2021 - 2

Inhoud

Dossier Particularisme, regionalisme, nationalisme en imperialisme in de Europese stad (1800-2020)

Tymen Peverelli, Milou van Hout, Karen Vannieuwenhuyze, Enno Maessen

Inleiding

Tymen Peverelli

Gemengde gevoelens. Gelokaliseerd nationalisme en stedelijk particularisme in Brugge, Leeuwarden en Maastricht, 1815-1914

Milou van Hout

Verbeelding van een grensstad. Over hoe stedelingen grip houden op identiteitspolitiek in Rijeka en Triëst, 1860-1940

Karen Vannieuwenhuyze

Een voorbeeldige stad. Standbeelden in de ‘tweede stad’ Antwerpen, 1830-1914

Enno Maessen

Lokale identiteit en ‘nationale’ instituties in de historische binnenstad van Istanbul (1950-1980)

Review

Arie van Steensel, Elisa Bonduel, Veerle Driessen, Niels Fieremans, Nathalie Franckaerts, Sanne Hermans, Arnoud Jensen, Bente Marschall, Pieter Martens, Els Minne, Miente Pietersma, Paul Reef, Ariadne Schmidt, Jasper Segerink, Samantha Sint Nicolaas

Belgische en Nederlandse stadsgeschiedenis in historische tijdschriften (2020)

Abstracts

Tymen Peverelli, Mixed feelings. Localised nationalism and urban particularism in Bruges, Leeuwarden and Maastricht, 1815-1914
The nineteenth-century nation-building process had profound consequences for the self-image of the erudite inhabitants of Belgian and Dutch towns. While in previous centuries their cities functioned as more or less autonomous city-states, they now had to settle for the position of a provincial city in a new nation-state. This article researches the ways in which nineteenth-century ‘erudites’ identified themselves with three so-called ‘third cities’: Bruges, Leeuwarden and Maastricht. The article identifies four viewpoints of erudites toward the ‘nation-state issue’: indifference, accommodation, distance, and self-exoticization. They moved back and forth between a sense of localised nationalism and urban particularism. Several cultural activities are researched: literature and historiography, architecture and tourism. These activities show that the erudites in these types of cities had a complex, and often problematic, relationship with the nation-state.

Milou van Hout, Imagining the border city. A grasp on identity politics in Rijeka and Trieste, 1860-1940
A turbulent past of political transition, border changes, cultural diversity and conflict has formed the Adriatic border region across its long twentieth century. Against the backdrop of such experiences of change and crisis a vigorous urban imagination persisted during which nationalism made exclusive claims to citizenship practices. In contrast to what has often been perceived, the Adriatic cities of Rijeka and Trieste were not only battlefields for the harsh regional geopolitics. The urban imaginations provided inhabitants of Trieste and Rijeka with strategic ways of navigating among the different political worlds that surrounded them.

Karen Vannieuwenhuyze, An exemplary city. Statues in second city Antwerp, 1830-1914
During the nineteenth century, Antwerp and Brussels underwent just as many other European cities a real statuomanie. Historical studies repeatedly demonstrated the direct link between the success of these public sculptures and the development of national and local urban identities. The focus was mainly on urban and in particular capital contexts which stimulated the general idea that the built landscape was only at the service of the liberal nation-state. However, for some cities, especially second cities, this was not a self-evident fact. By focusing on public statues, this article examines the ambiguous relationship that Antwerp maintained with the capital Brussels. The provincial city, which presented itself primarily as an Art and Commerce metropolis, was regularly at odds with the Belgian state and its capital. In the end, the distinctive design of the sculptures was the result of the political positions held by both cities.

Enno Maessen, Local identity and ‘national’ institutions in Istanbul’s historical city centre (1950-1980)
In the second half of the twentieth century Istanbul, a mid-sized second city, would grow out to become a metropole, re-affirming its status as the economic and cultural centre of Turkey and the region. Processes of nationalist homogenization and urban decay had left their marks in the urban landscape and demography of the historical city centre, Beyoğlu. Yet the heritage of the Ottoman Empire in the Istanbul of the 1950s was still visible in Beyoğlu, which was often represented as diverse or even cosmopolitan. This article investigates these dynamics of continuity, converging towards two prominent ‘national’ institutions, a Grand Lodge of Freemasons and a francophone state high school.