thumb|Johan Huizinga.Johan Huizinga () (December 7, 1872 - February 1, 1945), was a
Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern
cultural history.
Life
Born in
Groningen as the son of Dirk Huizinga, a professor of
physiology, and Jacoba Tonkens, who died two years after his birth, he started out as a student of
Indo-Germanic languages, earning his degree in 1895. He then studied
comparative linguistics, gaining a good command of
Sanskrit. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the role of the
jester in
Indian drama in 1897.
It was not until 1902 that his interest turned towards
medieval and
Renaissance history. He continued teaching as an Orientalist until he became a Professor of General and Dutch History at
Groningen University in 1905. Then, in 1915, he was made Professor of General History at
Leiden University, a post he held until 1942. From this point until his death in 1945 he was held in detention by the
Nazis. He died in
De Steeg in
Gelderland, near
Arnhem, and lies buried in the graveyard of the Reformed Church at 6 Haarlemmerstraatweg in
Oegstgeest.
Works
Huizinga had an aesthetic approach to history, where art and spectacle played an important part. His most famous work is
The Autumn of the Middle Ages (a.k.a.
The Waning of the Middle Ages) (1919). He here reinterprets the later Middle Ages as a period of
pessimism and
decadence rather than
rebirth.
Worthy of mentioning are also
Erasmus (1924) and
Homo Ludens (1938). In the latter book he discusses the possibility that play is the primary formative element in human culture. Huizinga also published books on American history and Dutch history in the 17th century.
Alarmed by the rise of national-socialism in Germany, Huizinga wrote several works of cultural criticism. Many similarities can be noted between his analysis and that of contemporary critics such as
Ortega y Gasset and
Oswald Spengler. Huizinga argued that the spirit of technical and mechanical organisation had replaced spontaneous and organic order and cultural as well as political life.
Family
Huizinga's son Leonhard Huizinga became a well known writer in the Netherlands, especially renowned for his series of tongue in cheek fiction novels on the Dutch aristocratic twins Adrian and Oliver ("Adriaan en Olivier").
Works
- Mensch en menigte in America (1918)
- Erasmus of Rotterdam (1924)
- Amerika Levend en Denkend (1926), translated by H.H. Rowen as America: A Dutch Historian's Vision, from Afar and Near (1972)
- Leven en werk van Jan Veth (1927)
- Cultuurhistorische verkenningen (1929)
- In de schaduwen van morgen (1935), translated by his son Jacob Herman Huizinga In the Shadow of Tomorrow
- De wetenschap der geschiedenis (1937)
