The article is reprinted in English in Reiss, Hans, ed., Kant's Political Writings (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar. Quote taken from Reiss, , Writings, 248–49.Google Scholar
96. Teller, , Wohlgemeinte Erinnerungen, 3.Google Scholar
97. John Laursen has argued that Kant's approach to politics made room for subversion over the long term. See Laursen, , “The Subversive Kant.”Google Scholar This may have been Kant's dream, but I do not think it was realistic, nor do I think that historians are justified in reading the late eighteenth century through it. Too many things united Kant with conservatives like Woellner for us to get a complete picture in this way.
98. On Kant's problems with the Prussian censor, see Beck, , Philosophy, 434–35Google Scholar, and Dilthey, “Streit.’Google Scholar
99. Lestition, , “Kant.”Google Scholar
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