The Low Countries. Jaargang 13

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Cultural Policy

How European is Dutch Culture?

On 28 October 2004 a series of books entitled Dutch Culture in a European Perspective was launched at deBuren, the Flemish-Netherlands House in Brussels. I was honoured to have been asked to address the audience on so weighty a topic as the place of Dutch Culture in a European Perspective, the more so as I was not quite sure that the credentials ascribed to me by Prof. Fokkema, general editor of the series, really sufficiently qualified me to do so. It is true that I have some first-hand experience of things Dutch by dint of having taught and lived there for almost twenty-five years before moving on to a position at Leuven, in my native Belgium. Perhaps, too, my present position at Leuven as Director of a Centre for European Studies may be thought to have provided me with the necessary insight, or authority, to hazard any and all rash pronouncements on the matter. The truth is, though, that any ideas I might have on the subject would not transcend the level of the personal and the mundane if not backed up by research such as that displayed in the volumes of Dutch Culture in a European Perspective. At least, they do so in English, because the original Dutch title is somewhat different; translated literally into English, it is Dutch Culture in a European Context. Though ostensibly minor, this terminological shift seems to me still significant. The original Dutch title emphasises the unity, the solidity of Dutch culture, its ‘identity’ in the sense precisely of its being ‘unique’. The English title allows for greater flexibility, adaptability, malleability even, in response to changing circumstances. The subtle difference between these two titles, then, to me suggests an equally subtle shift in perceptions of the position of the Netherlands within Europe over the period between the original inception of this project in the early 1990s, and the translation of its results. I myself am inclined to interpret this shift as a confirmation of how ‘Europe’, in the guise of the European Union, but also in terms of the re-adjustment in horizons political, economic and cultural that the development of the European Union entails, has gained ever greater ‘visibility’ in the Dutch perception. On the downside, I would hazard that this same phenomenon leads to a diminished sense of security in what was hitherto, at least until recently, perceived as an unassailable national identity. Still, such re-adjustments are not new in the history of the Netherlands, nor indeed in the history of most other European countries. The volumes of this series are eloquent testimony to that.

The answer to the question in my title, then, is easy. Of course, Dutch Culture is European down to its very roots. After all, the country to which this culture pertains is squarely located in Europe, the majority of its population is of European origins, and for the last twenty centuries it has participated in most of the major political, economic and cultural developments on the Continent. The question therefore needs rephrasing in the sense of: in which way, and to what extent does, or did, Dutch culture interact with its European neighbours, near and far? And this both in a passive and an active sense. So not only with regard to what the Netherlands stole, borrowed, or gleaned from other European nations, but also what they contributed to a wider European commonality of acting and thinking, a more encompassing European sensibility, or - why not use the term - identity? From this point of view, the original question in the title might perhaps even be recast as: how Dutch is European culture? After all, these are questions that become ever more pressing as the European Union grows, not only in numbers, but also in degree of integration. Elsewhere in the world, the EU is even now often regarded as a single entity, if not culturally, nor perhaps politically, then certainly economically. If the old adage that culture follows trade still holds, we might speculate that before too long some common sense of European identity will emerge. Of course, this identity will never be cast in stone. Rather, it will be a mutable and ever-changing thing. And Dutch culture, like that of all other European countries, will have contributed to this ‘European’ identity, as these books amply prove.

Questions such as those I have hitherto raised immediately surface when we ask to what extent the Republic of the United Provinces considered it-

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self, or was considered by its neighbours and rivals, to be a separate entity at the time of the Treaty of Munster (or Westphalia) in 1648, the event which officially marked the country's independence. After all, the United Provinces went by various names at the time, and were represented under those names in the work of the most famous cartographers of the period: Leo Belgicus, Belgium, Leo Hollandicus, Olanda, Nether Germany, Paesi Bassi, Nederlandt. It is likewise fitting to ask to what extent perceptions of the age correspond with actual reality. Both the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga and his British counterpart Simon Schama suggest ‘internalist’ explanations for Dutch culture in the seventeenth century. Huizinga sees the Dutch Republic as a creation sui generis, rooted in the specific circumstances of its genesis and its already fundamentally middle-class make-up, which ultimately gave rise to a people characterised by ‘simplicity, frugality, cleanliness’ as well as ‘sobriety, a prosaic attitude, and commonness’. Schama sees the specificity of Dutch culture in the Golden Age as the result of an act of self-invention by what was in essence a newcomer on the European scene. Yet one may well wonder whether more ‘internationalist’ explanations would not do more justice to what really happened in the Netherlands in that fabled seventeenth century.

Indeed, in 1650 a number of developments that had marked the period from the earliest rebellions against the Spanish down to the Peace of Westphalia have worked themselves out: the emergence of Holland, and to a lesser extent Zeeland and Friesland, as the dominant members of the Republic of the United Provinces; the successful assimilation of successive, and sometimes massive, waves of immigrants, from the Southern (and still Spanish) Netherlands, but also from many other surrounding regions, as well as a substantial number of Jews fleeing persecution in Spanish-held territories, and even already from Central Europe; the creation of a national language; the cementing role of a belief in liberty, the importance of faith, the preservation of hard-won rights and privileges, and a measure of self-respect. Still, the Republic remained very much a house under construction,

Johannes Vermeer, The Cartographer (detail). c.1668-1669. Canvas, 52 × 45,5 cm. Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main.

and this was abundantly clear to outsiders. This actually contributed to the smooth working of society, politics, and the economy. In fact, the metaphor of the market may well be most apt for the United Provinces in the seventeenth century. The Republic acted as a market, or perhaps rather an ‘exchange’, for all manner of products, material as well as cultural; it was a land of ‘diffusion’, of import and export, a place of trade and mediation, characterised by neutrality in the

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public sphere, voluntarism in most matters political, religious, philosophical and cultural, and essentially middle-class. As such, it served as a model for much of what would happen later, to a greater or lesser extent, in much of the rest of Europe.

The books in this series are not only highly informative, they also make for thoroughly enjoyable reading. The scholarly discourse is regularly leavened by striking anecdotes, whether from the everyday life of the common man or the life of the nation in its official celebrations. Long-standing stereotypes are debunked, or at least re-evaluated, often in dialogue with the works of the most reputed historians of Dutch culture: Johan Huizinga, Jan Romein, Geoffrey Parker, Simon Schama, Jonathan Israel. All in all, I know of no other such sharp and varied portrait of four centuries of one national European culture against the backdrop of the other European cultures that surround it. Though written by the most renowned scholars in the field, these volumes wear their learning lightly, and succeed in not only surprising, but at times even amusing, the reader with their wealth of quotations from the most diverse sources, their superbly chosen illustrations, and their judicious use of anecdotes. Even if only in this, Dutch culture here makes a substantial contribution to European culture. These books are a superb illustration of how Europe's various constituent cultures continually, and fruitfully, interact within the wider space of what ultimately can only be called a shared European culture.

Theo D'haen

Dutch Culture in a European Perspective. The Significant Moments in the History of the Netherlands: 1650, 1800, 1900, 1950 and 1650-2000 (ed. D. Fokkema). Assen: Van Gorcum. 2004 (Vol. 1 - 1650: Hard-Won Unity. isbn 90-232-3963-6, 764 pp. / Vol. 2 - 1800: Blueprints for a National Community. isbn 90-232-3964-4, 630 pp. / Vol. 3 - 1900: The Age of Bourgeois Culture. isbn 90-232-3965-2, 630 pp. / Vol. 4 1950: Prosperity and Welfare. isbn 90-232-3966-0, 560 pp. / Vol. 5 - Accounting for the Past: 1650-2000. isbn 90-232-3967-9, 420 pp. (www.vgorcum.nl)