Staging the past: Allotria's 'Festzug Karl V' and German national identity

Wieber, S. (2006) Staging the past: Allotria's 'Festzug Karl V' and German national identity. Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, 10(4), pp. 523-551. (doi: 10.1080/13642520600649465)

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Publisher's URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642520600649465

Abstract

In 1876, Munich's renowned artist society Allotria organized an elaborate artists' festival that restaged the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's triumphant entry into Munich in 1530. This essay examines Allotria's 'Festzug Karl V' by drawing on some of its visual representations and explores how a specific moment from Germany's past was used to signal a particular national identity in Wilhelm I's young German Empire. Taking the Empire's specific sociopolitical context into account, this study suggests that Allotria's re-enactment of a historic event was neither a nostalgic turning to the past, nor simply a means to establish it as genealogy that linked late nineteenth-century citizens to what was now a celebrated moment of this past. Rather, the 'Festzug Karl V' is seen as facilitating active re-workings of this past in order to accommodate particular forms of self-representation crucial to some of the new sociopolitical realities of the German Empire.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Wieber, Dr Sabine
Authors: Wieber, S.
Subjects:N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR
D History General and Old World > DD Germany
College/School:College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > History of Art
Journal Name:Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice
ISSN:1364-2529
ISSN (Online):1470-1154

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