N° 2018/2

Catherine Denys

Urban Security Versus Social Privileges: the Impossible “Enlightened” Reform of Policing in Eighteenth-Century Brussels

Abstract: During the medieval and early modern eras, most of the European urban authorities intended to rule their cities for the « common good », together with respecting the social hierarchy and privileged status. In the 18th century, however, many voices raised for improving the urban policing and reforming old regulations. Most of police officers claimed for equality of every inhabitant with regards to local police ordinances and petty police courts. But even if the urban rules agreed with their arguments for a more efficient policing, they could not prescribe an equality that would overthrow the Ancien Régime’s social order. Brussels in the 18th century is a good example of this contradiction. It was there impossible to reform the policing for the foreigners nor to create a professional night-watch, because of the strong reluctance of the city aldermen to abandon social privileges which were seen as fundamental freedoms of the country.

Pavel Himl

“Sine respectu personarum”? The Creation of a New Citizen by Policing the Population. Habsburg Monarchy, 1750–1820

Abstract: The declared aim of enlightened administrative reforms was to provide security and aid the whole population, i.e., all social classes. Executive powers of the newly introduced police institutions covered – and defined – the whole public sphere and measures such as census or obligation to have a passport applied, at least in theory, to persons from all walks of life. This article examines how and to what extent were these ambitions applied in practice and whether these measures had an equalising effect on the society. The author concludes that unequal, in this case preferential, administrative treatment of especially the aristocracy was still widespread at the beginning of the nineteenth century. On the one hand, persons of a higher social status – who often held public offices – were supposed to embody the new civil virtues and set an example. On the other hand, however, it was feared that any public punishment or police treatment of such persons would undermine public authority and social order in general.

Anton Tantner

“A Pinch of Equality”: The Cultural Technique of Numbering in the Late 18th Century

Abstract: The 18th century sees the triumph of a cultural technique so self-evident to us that we hardly think that it might have a history at all: numbering. This technique assigns a number to an object or a subject – whether a house, a page in a book, a regiment, a tone pitch, a painting, a horse-drawn carriage or a policeman – in order to positively identify this object or subject. The article presents a hitherto nearly undiscovered research field by clarifying some of the basic terminology and draws on examples from all over Europe, focussing on the numbering of – mostly vagrant – people on one side, on spaces such as houses, rooms or even hospital beds on the other side. At the end some of the research questions to be asked about this topic in the future are presented.

Tomáš Malý

Otázka sebevraždy v teologických a morálněfilosofických textech 18. století: příklad habsburské monarchie

The Question of Suicide in the 18th-Century Theology and Moral Philosophy: the Example of Habsburg Monarchy

Abstract: Suicide in the Habsburg monarchy in the Early Modern Age has hitherto received almost no attention. This text considers attitudes to suicide in the context of questions of sin, conscience and individualization. It traces the changing perceptions of the meaning of these phenomena through theological and moral-philosophical texts, and does so on four levels: (1) suicide as a theme (or non-theme) in 17th and 18th century theology and homiletics; (2) suicide in the reformist theology of the late 18th century; (3) the question of penance; (4) the “good death” and individual responsibility for the salvation of the soul. The author shows that in the last three decades of the 18th century, when more notice began to be paid to the phenomenon of suicide, discourse on the subject assumed a more psychological tone, with theologians and philosophers increasingly drawing attention to the harm done by certain religious and meditative techniques which in their view overexcited the imagination and could result in melancholy and despair. This shift might well be called the secularization of the discourse on suicide.

Václav Smyčka

Pražské Příběhy sebevrahů a konstituování moderní subjektivity

The Prague Suicide Stories and the Constitution of Modern Subjectivity

Abstract: The paper deals with the stories representing the suicide of Prague (German writing) authors, Christian Heinrich Spieß, Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht and Reactions to the Wertheriads, which document the divergent development of cutures of subjectivity (Reckwitz) in Central Europe in the age of Enlightenment. The first part of the paper reconstructs the influence of the radical preromantism and Sturm und Drang, namely The Sorrows of Young Werther in the Bohemian Lands. Next, It compares the Stories written by Spieß and Albrecht with Werther as a paradigmatic text and its model of Subjectivity. It focuses to the Story Die neue Sapfo written by Spieß in 1779, which documents the genesis of his later stories and the development of the conception of the role of the subject.

Tereza Liepoldová

Mrtvoly a ohledači. Případ faráře Hayneho a vyšetřování sebevražd na Litoměřicku v 1. polovině 19. století

The Case of Pastor Hayne and Suicide Investigation in the District of Litoměřice (Leitmeritz) in the First Half of the 19th Century

Abstract: In the Habsburg lands at the turn of the 19th century (as a consequence of Enlightenment critique of the legal, social and medical status quo), a change occurred in attitudes to voluntary death. This “new discourse” permeated all state-controlled institutions, being particularly evident in the transformation of teaching practice at medical schools and the introduction of new measures concerning self-willed death. This paper considers the reception of newly-introduced reforms – especially in law and medicine – in the Litoměřice region, and the impact of these changes on the way a suicide’s body was treated and where it was laid to rest. It addresses the question of how much and in what way official and medical investigations of suicides changed, which institutions were involved in such investigations, and how information was exchanged between the various judicial authorities. As a result of ever- closer collaboration between state institutions on the one hand and medical practitioners on the other, suicide in the Litoměřice region in the first half of the 19th century was, de facto, gradually decriminalized.

N° 2016/1 

Studie a materiály

Eva Kowalská / 7

Uhorské školské reformy – impulz pre sociálny vzostup učiteľov elementárnych škôl?

The Hungarian School Reforms – an Impulse for a Social Advancement of Elementary School Teachers?

Abstract: As servants of their church community, teachers had to spend much of their time on activities that today we might consider secondary – tasks relating to their ancillary duties as cantor, organist or verger. But in rural communities the teachers, alongside the priests, were often the only educated men in the parish and played a not inconsiderable role in the early stages of the national revival movement. The school reforms passed in 18th century Hungary opened the way for teachers – even those in elementary schools – to improve their social standing and prestige, on condition they fulfilled certain expectations as formulated in the basic reform programme, Ratio educationis (1777). Our paper examines the new types of school (normal, preparatory) that offered teachers better chances of social advancement and public acceptance. Drawing on case studies of teachers in several schools, it documents how they managed to meet the demands made on them while still pursuing and realizing their own ambitions.

Ingrid Kušniráková / 19

Kráľovské akadémie a šľachtické konvikty – miesto formovania nových šľachtických úradníckych elít v Uhorsku v 18. storočí

Royal Academies and Noble Colleges – Training Grounds for New Administrative Elites in 18th Century Hungary

Abstract: The first Noble Colleges were founded in the 17th and 18th centuries by Jesuits and Piarists as an extension of existing secondary schools with the aim of providing education for the sons of impoverished gentlefolk. In the context of the Counter‑Reformation these institutions placed especial emphasis on religious education and the formation of moral and ethical values in their pupils. They were intended chiefly for Catholics of noble birth and Catholic converts who would otherwise have received no education because their parents could not afford it or had died young. After the accession of Marie Theresa and the introduction of new legislation (Articles 74/1715 and 70/1723), the state took charge of these establishments, and with them their scholars, their welfare and their upbringing. Religious education and rote‑learning of a narrow curriculum was now supplemented by foreign languages (German, Hungarian and French) and other subjects (calligraphy, arithmetic and geography). In the latter half of the 18th century the Viennese court set up a number of noble academies, including several in Hungary where young Hungarian noblemen could acquire an education commensurate with their social standing. Under Marie Theresa’s system of royal scholarships many poor students from the middle and lower nobility were able to receive an education. During her reign scholarship places in the academies and noble colleges became an instrument of social policy used by senior civil servants as rewards for services rendered, thus ensuring a new generation of public officials indebted and loyal to the Viennese Court.

Gabriela Krejčová Zavadilová a Hana Stoklasová / 35

Evangeličtí kazatelé z Uher – formování nové společenské skupiny

Evangelical Preachers from Hungary – the Formation of a New Social Group

Abstract: The paper deals with the topic of evangelical preachers of the Helvetic and the Augsburg Confession coming from the Hungarian part of the Habsburg Monarchy, after the Patent of Toleration was issued, and establishing tolerance evangelical congregations in Bohemia and Moravia. Based on studying the sources of particular tolerance Czech congregations (for example Moraveč, Humpolec, Dvakačovice, Lozice, Raná, Sány, Prague), the process of forming a new social stratum of the petty intelligentsia, whose creation was conditioned by the Enlightenment reforms, is outlined. The text shows how the Hungarian preachers made the first contacts with the emerging evangelical communities, gives an idea of the circumstances of their arrival, describes the way of their adapting to an unfamiliar environment and their effort to stabilize the congregations. These particular findings are generalized in order to define some common characteristics typical of this group of Enlightenment intellectuals.

Petronela Križanová / 61

„Ani o grajciar viac…“ Klientela bratislavských kníhkupcov v radoch uhorského evanjelického duchovenstva

“Not a Penny More…” Hungarian Protestant Clerics as Customers of Bratislava Bookshops

Abstract: The author examines the clientele of the Bratislava booksellers Anton Löwe and Philip Ulrich Mahler in the context of the Hungarian book trade from 1770 to 1800. By analysing the extant correspondence of Michal Institoris Mošovský, a protestant pastor in Bratislava, she was able to par‑ tially identify one segment of their customer base – protestant clergymen. For many years these mem‑ bers of the petty intelligentsia purchased from the Bratislava booksellers, in particular imported wor‑ ks by the German pietists and Enlightenment theologians. The author also investigated the social and geographical limits of the distribution process, some of the contact and distribution networks, and the identity of key figures.

Rudolf Svoboda / 77

Osvícenské vlivy v pedagogickém díle Jana Valeriána Jirsíka

Influences of Enlightenment in the Pedagogical Works of Jan Valerián Jirsík

Abstract: This paper considers the influence of Enlightenment thinking on the pedagogical works of Jan Valerián Jirsík (1798–1883), who earned a place in Czech history as a priest, theologian, active patriot, education campaigner, pedagogue, writer and not least as the fourth Bishop of České Budějovice (Budweis), an office he held from 1851 until his death. Primarily, it draws on and follows up ideas in the writings of the theologian Ctirad Václav Pospíšil and the church historian Kamila Veverková, who both trace the links between Jirsík the theologist and thinkers associated with Bernard Bolzano. Jirsík’s early writings, however, are as much concerned with pedagogy as they are with theology, and the aim of this study is to discover whether his ideas on education were similarly influenced by Enlightenment thinking. It analyses his views on the subject before 1851, i.e. until he became Bishop of Budweis – specifically in the period 1826–1843, when he was much occupied with questions of education and upbringing. In his years as bishop he devoted little time to literary pursuits. The study concludes that the legacy of the Enlightenment era most certainly played an important part in Jirsík’s deliberations on education. There is, however, a certain progression discernible in his thinking. In the early period, of which Sunday School (1826) is a representative text, we see the influence of contemporary Enlightenment clerical pedagogy as he advocates extending human knowledge through reason in order to improve living conditions. Faith and religion are also factors here, especially in his emphasis on the positive role of God the Creator. In the second period under consideration (1836–43), we find closer parallels between Jirsík’s pedagogical and theological thinking. Within ten years of writing Sunday School, his position had shifted from that of a priest attempting to expand or improve education in the spirit of Enlightenment ecclesiastical pedagogy to that of a theologian (and so‑called ‘true’ enlightener) who from theological considerations drew conclusions for the educational process. In Jirsík’s view, Christianity and Enlightenment go hand in hand, serving to elevate human life spiritually as well as materially. For him education means the enlightenment of both soul and reason. Nor does he see any contradiction between faith and rationality. It is evident from his thinking that he was convinced of the need to implement the pedagogical ideal of the Enlightenment: to educate virtuous citizens who were also rational.

Recenze a zprávy

Ivo Cerman: Aufklärung oder Illuminismus? (Václav Smyčka)

Nakladatelé a jejich dopisy v německojazyčném osvícenství. Komunikační pole autor – nakladatel – vydavatel (Michael Wögerbauer)

Den s jezuitským divadlem (Jan Zdichynec)