Silke Marburg, Josef Matzerath. Der Schritt in die Moderne: Sächsischer Adel zwischen 1763 und 1918. Köln: Böhlau Verlag/Wien, 2001. 256 S. EUR 29.00 (broschiert), ISBN 978-3-412-12600-1.

Reviewed by Margaret E. Menninger (Department of History, Texas State University)
Published on H-German (February, 2007)

Noblesse Obligée et Modernisée

To say that Europe's aristocrats strode energetically and confidently towards modernity gives them too much credit; to say they either crept or were dragged kicking and screaming gives them too little. It is no longer historiographically fashionable to refer to the bourgeoisie as having been feudalized, but the opposite image--of a nobility embourgeoisée, is also not fully satisfying. The work under review here presents a regional nobility and some of the (for lack of a better term) strategies they used to preserve their collective identity and importance (symbolic or otherwise).

Unsurprisingly perhaps, study of aristocrats languished outside main pathways of local and regional historiography in the former East Germany. But since reunification, the history of Saxony in particular has enjoyed a healthy recovery in both the Germanic and Anglophone worlds. Josef Matzerath, co-editor of this volume, is also the author and editor of numerous other works on the Saxon aristocracy and royal house.[1] Matzerath's previous edited volume on Saxon nobles covered a period from the middle ages to the middle of the 1990s. Based on papers presented at a 1996 conference, that book was really the first to concentrate fully on this region and went a long way to reestablishing the study of the aristocracy as a vibrant research area.[2]

The editors of the present volume, as the introduction suggests, envision this collection both as a continuation of the previous one and as evidence of how far the study of the Saxon aristocracy has come in the intervening years. Chronologically, the present work discusses the nobility in the era of its eclipse power, the years bridging Saxony's military defeat in 1866. Hence, while the kingdom remained independent on paper, its ability to function autonomously, particularly in the area of diplomacy (one of two natural habitats of aristocrats along with the upper echelons of the military) was truncated.[3] The nobility had to find new footing in the modern world. The question became, then, what sort of ways could this group maintain a sense of cohesion (Bindekräfte) and also preserve as much of their traditions as was practicable, even if their legal standing was no longer what it had been?

This collection deals with what one might call strategies of placement and representation that could in part substitute for the older privileges of estate. As traced here, these pragmatic maneuvers encompassed everything from actual location and associational membership to matters of genealogy, naming, marriage and presence in the media. Thomas Barth's essay focuses on the "Zukunftskonzept" of Wilhelm Adolf von Trützschler, and as a more idealized vision of an eventual delegate to the Frankfurt Parliament it is thus the exception.

Half of the contributors focus on the urbanized nobility in Dresden where these strategies played out most clearly. How many nobles lived in the capital and where? Who was marrying whom? What strategies were employed to create a continued public presence beyond the court? The contributions here are exceptionally concrete. Josef Matzerath and Barbara Tlusty's discussion of Dresden as an aristocratic city locates the nobles both by neighborhood and by number. Christoph Franke's essay specifies patterns of marriage and kinship and social standing. The author makes clear the ways this group's social structure altered over a century and a half, as the aristocrats accommodated themselves at least somewhat to the new realities of what constituted importance (if not status in the feudal sense). Friederike von Gadow picks up this theme, but concentrates on the von Bünau family and their family Geschlechtstage, which dealt with matters such as the preservation of a small roster of family names (a grand total of three for boys)--an outward illustration of cohesion if ever there was one.

The court city remained the most important locus of aristocratic presence, but the landed estate remained a crucial symbol even as it also played an important economic role. This is clearly covered in Ines Täuber's contribution on the presentation, preservation and especially the representations of Rittergüter. Illustrations of estates and stately homes in particular reinforced the history of place of Saxony's nobility. Mandy Scheffler traces (again with quantitative illustration as to theme and number) the participation of nobles in the publishing life of Dresden, fixing their public presence through writing. These findings find supportive specificity in Eckhard Richter and Jochen Strobel's essay about Ludwig Tieck's writings and life in Dresden.

Associational life may also be deemed among the strategies employed by Saxony's second estate to retain influence. Silke Marburg's two contributions focus directly on the associational life of the Dresden nobility. One essay deals with the Order of St. John (Johanniterorden), a Germany-wide association exclusively noble in its membership. Her second essay deals more generally with the participation of the urban nobility in Dresden's Vereinsleben, which was considerable and is again quantified here with great clarity. While this example is interesting, it is worth noting at this point that the proportion of residents in the other main cities of Saxony who could be considered noble was extremely small. Associational life in Leipzig, for example, was significantly different, and so the Dresden example suggests that noble participation in this milieu was unique for Saxony.

These essays are valuable because of their concrete focus and their solid data. Certainly anyone interested in Saxony should be aware of them, but they also serve as a useful reminder of the gradual, probably difficult--but not necessarily universally abhorred--efforts of the nobility to maintain their relevance in a new world.

Notes

[1]. Most recently, Adelsprobe an der Moderne. Sächsischer Adel 1763 bis 1866: Entkonkretisierung einer traditionalen Sozialformation (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 2006).

[2]. Katrin Keller and Josef Matzerath, eds., Geschichte des sächsischen Adels (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 1997).

[3]. See particularly James Retallack, ed., Saxony in German History: Culture, Society, and Politics 1830-1933 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), xiv.

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Citation: Margaret E. Menninger. Review of Marburg, Silke; Matzerath, Josef, Der Schritt in die Moderne: Sächsischer Adel zwischen 1763 und 1918. H-German, H-Net Reviews. February, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12892

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