Religion, Nature, and the Emergence of Academic Historiography (1830-1870)

在十九世纪，历史学作为一门独立的学科出现在欧洲学术界。从几个角度对这一发展进行了调查。首先，与思想史相关的方法集中在该学科最杰出的代表人物的著作上，并评估了他们的作品是如何受到历史哲学和浪漫主义运动的影响的。其次，学者们研究了学术史学的出现是如何与欧洲的民族和国家建设过程联系在一起的。虽然传统的方法分析了历史学家如何通过他们的著作为构建国家身份做出贡献，但最近的研究也考虑了大学或档案馆等学术机构如何在国家或帝国项目中发挥作用。第三，一些研究涉及到该学科的主题和方法冲突，如德国方法论。因此，学术史学的关键概念和方法的发展受到文献学和语言学学科的影响。基于这些见解，我的项目采用了不同的视角。我认为，只有在关于自然和宗教的历史性的争议的背景下，才能理解学术史学及其范式的出现，这些争议在1830年至1870年左右在欧洲流行起来。这些争论是一个被研究称为“时间化”的过程的一部分。关于宗教，大卫·弗里德里希·施特劳斯等学者质疑耶稣作为历史人物的存在，以及自19世纪30年代以来宗教遗迹的真实性。此外，正是在这个时代，真正的世俗化历史叙事的关键要素得到了确立。在自然科学中也可以观察到类似的模式。在查尔斯·莱尔于1832年发表了他关于“进化论”的假说之后，自然科学对历史变迁的原因和如何正确地研究过去的问题展开了激烈的讨论。它们在1859年查尔斯·达尔文的《物种起源》出版后达到顶峰。这个拟议的项目是从这些争议与欧洲学术界作为一门独立学科的出现的巧合中得到提示的。通过关注上述世纪末方法论冲突之前的1830年至1870年之间的岁月，我们可能会对历史学的学科框架如何出现有新的见解。为此，我的目的是比较英国、法国和德国的历史学家。历史学的方法和概念都需要两种方法。关于概念层面，我将分析Göttinger Gelehrte anzeigen或Revue des Deux Mondes等期刊。在十九世纪上半叶，这些期刊被跨国阅读，并以所有学科的学者的文章和书评为特色。这项研究的发现将得到专门致力于历史研究的期刊的审查，例如在手头这段时期建立的历史时代周刊。对这些期刊中的辩论的评估将揭示历史学家的网络，他们不仅在手头的时期研究概念问题，而且还研究方法问题。因此，分析他们未发表的著作，如阅读摘录、项目提纲、草稿或日记，将突出概念讨论如何直接影响历史调查和写作的方法。这有望阐明历史研究实践，即如何选择和分析原始材料，以及最终如何以关于过去的连贯故事呈现结果。

During the nineteenth century, history emerged as an independent discipline within European academia. This development has been investigated from several perspectives. Firstly, approaches affiliated with intellectual history have focused on the writings of the discipline's most prominent representatives and have assessed how their works were influenced by the 'philosophy of history' and by the movement of Romanticism. Secondly, scholars have investigated how the emergence of academic historiography was connected to processes of nation and state building in Europe. Whereas traditional approaches have analysed how historians contributed to constructing national identities through their writings, recent studies have also taken into account how academic institutions such as universities or archives featured in national or imperial projects. Thirdly, several studies have engaged with the discipline's thematic and methodological conflicts such as the German Methodenstreit. Thus, it has been shown that the development of key concepts and methods of academic historiography was influenced by the disciplines of philology and linguistics.Building upon these insights, my project applies a different perspective. I argue that the emergence of academic historiography and its paradigms can only be understood against the backdrop of controversies about the historicity of nature and religion which gained currency in Europe between around 1830 and 1870. These debates were part of a process which has been referred to in research as 'temporalisation'. Regarding religion, scholars such as David Friedrich Strauss questioned the very existence of Jesus as a historical person as well as the authenticity of religious relics from the 1830s onwards. Furthermore, it was exactly during this era that key elements of the genuinely historical narrative of 'secularisation' were established. Similar patterns can be observed in the natural sciences. After Charles Lyell had published his hypotheses on 'evolution' in 1832, the natural sciences saw intense discussions both on the reasons for historical change and on the question of how to investigate the past properly. They peaked following the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. The proposed project takes its cue from the coincidence of these controversies with the emergence of history as an independent discipline within European academia. By focusing on the years between 1830 and 1870 which preceded the aforementioned methodological conflicts at the end of the century, we might get new insights into how the disciplinary framework of history emerged. For this purpose, I aim at comparing British, French, and German historians.Historicising both methods and concepts of historiography requires a twofold approach. Regarding the conceptual level, I shall analyse journals such as the Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen or the Revue des Deux Mondes. During the first half of the nineteenth century, these periodicals were transnationally read and featured both articles and book reviews by scholars of all disciplines. The findings of this study will be backed by the examination of journals specifically dedicated to the study of history such as the Historische Zeitschrift which was founded during the period at hand. The assessment of debates within these journals will reveal networks of historians who not only engaged with conceptual but also with methodological problems during the period at hand. Therefore, analysing their unpublished writings such as reading excerpts, project outlines, drafts, or diaries will highlight how conceptual discussions directly influenced the methods of investigating and writing history. This promises to elucidate historical research practices, i.e. how source material was both chosen and analysed and, finally, how the results were presented in coherent stories about the past.