Heimat: "Social" Space and "Symbolic" Space
The title Renate Huber proposed for her contribution to this seminar "Social" Space Matches "Symbolic" Space? has motivated me to view the question of Heimat or Hembygd in light of “social” and “symbolic” space. By distinguishing this pair of spaces, I believe that Renate makes an attempt to motivate us to study the relationship between social reality and its representation, and as such differentiates between the two. This is a central question for all historians, representers by vocation within a framework that requires them to legitimize their representations with a mechanism called sources.[1] The dual relationship between experience/event and representation is thus made tripartate into one among the past, sources and history. The exploration of this relationship is fundamental to producers of last. Posing the question as Renate does, directs attention to the relationship or lack of identity between language or concepts and reality. The investigation of this incongruity has been pivotal to the work of Reinhart Koselleck. Recently[2] addressing the problem, he summarized Marx’s materialist conception of the relationship between being (Sein) and consciousness (Bewußtsein) in which the former determines (bestimmt) the later and Jacques Derrida’s idealistic view of the world as text. Following this Koselleck drew attention to an issue that we should not allow ourselves to forget: language and reality do not correspond to each other on a one to one basis, language is both more and less than extra-linguistic reality.
Basic concepts that illustrate this paradox of inequity are inherently descriptive just as, to consider an evident and contemporary example, the contemporary “War on Terrorism” undertaken explicitly by the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom or this “Terrorism” itself for which no one has taken explicit responsibility. It is clear that the attacks upon the World Trade Center in New York and the bombing raids of Afghanistan are both more and less than the “killing” or “murder” of thousands of “innocents” as well as a profound influence upon the thoughts and aspirations of millions if not billions of “Others”. This in no way denies, the reality of a text or language itself which guide and trigger action as does the example of the word “Terrorism” while it is dependant upon the interests and parties that use them.[3] The connection between language and history is profound, concepts and events are mutually constitutive and destructive, concepts inherently in- and exclude, they “reveal as they conceal” to paraphrase Koselleck.
This chapter intends to explore the terms Heimat or hembygd from this perspective; they are exceedingly complex concepts that would appear to function in a fashion that is reminiscent of the above example. They are as such also similar to the term home discussed in the preceding chapter and from whence they are derived. It could be said that the German and Swedish terms are qualitative and quantitative variations upon the theme. As one might suspect, the vast majority of statements expressed in the “home chapter” can be grouped beside understandings of Heimat/Hembygd as a foot might fit in a custom made shoe, the one word forms the very basis of the other, the latter is dependant upon the former. The development and use of these variations, both elaborations and specifications, upon a theme and their common use point to differentiated conceptions of the source and derivative. The are easily, powerfully and often used, this from an academic standpoint is what lends relevance to their study as well as supports a pluralistic image of the concepts.
In contrast to home which in modernity has received primarily tangential and fragmented treatment, the concept Heimat was already furnished with a theory in the late eighteenth century. The Swiss student of education Johann H. Pestalozzi a follower and explorer of the potential practical application of Rousseau’s ideas developed a theory of Heimat. Heimat and its theory are defined in the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie as a “Theorie der Lebenskreis des Menschen”[4] in his essay “Abendstunde eines Einsiedlers”.[5] In his theory of “human life circles” Pestalozzi, without actually mentioning the word Heimat developed a scheme of two sets of concentric circles, that nevertheless drift into another, the human between them. In the surrounding circles: 1. The nearest relations of the paternal house, 2. The occupational world and 3. State, society and nation. In the inner circles i.e. within the human: 4. The “internal sense” drives, needs, instincts and tendencies that one balance with the outer circles and 5. God as “the closest relation to humanity” and as such the human can trust his "inner sense" as a sure guiding light.
The further development found its basis in Pestalozzi’s theories through the twentieth century. Among the most influential theoreticians of Heimat was Eduard Spranger, professor of pedagogy and philosophy in Leipzig and prominent reformer of education. Spranger understood and developed Heimatkunde (or the science of Heimat) as in his seminal text “Der Bildungswert der Heimatkunde”[6] not only as an isolated discipline but as an all encompassing practice of the natural and cultural sciences. In addition to his use of Pestalozzi, Spranger develops ideas promoted by nineteenth century geographers, the first among them Alexander von Humblodt. Thus Spranger closely relates the development and transformations in the perception of landscape and/or the environment in the nineteenth century as inherently connected with the individual thus pointing toward the relationship between the development of geography as a science in the eighteenth century, landscape[7] and the idea of Heimat. The central prerequisite for this theory is the existence of contents which can not be dealt with using one science alone making Heimat-theory inter- if not metadisciplinary.
Alles wird hier eigentlich zu Hilfswissentschaft. Denn alles bereits gefundene Wissen dient nur dazu an diesen Lebensfaden entlang in das Herz alles zurückzutasten, in den Mittelpunkt hinein, aus dem heraus man selber lebt und der — um in Rankes metaphysischer Sprache zu reden — : “unmittelbar zu Gott“ ist. [8]
An additional characteristic, beyond universality, common to both Pestalozzi’s life circles, particularly the inner circles and Spranger’s Heimat is sensuality. This sensuality can be paralleled to that attributed to home in the preceding chapter. Analog to the trajectory plotted for home, Heimat also appears to have undergone a process of transformation from the divine to the profane, vacillating between and offering its employers a particular and convenient flexibility from the middle ages to our own age. It is just this flexibility or complexity, according to sociologists of language, that frees and supports communication itself.[9] One of the more contemporary scientists of Heimat, Hermann Bausinger, proposes three possibilities of academic confrontation with the problem, in his attempt at the construction of an active understanding of the term: to avoid the concept, to attempt a strict definition, and lastly to attempt to extricate and delineate a complex image of the concept and its development, his strategy, in which the history of a concept is expanded into the history of a problem.[10]
In a sense analogue to the plural and uniting definitions and applications Spranger applies to Heimat, Bausinger finds looking back that, according to Grimm’s Dictionary, the meanings of Heimat were manifold and not uniform.[11] The critical phase for home in Bausinger’s thesis is the nineteenth century German bürgerliche Sonderentwicklung. It was this that gave Heimat its special internal colouring, as the world had obviously been set in motion the bourgeois image of Heimat represented an external and stable utopia.[12]
The above is a discussion of what can be understood as “symbolic space” of Heimat. Far from even intending to exhaustively address the concept it is a compromised summary of conceptions and uses of Heimat, or even a type of proto-Heimat in the case of Pestalozzi’s Lebenskreise. These are exemplary cases, similar accounts might be found in the thousands. It can however also be inferred that Heimat existed on another level, that of the aforementioned “social space”. Heimat existed, one can surmise, on the sensual level. This is explicit in Pestalozzi and Sprangler, and implicit in the utopian Other to nineteenth and twentieth century Germany’s era of a perception of unprecedented change in Bausinger’s account. Beyond and through the level of the symbolic, it may be possible to gain insights related to the social space of Heimat in a manner similar to the above perception of Heimat as a sensual entity. Through the analysis of sources and artefacts, texts, the phenomenon Heimat might be approachable.
One question that I would like this seminar to consider is just this relationship between social reality and our representation of it via sources under the awareness that language can represent only more and less than extra-linguistic reality. To facilitate this experiment I would like to present an example.
One of the regular features in the publication Heimatgaue was entitled “Heimatbewegung in den Gauen” or the Heimat-movement in the districts, i.e. the districts of Upper Austria. This section, through the publication of reports on local initiatives deemed relevant to the movement, was a forum for communication within as well as one of the constituents of the movement. An example of this is given in an essay inspired by the Trachten- und Volkskunstausstellung (Native costume and folk-art exhibition) which took place in Bad Ischl in 1936.[13] The article appeared under the instructively connoted title Der Weg zur Heimat, Gedanken zur Trachten- und Volkskunstausstellung in Bad Ischl 1936 (The Path to Heimat, Thoughts on the Native-costume and Folk-art Exhibition in Bad Ischl 1936). Before the content of the article, three pages, and its illustrations (eight photographs) are discussed, the order of the title itself warrants attention. It reveals a number of important attributes of understanding meanings of Heimat.
Image 1 Max Kislinger
The heading of the Section “Heimatbewegung in den Gauen” in Heimatgaue, note that here, in contrast to the other images, only “natural” motives are employed.
Firstly, Heimat as conceived in the title exists in a special sense, it is neither present nor absent, in the vicinity of the author Friedrich Morton,[14] and the public he addresses. If it were present the description of an itinerary would be unnecessary. It follows, however, that Heimat exists within the author’s cosmos in a very real form. If this were not the case Morton could not delineate or postulate a path to this temporal/spatial entity which in 1936 led through an exhibition of native dress and folk-art. Here Heimat is also not a state.[15]
The question that immediately poses itself concerns the relationship between objects such as clothes and folk-art and Heimat, or why these objects are tools to that end? Clothes are necessary in two senses, most obviously and primarily they assist in retaining our bodily warmth and protecting us from the elements. Clothes of all sorts are balanced, it could be said, between bodies which they shield in terms of protection and the function of a shield as is a coat of arms. Much like those, lets say on a seal, they carry a message about and for their wearers. On this, a second and no less important level of value, clothes have a representative function. We need little more than glance at a looking glass to observe the significance of clothes; they do nothing less than identify those who wear them. This is true in terms of numerous adherent factors that simultaneously in- and exclude gender,[16] age, profession, political allegiance, culture, social status, class, “race”, religion etc…
Morton begins his essay, for example, within the bounds of clothes as an expression of gender, class and religion.
Three gold caps shine and shimmer next to one another. The honourable and wealthy bourgeoisis of the Salt-era appears before us and we see the worthy wife of the market judge as she strides to mass with her precious rosary and ornamented prayer book.
Drei Goldhauben flimmern und glitzern nebeneinander. Das ehrbare, behäbige Bürgertum der Salzfertigerzeit steigt vor uns auf und wir sehen die würdige Marktrichterin, wie sie mit ihrem kostbaren Rosenkranze und dem eingelegten Gebetsbuche zur Messe schreitet.[17]
The importance of Trachten as a guide on the way to Heimat is much easier understood when clothes are conceived as a factor that orders the world i.e. it communicates who people are and what they stand for. Trachten at the exhibition, however, did not only identify and order gratuitously, if this were possible, they did so according to the designs of its curators. They created a specific ideal order, not necessarily conforming with a reality beyond their own specific understanding of the world. It is not a garment but a specific object ascribed higher significance a part and representation of a much larger system in this case perceived to be superior to contemporary “culture” or the lack there of. Morton laments “a culture of dressing that unfortunately today, more often than not, is lost.” Clothes in his view even divinely punctuated existence by defining life and death: “How beautiful it was, to don a baptismal cap and crown of death punctuating the beginning and end of earthly existence!”
The article, Morton’s Gedanken or thoughts, even claims to transcend the exhibition, an entire hall containing Trachten, by leading them in textual and photographic form out “into real life”, in constructed scenes that he photographed (See Image 2.) Morton describes the images below as follows: