This generation of the 1810s and 1820s is marked by the end of the Napoleonic adventure and the new definition of Europe that results in a key period of history since this generation also marks the effective start of the industrial revolution.

In continental Europe, at the end of the preceding generation, the Napoleonic Empire is at its peak, roughly reproducing that of Charlemagne a thousand years after it. Conducted to wage wars beyond this empire, in Spain and especially in Russia, the Empire collapses rapidly. Despite some recent symbolic victories, Paris falls in 1814 and Napoleon is forced to abdicate. On May 30, 1814, France is brought back to the borders of 1792, the empire will have lasted little.

The last attempt to restore the Empire is a complete failure and ends with the defeat of the French at Waterloo on June 18, 1815. This is the end of the Napoleonic adventure.

England is indeed in full industrial development, a development started in the nineteenth century through the exploitation of the steam engine and the development of metallurgy coupled with the exploitation of coal mines. Despite its commitment in continental Europe in the conflict with France, its development is particularly boosted by financiers.

The pogroms of 1819 were added to the reactionary policy in Germany with regard to the Jews. This policy gives them only extremely limited freedom, which is stifling the younger Jewish generations attracted by German society.

• And it was [1] in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that Evil-merodach, king of Babylonia, in the year of his coronation, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah and released him from prison.
• And he spoke with him kindly and placed his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon.
• And he changed his prison garb, and he ate meals before him regularly all the days of his life.
• And his meals, regular meals were given him from the king, each day’s need in its day, all the days of his life.

• Already, in 1826 [2], Heine thinks of a stay or even an establishment in Paris, to live there and especially to write more freely: « The French are the chosen people of the new religion; it is in their language that the first gospels and dogmas were written; Paris is the new Jerusalem, the Rhine is the Jordan which separates the country from the liberty of the country of the Philistines. Heine had to cross the new Jordan on May 17, 1831, and arrive in Paris on the 20th.

• A profound transformation [3] has taken place in me since my illness, I will make an admission. I am no longer « the freest German after Goethe », « the great pagan number two », which was compared to Dionysus, adorned garlands of the vine, I am no longer a joyful Hellene to live, slightly lopsided and, looking with a disdainful smile on the melancholy Nazarenes from the height of my vitality, I am no more than a poor Jew, sick to death, an ascetic image of misery, an unhappy man!

• By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, we also wept when we remembered Zion.

Heine [4] who was a companion of Gans in the Culturverein initially criticized the attitude of the latter during his conversion accusing him of abandoning the ship. However [5], he will not resist temptation and will in turn convert, thinking to obtain, according to his own expression, his « entry ticket » in European culture.

The most famous version is that of the composer Friedrich Silcher, it becomes one of the most popular songs in Germany. The Nazis, because of this popularity can not prohibit this song like the other Jewish works, preferred to indicate that the author was anonymous to make the work lawful.

I know not if there is a reason
Why I am so sad at heart.
A legend of bygone ages
Haunts me and will not depart.

The air is cool under nightfall.
The calm Rhine courses its way.
The peak of the mountain is sparkling
With evening’s final ray.

The fairest of maidens is sitting
So marvelous up there,
Her golden jewels are shining,
She’s combing her golden hair.

She combs with a comb also golden,
And sings a song as well
Whose melody binds a wondrous
And overpowering spell.

In his little boat, the boatman
Is seized with a savage woe,
He’d rather look up at the mountain
Than down at the rocks below.

I think that the waves will devour
The boatman and boat as one;
And this by her song’s sheer power
Fair Lorelei has done.

• On willows in its midst we hung our harps.
• For there our captors asked us for words of song and our tormentors [asked of us] mirth, « Sing for us of the song of Zion. »
• « How shall we sing the song of the Lord on foreign soil? »

Some Jews will try to find a solution to this separation by trying to reform their religion:

• Israel Jacobson [7] (1768-1828), financial adviser to the King of Westphalia Jerome Bonaparte, is the pioneer of reform. He founded in 1810, in Seesen, Lower Saxony, a synagogue where the prayer is not only in Hebrew but also in German.
• It celebrates at 12 and 13 years the « confirmation » of girls and boys, to model the « rites of passage » of Jewish adolescents on those of Christians. And above all, for the first time, the regular use of the organ for synagogal worship is introduced. After the fall of Napoleon, Jacobson came to Berlin and organized a synagogue of this type in his own house. The Prussian government after 1815, hostile to any innovation in politics as in religion, put an end to these unusual prayer meetings.
• At the same time, David Friedländer anonymously publishes a booklet with a very significant title: « The necessity of the new organization of Jewish communities to reform their worship in synagogues, their schools, the subjects to be taught and, in general, all their education system « . Friedländer develops the idea that it is necessary to « meditate » on the rights that the Prussian government has just granted to the Jews (this is the 1812 edict), and one of the means he advocates is the renunciation of all national particularism, the suppression in the liturgy of prayers which express the hope of a return to Jerusalem. Germany is the homeland of German Jews, their language is German, and the memory of Jerusalem just as the use of Hebrew must be gradually eliminated. Once again, it is the Prussian government that puts a stop to these projects by forbidding to change anything to rituals and the language of tradition.

Heine, who at first had agreed to « pay the entrance ticket » by accepting the conversion, had realized his mistake, he decided at the end of this generation to leave Germany for France he think more suited to Jews.

• Yet [8] do not worry, my dear compatriots (Heine addresses the French), no worries, the German revolution will be neither more debonair nor softer because the criticism of Kant, the transcendental idealism of Fichte and philosophy of nature will have preceded it. These doctrines have developed revolutionary forces that are only waiting for the moment to explode and fill the world with dread and admiration. Then will appear Kantists (followers of Kant) who will not want to hear more about piety in the world of facts than in that of ideas, and will upset without mercy, with the ax and the sword, the soil of our European life to extirpate it. the last roots of the past. Will come on the same scene Fichteens (followers of Ficht) armed whose fanaticism and will can not be controlled by fear or interest. (..)
• But the most frightening of all would be the philosophers of Nature, who would intervene by action in a German revolution and identify themselves with the work of destruction. For if the hand of the Kantist strikes hard and for sure, because his heart is moved by no traditional respect; if the Fichteen boldly despises all dangers, because they do not exist for him in reality; the philosopher of nature will be terrible in that he puts himself in communication with the original powers of the earth, he conjures up the hidden forces of tradition, that he can evoke those of all Germanic pantheism and that he awakens in him that ardor of combat that we find among the ancient Germans, and who wants to fight, not to destroy nor even to conquer, but only to fight.Christianity has, to a certain extent, softened that brutal ardor of the Germans; but he was not able to destroy it, and when the believe, this talisman that binds it, will break, then overflow again the ferocity of the veterans, the frenzied exaltation of the Berserkers that the poets of the North still sing today. Then, this day, alas, will come, the old warlike deities will rise from their fabulous tombs, wipe their eyes with the age-old dust; Thor will stand with his gigantic hammer and demolish the Gothic cathedrals … When you hear the din and tumult, be on your guard, our dear neighbors of France, and do not interfere with the business we will do at home in Germany: it could come to you badly. Be careful not to blow the fire, do not put it out, because you could easily burn your fingers. Do not laugh at these counsels, although they come from a dreamer who invites you to challenge yourself with kantists, Fichtens, philosophers of nature; do not laugh at the whimsical poet who is expecting in reality the same revolution which has taken place in the domain of the mind. Thought precedes action like lightning thunder. The thunder in Germany is indeed in German truth too; he is not very easy, and comes rolling a little slowly; but it will come, and when you hear a crack like never before creak was heard in the history of the world, know that the German thunder will finally hit the goal. At this sound, the eagles will fall dead from the air, and the lions, in the most remote deserts of Africa, will lower their tails and slip into their royal lairs. A drama will be executed in Germany with which the French Revolution will be only an innocent idyll. It is true that today everything is calm, and if you see here and there some men gesticulate a little vividly, do not believe that it is the actors who will one day be responsible for the representation. These are only pugs that run in the empty arena, barking and exchanging a few punches, before the hour when the troupe of gladiators who will fight to death must enter

  And the hour will ring. The peoples will group themselves as on the steps of an amphitheater, around Germany, to see great and terrible games. I advise you, French, then hold yourself very quiet, and especially do not applaud you.

This name [9] is that of a rock that rises on the Rhine at 132 meters above the Rhine. It is the narrowest point of the river, the advance of the rock reduced by a quarter the width of the river. The very violent current and the numerous submerged rocks caused many accidents of navigation. The name of Lorelei is also the name of a nymph of the Germanic mythology (in German: Nixe) which attracts the navigators of the Rhine to the perdition by its songs, like the sirens of the Greek mythology like the episode quoted in Ulysses.

On one side the Lord, Rock of Israel and Jordan, river of life for Israel. On the other, the rock of Edom and the Rhine, a river of near death for Israel.

In particular [10], it is to this generation of the 1810s and 1820s that the myth of the Aryan race is created based on a unity of languages. Thus the Aryan languages are related to those of the Persians, Latins, Celts, Slavs, Germans, Armenians or Greeks. They form a family qualified as Indo-European. We asked very early what could be the mother tongue of this family. Linguists like William Jones, in the late eighteenth century, noticed the « perfect » aspect of Sanskrit, compared to Greek or Latin. The idea that Sanskrit was the mother tongue then made its way. As its speakers were called the Aryans, the term was applied to the entire Indo-European family. That of Indo-European appeared for the first time in an article by Thomas Young, in the Quarterly Review in 1813, but it is that of Aryan that prevailed throughout the nineteenth century. This use of the term Aryans declined during the first half of the twentieth century. It was then that the Nazis decided to use it for their purposes. They needed two conditions to develop their racial theories. The first was provided by Count Joseph Arthur Gobineau, in his essay on the inequality of human races, published in 1855. He showed that the Aryans had originally formed a race pure, white and blonde. He thought, however, like everyone else in his day, that this people had lived in Asia. This was the logical consequence of the theory that made Sanskrit the mother tongue. The second condition was to place the home of these Aryans in Germany. This idea was issued by Ludwig Geiger in 1871 and imposed by Karl Penka between 1883 and 1891.

• The kinship [11] between the European languages and Sanskrit had already been noted in the past, but the times were not ripe, the discovery fell back into oblivion. It was otherwise when in 1786 the Englishman Williams Jones pointed out in his « Asiatic Researches » the structural affinity that exists between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, « Gothic » and « Celtic », in doing so, he thought he could attribute to the Indian idiom precellence, « an admirable structure, more perfect than that of the Greek, richer than that of the Latin, and more exquisite than those of the one as the other. » The philosophy of the time welcomed this judgment which was taken up and amplified by the Schlegel brothers, the founders of ideology in Germany. Around 1805, Schlegel wrote that the Indian language was older than the Greek or Latin languages, not to mention German or Persian … the Indian distinguishes himself, he added, by the depth, the clarity, the calm and the philosophical turn; he also supposed that the Indian was « the oldest derived language », the closest, therefore, « of the primitive language from which all languages are derived ». In the same book (« Essay on the Language and Philosophy of the Indians ») he invented the term « Aryans » to designate the invincible conquerors descended from the Himalayas to colonize and civilize Europe. August Wilhelm Schlegel, resuming an idea of Leibniz on the usefulness of philology for the study of the origin of peoples, also spoke of « the origin of Hindus, » and proclaimed the superiority of their language over Semitic languages. At the same time, the philosopher Schelling criticized the imperfections of Sacred Scripture which, he felt, did not support the comparison « in true religious content » with Indian sacred books. « It was then a kind of intoxication, wrote a century later a historian of Gobinism, modern civilization thought to have found his family titles, lost for many centuries, and Aryanism was born … »

The Himalayas are for the theorists of the Aryan race the home of the original European people united by a unique language Sanskrit is also the roof of the world. it is of course comparable to the Tower of Babel built to reach the sky by a people united around a single language.

In his little boat, the boatman
Is seized with a savage woe,
He’d rather look up at the mountain
Than down at the rocks below.

I think that the waves will devour
The boatman and boat as one;
And this by her song’s sheer power
Fair Lorelei has done.

 

 

[1] Melachim II – II Kings – Chapter 25, verses 27 to 30.

[2] Excerpt from the Larousse website on Heinrich Heine: http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/personnage/Heine/123480

[3] Renée Neher-Bernheim: « Jewish History of the Revolution in the State of Israel ». Quote from « Heinrich Heine, Rectifications, April 15, 1849, unpublished translation of André Neher. (French: « Histoire juive de la Révolution à l’état d’Israël ». Citation de « Heinrich Heine, Rectifications, 15 avril 1849, traduction inédite d’André Neher. (p. 197,198) )

[4] Maurice Ruben Hayoun: « The Enlightenment of Cordoba in Berlin, volume 2 ». Chapter: « The Survival of Judaism Through Science? The Culturverein « . (French: « Les Lumières de Cordoue à Berlin, volume 2 ». Chapitre : « La survie de judaïsme par la science ? Le Culturverein ». (p. 288) ).

[5] Enzo Traverso: « The Jews and Germany ». (French: « Les Juifs et l’Allemagne ». (p. 28) )

[6] Heinrich Heine: « The Book of Songs« . ( Translated by A.Z. Foreman, see: http://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com/2009/11/heinrich-heine-lorelei-from-german.html ). (French: « Livre des chants », Recueil : « Le retour, chant 2 », (pp. 97-98) ); Written in 1823-1824.

[7] Renée Neher-Bernheim: « Jewish History of the Revolution in the State of Israel ». (French: « Histoire juive de la Révolution à l’état d’Israël ». (p. 168,169) )

[8] Henri Heine: « On Germany ». Chapter « From Kant to Hegel ». (French: « De l’Allemagne ». Chapitre « De Kant à Hegel ». (p. 163) )

[9] According to Wikipedia.

[10] According to Wikipedia, page « Aryans ».

[11] Leon Poliakov: « History of anti-Semitism, 2 – the age of science ». (French: « Histoire de l’antisémitisme , 2 – l’âge de la science ». (p. 164-165) )