A missing link in the history of historiography: scholarly personae in the world of Alfred Dove

Abstract

Drawing on the case of Alfred Dove (1844-1916), this article contributes to an emerging line of research on scholarly personae in the history of historiography. It does so by addressing the important but so far neglected question: What exactly does the prism of scholarly personae add to existing historiographical perspectives? The German historian Alfred Dove is an appropriate case study for this exercise, because historical scholarship in Wilhelmine Germany has been relatively well studied, from various angles. Most notably, it has been studied (1) through biographical lenses, (2) from institutional points of view, (3) as the cradle of 'scientific history', with special attention to historical methods of the sort codified by Ernst Bernheim, and (4) in relation to religious and political fault lines that divided the German Empire shortly after the Franco-Prussian War and the Kulturkampf. The thesis advanced in this article is that scholarly personae are a missing link between these four dimensions and therefore a theme of key importance for anyone trying to understand German historical studies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Whole Man: A Masculine Persona in German Historical Studies

“…74 Against this background, Heigel could be interpreted as embodying a type of historian that was no longer available to his students -just as Alfred Dove had seemed as a voice from the past in continuing, until his death in 1916, the habit of preferring finely crafted essays over deftly footnoted monographs. 75 Heigel had wanted to be a whole man in an age that saw the rise to prominence of a new scholarly persona, the Waitzean Fachmann, but been unable to reverse the trend, despite all inspiration that he had provided to his students. In the melancholic words of perhaps his most talented student, the Bavarian archivist and future Munich professor Ivo Striedinger: "The peculiar mixture of heart and mind that characterized him has once existed, but will not return..." 76…”

‘I am not a politician’: Professional boundary work in Wilhelmine Germany

“…Protracted debates over the 'first commandment', 'highest duty', or 'highest virtue' for historians illustrate that politicians were not the only ones who reflected on their work in terms of vocation-specific qualities. 10 In this context, politicians increasingly saw 'political passion' (politische Leidenschaft) as a key to effective rhetorical performance. Accordingly, they portrayed charismatic figures such as Heinrich von Gagern as political orators who were able to unleash enormous passion, while depicting August Bebel, the social-democratic leader, as a man driven by pure Leidenschaft.…”

Projekt abgebrochen, Folgeband nicht erschienen. Unvollendete Werke in der Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Geschichtswissenschaft

“…Jahrhundertshervorgetreten. 12 Andere Ansätze operieren mit dem analytischen Begriff "tribal culture", woran sich die Herkunft dieser analytischen Perspektiven aus der Kulturwissenschaft ablesen lässt. 13 In die mithin deutlich zu differenzierende Beurteilung gebrochener Zusagen wird man ferner -freilich angemessen kritisch -die Kategorie ,wissenschaftliches Fehlverhalten' einbeziehen müssen.…”