Travelling Notions of Culture in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe by Hannu Salmi Asko Nivala Jukka Sarjala

Author:Hannu Salmi, Asko Nivala, Jukka Sarjala [Hannu Salmi, Asko Nivala, Jukka Sarjala]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367263874
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

Later, Franzén was to meet several emigrants, including a count who was selling small objects like rings and needles to make his living near Pyrmont. Franzén asked the count whether he was going to return to France. ‘Only if I’m sure I will not be beheaded! In that case it is better to sell rings’, was the answer.39 This was clearly somewhat confusing for Franzén, but it did not disturb his dream of French liberty. On the German side of the Rhine, he felt that he was on the wrong side of the border and could not wait to be in France. When he finally arrived on French soil, he felt he could breathe more freely—he was now in the land of freedom!

Other signs of the Revolution were the liberty trees, arbres de la Liberté, which Franzén saw as he entered French territory. He saw the first of these symbols of the Revolution in the town of Jülich, or Juliers, as the place was called in French (at the time of Franzén’s visit, the town belonged to France). Liberty trees could be planted, or alternatively, they could be decorated poles that were set into the ground, like the one in Juliers.40

The Rhine Valley was considered as a border that distanced the Germans from the revolutionary actions in France. It was also a place of special importance for Franzén. On seeing the river Rhine in Mainz, Franzén admired the landscape of the Valley region and wrote in his diary, ‘Here is culture at its peak’.41 Nonetheless, in the midst of this cultural landscape, he encountered something barbaric. He met some Croatian soldiers guarding the border and made notes to his diary on their fierce and barbaric appearance.42

Why did a traveller coming from the northernmost part of Europe consider Croats barbaric? Franzén described the appearance of the soldiers: They were tall and their hair was black, and they were armed with knives, sabres and pistols. Franzén felt the presence of the soldiers threatening: ‘I would not like to be left in their hands at night-time’, he wrote. Although the purpose of the soldiers was to guard the border region from the French, Franzén was more afraid of the Croats than of the French soldiers he could see on the other side of the Rhine. Franzén reflects on the topic in his diary, noting that the Croats are ‘impertinent’ and wild, belonging to the type of people who have not developed any sense of proper humanity or justice.43 Franzén seems to think that these fierce-looking soldiers do not belong to the beautiful landscape of the German Rhine Valley. And they certainly do not belong to his conception of civilised Europeans.

It is interesting that Franzén already emphasised the uniqueness of the Rhine Valley region before Friedrich Schlegel, the main theorist of German Romanticism, declared it to be a special region for authentic German culture in his travelogue in 1806. His spouse, Dorothea Schlegel, shared this sentiment. In 1809, she wrote a letter to a friend, expressing concern about the uncertainty of the present situation in Europe.

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