Constructive forgetting and reconciliatory memory in nineteenth-century historical fiction A comparative perspective on Scandinavianism, pan-Germanism and Greater Netherlandism

Abstract

This chapter studies how far the reconciliation of a troublesome shared past through historical fiction can be considered a general characteristic of pan-national movements in nineteenth-century Europe. A cross-case analysis shows that this praxis was most widespread and most intricately developed in Scandinavianism, while it to a lesser degree also left its mark on pan-Germanism as expressed through German and Austrian literature. In Greater Netherlandism, reconciliatory memory was almost completely absent in favour of a strategy of constructive forgetting. These observations lead to the very tentative conclusion that Scandinavianism's relatively great cultural impact can at least partly be ascribed to the successful and repeated reconciliation of past conflict through literary fiction.