Suchergebnisse

Historians have long argued that an intimate connection exists between the failure of Europe's liberal and, in France at least, radical agitation of 1848 and the spread of pessimistic values during the following two decades. György Lukacs, inThe Destruction of Reason, has treated this point at some length. He ascribes the rising popularity throughout the 1850's of Arthur Schopenhauer, the most systematic and erudite interpreter of pessimistic thought, to "a purely bourgeois form of irrationalism." The defeat of the revolutions of 1848 had left many Germans politically frustrated. What resulted was an "ideologically altered situation" in which Schopenhauer "suddenly grew famous and supplanted Feuerbach as the ideological leader of the (German) bourgeoisie." Moreover, French capitalists, frightened by the workers' revolt that took place in Paris during June, 1848, helped to give pessimism its "international effect." Indeed they knew its world despair for what it actually was, "an indirect apology" for their own economic interests.

It is difficult to state conclusively whether the German revolution of 1848 was a success or a failure. I take a more sceptical view of the positive consequences of this revolution view than many recenbt historians of the period, at least in Germany. In order to explain and substantiate this position, I will begin by outlining a few theses taking a closer look at the character of the German revolution of 1848 and its social and political base. Then I shall discuss the question of the 'success or failure of the revolution' and the long-term effects of the events and developments of the year 1848. In the following I shall concentrate primarily on Prussia as the centre of the later German Empire, and I shall focus particularly on the situation in the cities.

BecauseGerman historiography long derided 1848 as "das tolle Jahr," studies of the impact of this crucial period on Prussia's eastern provinces have been relatively scanty. Professional historians, as well as the amateurs and antiquarians who wrote local history, preferred to treat revered and glamorous epochs like the Reformation, the deeds of the most famous Hohenzollern kings, the Wars of Liberation, or the like rather than events which in retrospect were deplored as one of the more shameful episodes of national history. This neglect, to be sure, has been rectified somewhat since the Second World War after the democratization of West Germany and the socialization of the East lent new interest and respectability to the Revolution of 1848. Then too, the loss of much of the old Prussian heartland to Poland has resulted in a number of often valuable studies of this region by Polish scholars who, however, have for understandable reasons tended to focus rather heavily on nationality problems.

Die Datenbank enthält Informationen zu den Revolutionen von 1848/49,
vor allem aber zur badischen Revolution, einer Reihe daran beteiligter
Personen und Informationen zu allen badischen Gemeinden. Das
Informationssystem steht sowohl für allgemein- oder lokalgeschichtlich
Interessierte als auch für Lehre und Forschung zur Verfügung. Es kann
ein allgemeiner Ablauf des Revolutionsgeschehens abgerufen oder nach
detaillierten Informationen gesucht werden.

International audience ; The revolution of February 1848 was a major landmark in the history of republicanism in France. During the July Monarchy, republicans were in favour of both universal suffrage and direct popular participation. But during the first months of the new republican regime, these principles collided, putting republicans to the test, bringing forth two conceptions of republicanism -- moderate and democratic-social. After the failure of the June insurrection, the former prevailed. During the drafting of the Constitution, moderate republicanism was defined in opposition to socialism and > unchecked popular participation. Conservatives and moderates promoted the image of the 'universality of citizens' as the real sovereign, acting only through the universal election of legislators and rulers.