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Roland Spickermann on Ordinary Prussians: Brandenburg Junkers

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Roland Spickermann on Ordinary Prussians: Brandenburg Junkers William W. Hagen. Ordinary Prussians: Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers, 1500-1840. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 712 pp. $100.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-81558-1. Reviewed by Roland Spickermann Published on H-German (August, 2003) In concluding this work on rural history, backwardness of rural Prussia, discovering that William Hagen writes, "If [the study's] implica‐ Prussians were quite "ordinary" indeed has far- tions for German history seem far-reaching, so reaching implications for how we must interpret they are meant to be" (p. 654). He does not exag‐ German developments. gerate; in researching one Rittergut and its envi‐ It is worth noting the more critical assump‐ rons, he has discovered that much of what we tions that Hagen has challenged. First, in contrast thought we knew about rural Prussia simply did to structural changes in "west Elbia," conventional not ft his data. Hagen had described the Rittergut wisdom has portrayed "east Elbia" as a structural‐ Stavenow before, in an essay entitled "The ly dormant land of Junker-dominated estates.[2] Junker's Faithless Servants," but Ordinary Prus‐ "Peasants," as convention calls them (Hagen right‐ sians reinforces and extends his original asser‐ ly describes them instead as "farmers" or "vil‐ tions from a few decades to over three centuries. lagers"), deferred to Lords, while Lords provided [1] The "faithlessness" of the villagers was appar‐ for "peasants" within fxed economic and legal re‐ ently not a product of a given era, but an inherent lationships, which only the commercialization of characteristic of their lives. A world we thought agriculture or French Revolution-inspired re‐ was peopled with servile peasants and autocratic, forms would challenge. But, Hagen notes, there pre-capitalist Junker backed by a repressive royal was nothing dormant about Stavenow. One saw bureaucracy, instead had litigious farmers chal‐ instead a "continual struggle for freedom of move‐ lenging Junker in sympathetic royal courts, Junker ment" within the Junker-farmer relationship, and searching for ways to make estates more prof‐ not one of unilaterally imposed and unopposed itable, and a dense web of community ties operat‐ changes. "The noble landlords wielded govern‐ ing with little reference to the Rittergut, much as ment-backed disciplinary and police powers, but they would have elsewhere in Europe. Given how whether these could be effectively and profitably much interpretations of Germany's turbulent de‐ applied depended on a constantly tested and velopment rely on the political and economic H-Net Reviews renegotiated manor-village power balance. It was close-knit environment with some social mobility not a society in which those invested with lord‐ and property-fluidity, in which the Junker played ship could rely on deferential obedience. Neither less of a role than fellow villagers did. Indeed, as was it a patriarchal society in which villagers Hagen argues, these villagers "appear as commu‐ could count on their master's good will. Nor was it nity-bound and kinship-enmeshed family farmers a society so dominated by landlordly and abso‐ more comparable than has been thought to their lutist coercion that common people could not de‐ western European counterparts" (p. 183). More‐ fend themselves and gained advantages under over, the more distant presence of the Junker gave propitious circumstances" (p. 122). him less leverage in efforts to extract more re‐ Likewise, the conventional wisdom has ar‐ sources than one would have expected. The gued for a culture which reinforced and legit‐ seigneurial authority of the Junker was well-de‐ imized Junker dominance; the local church pro‐ fined, but conversely so were his limits; he could moted obedience, as did the culture's militariza‐ not demand more of his villagers than what was tion, and local law-enforcement did the Lords' written without facing costly legal battles. His au‐ bidding. But Hagen fnds this not to have been the thority was not absolute and could not even avail case, either. While the local clergy might enjoy re‐ itself of any religious legitimization, since (as Ha‐ spect due to the services which their Bildung gen shows) the clergy enjoyed less status in secu‐ could provide, not least assistance with eternal lar matters than one might have thought, too. In salvation, this did not translate into secular au‐ short, villagers experienced their Lords' intru‐ thority. Indeed, "pastors' words carried little sions "unmediatedly as domination or overlord‐ weight independent of such sanctions as lordship ship (Obrigkeit)" (p. 591). It should come as no or state might marshal behind them" (p. 454). Cu‐ surprise, then, that villagers resisted as much as riously, as well, Hagen fnds no evidence of overt they did. militarization of the culture. Few of the nobles be‐ Hagen, of course, does devote his attentions haved or dressed martially and none left service to Junker-farmer conflicts. Here the reader is in reluctantly. "If they were the militarized Prussian for other surprises, for the Junker and their assis‐ nobility, most were not loath to lay down their tants had strikingly commercial mentalities, in swords" (p. 303). The villagers themselves seemed contrast to the assumption of the historiography to care little for their military experi‐ that tradition-oriented Lords engaged in mere ences--"household inventories say nothing of mili‐ confiscation from "their" peasants. Indeed, tary clothing or memorabilia" (p. 468), for exam‐ Stavenow was "a complex economic system with ple--suggesting that these were not valued enough a large and expensive workforce, much valuable to include. and vulnerable livestock, and big commodity Hagen also de-centers the Junker in the envi‐ sales [...]. Large-scale east-Elbian estates were ronment, arguing that historians have been too more intricate and fnely tuned than customarily "Junker-obsessed" to notice the village and its net‐ supposed. Nor were they the expression alone of works (p. 184). Much of Ordinary Prussians is a noble lordship, whether contested or not, but also model exercise in Geertzian "thick description," of the technological and managerial strengths of using court and Rittergut records, regarding the an array of hard-working and able non-nobles status and interactions of villagers ranging from [...]. Such an enterprise was a highly developed the hired hands to the independent farmers to ar‐ and, in the eighteenth century, rapidly evolving tisans, innkeepers, and estate-managers, and from institution of early capitalism" (p. 333). Argument children to the elderly. The patterns reveal a for the estate as a highly capitalistic institution also challenges various contemporary schools of 2 H-Net Reviews thought. Marxian scholars, for example, would estate would be necessary to decide. Nonetheless, highlight both the role of market forces in dissolv‐ students of later periods of German history, who ing a feudally-organized society and the role of have leaned confidently on rural backwardness the state in reinforcing Junker demands on their as a partial explanation for Germany's peculiari‐ "peasants" to this end. Yet Hagen's data suggest ties, may fnd themselves rethinking matters. "If," the reverse, that the Junker-farmer conflict facili‐ Hagen notes, "politicized Prussian agrarians of tated the introduction of market forces and con‐ the ages of Bismarck and William II increasingly tractual relationships long before the 1806 Eman‐ brandished demagogic ideological weapons, in‐ cipation. The farmers, it seems, so resisted any at‐ cluding anti-semitism, they were doing so far tempts to change the seigneurial relationship--and more for radically modern reasons than as a man‐ the royal courts ruled in their favor often ifestation of an unbroken tradition of 'Junker enough--that Junker and their estate-managers domination' (Junkerherrschaft).... Lamentably found it more productive to engage contractual la‐ misguided though rural east-Elbian entry into bor than to intensify villagers' obligations. For Hitler's camp was," he continues, "it yields better Stavenow, at least, the 1806 Emancipation merely to an interpretation focused on populist and na‐ assisted a process already underway. tionalist mobilization, and conflicts within mod‐ Nonetheless, a great deal of the old paradigm ern German society and politics, than one focused remains standing, even after this work. While on survival into the twentieth century of pre-mod‐ Prussians might have been "ordinary," living in ern authoritarian structures" (p. 653). If such villages comparable to those elsewhere in west‐ structures had taken heavy blows earlier in the ern Europe, it nonetheless remains true that the eighteenth century, they will have little explanato‐ Junker did also retain the commanding heights of ry power for the twentieth. the military and the bureuacracy, and did sit Cambridge University Press has done a beau‐ much closer to royal power than those villagers tiful job on this book's production, but has priced did. The villagers' conflict with the Junker were the hardcover edition at $100. One wishes fer‐ defensive in nature, as well; they never chal‐ vently for a paperback edition since, with its rich lenged his rights to extract resources from them mines of data and insight on rural political, eco‐ in principle, and so, the Junker did remain a ma‐ nomic, gender and social history, this will be an jor (if no longer central) player. Despite a surpris‐ essential text for years to come. ingly non-martial village culture, the army did Notes: still play a disproportionate role in Prussia, in [1]. See Hagen's "The Junkers' Faithless Ser‐ comparison to elsewhere in Europe. In short, in vants: Peasant Insubordination and the Break‐ the political structures from the Junker on "up," down of Serfdom in Brandenburg-Prussia," in The our picture of early modern Prussia remains German Peasantry: Conflict and Community in mostly the same. But Hagen has rightly pointed Rural Society from the Eighteenth to the Twenti‐ out the errors of overlooking the terrain "below," eth Centuries, ed.
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