3. the Great Watershed: 1750–1790
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3. Th e Great Watershed: 1750–1790 Th e Problem of Progress Political and intellectual historians tend to regard the middle of the eighteenth century as a major watershed for at least two important reasons: it marks the beginning of the great transformation of western society called industrialisation, and it is the period when the modern world, represented fi rst of all by the idea of progress, makes a breakthrough after roughly a century and a half of fermentation. Modernity, however, is not just characterised by mechanisation, innovation and progress, but also by its very opposite. Almost from the moment the idea of progress is generally adopted as a universal law applicable to a wide range of areas, a counter- movement springs to life, consistently undermining it. It is possible to argue, in other words, that the primary feature of modernity is precisely the tug of war between a series of mutually incompatible, or at least hostile, positions. Nowhere does this ambiguous feature of modernity – this “cocktail of primitivism and progress” (Gerard Carruthers and Alan Rawes in Carruthers and Rawes eds. 2010, 4) – rise more clearly to the surface than in the North; nowhere does it produce a more vibrant dialectic between utopian and dystopian visions; and nowhere does it become more intimately involved with the search for national and regional identities. From the middle of the eighteenth century onwards, the North, in short, enters into a more than two-hundred-year-long and at times highly dramatic struggle to identify its own soul, in which forces of the rational and the irrational, the forward-looking and the backward-looking, the civilised and the primitive, the urban and the rural, constantly vie for supremacy. Th us it is perhaps also possible to argue that this fundamental tension caused a dynamic and creative drive that provided the North with its impressive momentum during the period in question. Perhaps it is also not a coincidence that these were the very societies that were in the vanguard of developing democratic government, the fundamental precondition of which was a non-stop debate about virtually all aspects of life. As we have seen in previous chapters, the revival of the old Nordic culture had been gathering momentum for well over a century, and in the © PETER FJÅGESUND, 2014 | DOI 10.1163/9789401210829_005 Peter Fjågesund - 9789401210829 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NCDownloaded-ND from 4.0 Brill.com10/05/2021license. 06:48:17PM via free access 176 Th e Dream of the North years around 1750 it was just about to make another major leap forward. But at the same time, another element, with a more recent history, was being added to the growing and constantly self-enhancing signifi cance of the North, namely the celebration of the wild and untouched northern landscape. Together, these two elements were going to create a treasure trove out of which the leading lights of western culture would to fi nd inspiration for their art, literature and music for a long period to follow, and thereby would help to position the North as rather more than a major cultural force; indeed this increasing cultural hegemony was a direct refl ection of the political and military strength that was now accumulating in the region, especially through the steady, oak-like growth of Britain and Russia. Around mid-century, Britain was very decisively tipping the political scales in Europe. Within its own borders, the score had been fi nally settled with regard to the claim to the throne. Th e Battle of Culloden in April 1746 had not only secured the position of the Hanoverians; it had also once and for all removed the Catholic threat, which had been a recurring issue ever since the Reformation. Most importantly, however, it brought Scotland – decisively and with an iron fi st – under English control. Th ere was no going back: the slow process of making the British Isles into one truly unifi ed political and military, if not cultural, unit, was practically at an end. On the international scene, too, the country was rapidly extending its imperial tentacles. India was conquered in 1757, and full control of the country was achieved thirteen years later; in 1759, Canada was eff ectively taken from the hands of the French with the victory of General James Wolfe at the Battle of Quebec; and at the end of the Seven Years’ War, the Treaty of Paris in 1763 sealed this and a series of other disputes around the world, the general consequence of which was a decisive weakening of France and Spain, and a strengthening of Britain. And British dominance was not only apparent on the battlefi eld; the incipient industrialisation, which made a much better start here than on the Continent, would soon have a powerful knock-on eff ect on the economy. For the time being, however, the economy was far more dependent on another area, namely agriculture. Whereas Britain’s enemy across the Channel remained conservative or even reactionary with regard to agricultural innovation, and thus experienced hunger and unrest that retarded economic development and laid the foundation for the coming cataclysm, Britain itself was laying the foundations for an agricultural revolution that was an essential prerequisite for its industrial counterpart (Fagan 2000, 103). Just as Britain was strengthening the western fl ank of northern Europe, Russia was strengthening that of the east. In 1762, Tsar Peter III – a grandson of Peter the Great – was forced to abdicate for having withdrawn rather unheroically from the Seven Years’ War. He was Peter Fjågesund - 9789401210829 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:48:17PM via free access Th e Great Watershed: 1750–1790 177 immediately replaced by his own wife, Catherine. Like her famous predecessor half a century earlier, Catherine pursued a policy of expansion and modernisation, which not only earned her the epithet “the Great”; “Peter I in drag”1 also ensured that Russia acquired a position as one of the greatest powers in Europe by updating administrative structures, opening up the country to western cultural impulses, and extending its territories by half a million square kilometres. In this climate of a growing northern self-confi dence, the tables in Europe were gradually being turned. Whereas traditionally the North had looked towards the South with admiration, imitated and recreated its cultural and political legacy, learned its languages and copied its art, it now increasingly turned in on itself and its own resources. Indeed, there were conspicuous examples of representatives from the South itself looking to the North with an attitude very diff erent from that of earlier generations. One of these was a nobleman from Bordeaux in the south of France, Charles-Louis Montesquieu (1689–1755), who in 1748 published Th e Spirit of the Laws, which was to have an enormous impact on the view of the North, both in the North itself and in the South. It is diffi cult to imagine, however, that the impact would have been the same had the book been written by a northerner. Expressed in a language of apparently objective truth, Montesquieu in Book 14, “On the laws in their relation to the nature of the climate”, makes the observation that men are more vigorous in colder climates simply because “[t]he action of the heart and the reaction of the extremities of the fi bers are in closer accord, the fluids are in a better equilibrium, the blood is pushed harder toward the heart and, reciprocally, the heart has more power” (Montesquieu 2000, 231– 32). And these physiological characteristics are intimately connected with a moral superiority: In southern climates, a delicate, weak, but sensitive machine gives itself up to a love which in a seraglio is constantly aroused and calmed; or else to a love which as it leaves women much more independent is exposed to a thousand troubles. In northern countries, a healthy and well-constituted but heavy machine fi nds its pleasures in all that can start the spirits in motion again: hunting, travels, war, and wine. You will fi nd in the northern climates peoples who have few vices, enough virtues, and much sincerity and frankness. As you move toward the countries of the south, you will believe you have moved away from morality itself: the liveliest passions will increase crime; each will seek to take from others all the advantages that can favor these same passions. (Ibid., 234) Th e reference to the seraglio – with its associations to Muslim harems – seems almost to intimate a southern culture that has turned both feminine and decadent, and it is placed in sharp relief to the masculine Germanic culture that the revival of Tacitus and the Hermann legend must have 1 Th e phrase is used in Wilson 2009, 195. Peter Fjågesund - 9789401210829 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:48:17PM via free access 178 Th e Dream of the North brought to Montesquieu’s attention. “In the time of the Romans,” he claims, clearly having read his Tacitus, “the peoples of northern Europe lived without arts, without education, almost without laws, and still, with only the good sense connected with the coarse fi bers of these climates, they maintained themselves with remarkable wisdom against the Roman power until they came out of their forests to destroy it” (ibid., 235). A fi rm believer in eternal and rational laws based on scientifi c principles, Montesquieu reached conclusions that were received with acclamation in the North; and in the South, too, his lucid and convincing style made his message virtually unassailable.