Johan Heyzinga (date of birth: December 7, 1872; date of death: February 1, 1945) is a Dutch historian, philosopher of culture and one of the founders of the modern history of cultures. Adopting the point of view of his predecessor Jacob Burkhardt, Heyzinga considered historical realities not only in the political, but also in the cultural spectrum. He first proposed defining history as the totality of all aspects of human activity, including religion, philosophy, linguistics, traditions, art, literature, mythology, superstition, and so on. Denying the philological methodology, Heyzinga tried to portray life, feelings, beliefs, ideas, tastes, moral and aesthetic considerations through the prism of their cultural expression. He tried to compile a chronicle, with the help of which readers could penetrate the spirit of people who lived in the past, feel their feelings, understand their thoughts. To achieve this, the historian used not only literary descriptions, but also illustrations.
Creation
Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919), a masterpiece of cultural history, combining concepts and images, literature and history, religion and philosophy, became the most famous work of Hazinga, bringing him the glory of the founder of cultural history in the twentieth century and the heir of Burkhardt. Later, Johan Heyzinga wrote the play "The Man Playing" (1938). In it, he connects the essence of man with the concept of "playfulness", calls the game the primitive need of human existence and affirms it as an archetype of diverse cultural forms. Heyzinga clearly showed how all kinds of human cultures were born and developed, remaining modifications and manifestations of playfulness.
A life
Johan Heyzinga, whose biography is far from adventurous, was born in the city of Groningen, the Netherlands. While studying at the university, he specialized in Sanskrit and defended his doctoral dissertation on "The Role of the Jester in Indian Drama" in 1897. Only in 1902 was Heyzing interested in the history of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He remained working at the university, teaching oriental cultures, until he received the title of professor of world and national history in 1905. Ten years later, he was appointed professor of world history at Leiden University - where he taught until 1942. From this moment until his death in 1945, Heyzinga was held in Nazi captivity in a small town near Arnhem. He is buried in the cemetery of the Reformed Church in the city of Ustgest.
Forerunner
Heysing's predecessor, Jacob Burkhardt, who lived in the nineteenth century, first began to consider history from a cultural point of view. Burkhardt zealously criticized the philological and political approaches to the consideration of historical realities that were widespread among contemporaries. Johan Heyzinga (photo) continued and developed the methods of his predecessor, forming a new genre - the history of cultures.
Unique approach
He considered history as a combination of many aspects of human life, including religious beliefs and superstitions, customs and traditions, social restrictions and taboos, a sense of moral duty and beauty, and so on. Heyzinga denied conceptual schematization and fitting historical events to intuitive patterns. He tried to convey the state of the human spirit and thoughts through the dreams, hopes, fears and anxieties of bygone generations. He was especially interested in the sense of beauty and his expression through art.
Works
Using his unsurpassed literary skills, Johan Heyzinga was able to depict how people of the past lived, felt and interpreted their cultural realities. For him, history was not a series of political events devoid of real feelings and sensations, without which not a single person can live. Hazinge's monumental work, Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919), was written from that perspective.
This work must first be considered as a historical study, but it goes far beyond the narrow disciplinary genre of the historical essay as an analytical, philological study of a series of events. On the contrary: this work highlights interdisciplinary cultural realities, where anthropology, aesthetics, philosophy, mythology, religion, art history and literature are intertwined. Although the author paid attention to the irrational aspects of human history, he was quite critical of the irrationalism of the "philosophy of life."
At the age of sixty-five, the historian published another masterpiece - the work "The Man Playing" (1938). She became the culmination of his many years of work in the fields of history and philosophy of culture. Heyzing also gained fame publication "Erasmus" (1924).
"Autumn of the Middle Ages"
"Autumn of the Middle Ages" has become the most famous book of the historian. Thanks to her, most contemporaries found out who Johan Heyzinga is and were able to get acquainted with new trends in science.
Jacob Burkhardt and other historians considered the Middle Ages the forerunner of the Renaissance and described them as the cradle of realism. Burkhardt's works focused on the Italian Renaissance and practically did not cover this period in the cultures of France, the Netherlands and other European states north of the Alps.
Heyzinga challenged the interpretation of the Middle Ages in terms of Renaissance. He believed that medieval cultures flourished and survived the peak of their development in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and then fell into decay in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. According to Hazingi, the historical period, like a living creature in nature, is born and dies; that is why the late Middle Ages became the time of the death of the period and the transition to further revival. For example, in the chapter “The Face of Death”, Johan Heyzinga depicted the fifteenth century as follows: thoughts of death dominate the human mind, and the motive of the “dance of death” becomes a frequent plot of art paintings. He saw more gloom, fatigue and nostalgia for the past - symptoms of a withering culture than signs of rebirth and optimism inherent in the Renaissance.
Despite the somewhat limited worldview presented in the book Autumn of the Middle Ages, it remains a classic work on the history of cultures and occupies a place of honor along with the famous works of Jacob Burkhardt.