NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Leopold von Ranke

Leopold von Ranke (December 21, 1795 – May 23, 1886) was one of the greatest German historians of the 19th century, and is frequently considered one of the founders of modern source-based history (See Edward Gibbon). Ranke set the tone for much of later historical writing, introducing such ideas as reliance on primary sources, an emphasis on narrative history and especially international politics (Aussenpolitik) and a commitment to writing history "as it essentially [was]" In his own words: "[…] nicht das Amt die Vergangenheit zu richten, die Mitwelt zum Nutzen zukünftiger Jahre zu belehren, sondern bloß zu zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen" ("[…] not the duty to judge the past, nor to instruct one's contemporaries with an eye to the future, but rather merely to show how it actually was"). Download high resolution version (1000x1347, 298 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (1000x1347, 298 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1795 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... is the 143rd day of the year (144th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1886 (MDCCCLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... This article is about the occupation of studying history. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Edward Gibbon (1737â€“1794). ...

Overview

Ranke was born in Wiehe, then part of the Kingdom of Prussia (now Unstrut, state of Thuringia). Wiehe is a town in the KyffhÃ¤userkreis district, in Thuringia, Germany. ... Anthem PreuÃŸenlied, Heil dir im Siegerkranz (both unofficial) The Kingdom of Prussia at its greatest extent, at the time of the formation of the German Empire, 1871 Capital Berlin Government Monarchy King - 1701 â€” 1713 Frederick I (first) - 1888 â€” 1918 William II (last) Prime minister - 1848 Adolf Heinrich von Arnim... The Unstrut is a river in Germany, left tributary of the Saale. ... The Free State of Thuringia (German: Freistaat ThÃ¼ringen) is located in central Germany and is considered one of the smaller of Germanys sixteen BundeslÃ¤nder (federal states), with an area of 16,200 kmÂ² and 2. ...

He was educated partly at home and partly in the Gymnasium of Schulpforta. His early years engendered a life-long love of ancient Greek and Latin and of the Lutheran Church. In 1814, Ranke entered the University of Leipzig, where his subjects were Classics and Lutheran theology. At Leipzig, Ranke became an expert in Philology and translation of the ancient authors into German. As a student, Ranke's favorite authors were Thucydides, Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schelling, and Friedrich Schlegel. Ranke showed little interest in the work of modern history because of his dissatisfaction with what he regarded as history books that were merely a collection of facts lumped together by modern historians. For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestant Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the sixteenth-century German reformer Martin Luther. ... The University of Leipzig (German UniversitÃ¤t Leipzig), located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony (former Kingdom of Saxony), Germany, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. ... For other uses, see Classics (disambiguation). ... Theology finds its scholars pursuing the understanding of and providing reasoned discourse of religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ... Leipzig ( ; Sorbian/Lusatian: Lipsk from the Sorbian word for Tilia) is, with a population of over 506,000, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany. ... Philology, etymologically, is the love of words. It is most accurately defined as an affinity toward the learning of the backgrounds as well as the current usages of spoken or written methods of human communication. The commonality of studied languages is more important than their origin or age (that is... Bust of Thucydides residing in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. ... A portrait of Titus Livius made long after his death. ... Dionysius Halicarnassensis (of Halicarnassus), Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, flourished during the reign of Augustus. ... â€œGoetheâ€ redirects here. ... Barthold Georg Niebuhr. ... Kant redirects here. ... Johann Gottlieb Fichte (May 19, 1762 â€“ January 27, 1814) was a German philosopher. ... Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (January 27, 1775 - August 20, 1854) was a German philosopher. ... Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel (March 10, 1772 - January 11, 1829), German poet, critic and scholar, was the younger brother of August Wilhelm von Schlegel. ...

Between 1817-1825, Ranke worked as a Classics teacher at the Friedrichs Gymnasium in Frankfurt an der Oder. During this time, Ranke became interested in History in part because of his desire to be involved in the developing field of a more professionalized history and in part because of his desire to find the hand of God in the workings of history. Frankfurt an der Oder [ËˆfraÅ‹kfÊŠrt] (German formal name: Frankfurt (Oder), Sorbian/Lusatian: Frankobord, Polish: Frankfurt nad OdrÄ…) is a town in Brandenburg, Germany located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the city of SÅ‚ubice. ... This article is about the study of the past in human terms. ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ...

Beginning with his first book in 1824, the Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514 (History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514), Ranke used an unusually wide variety of sources for a historian of the age, including "memoirs, diaries, personal and formal missives, government documents, diplomatic dispatches and first-hand accounts of eye-witnesses." In this sense he leaned on the traditions of Philology but emphasized mundane documents instead of old and exotic literature. Philology, etymologically, is the love of words. It is most accurately defined as an affinity toward the learning of the backgrounds as well as the current usages of spoken or written methods of human communication. The commonality of studied languages is more important than their origin or age (that is...

Ranke began his book with the statement in the introduction that he would show the unity of the experiences of the "Teutonic" nations of Scandinavia, England and Germany and the "Latin" nations of Italy, Spain and France through the great "respirations" of the Völkerwanderung (great migration), the Crusades and colonisation that in Ranke's view bound all of the nations together to produce modern European civilization. Despite his opening statement, Ranke largely treated all of the nations under examination separately until the outbreak of the wars for the control of Italy starting in 1494. However, the book is best remembered for Ranke's comment that "History has had assigned to it the office of judging the past and of instructing the account for the benefit of future ages. To show high offices the present work does not presume: it seeks only to show what actually happened". Ranke's statement that history should embrace the principle of "wie es eigentlich gewesen" (show what actually happened)" is taken by many historians as their guiding principle. There has been much debate over the precise meaning of this phrase. Some have argued that wie es eigentlich gewesen meant that the historian should only offer the facts of history without offering any of his own views while others have argued that Ranke meant that the historian should discover the facts and find the general prevailing motifs of the time under question that coloured the facts. Ranke went on to write that the historian must seek for the "Holy hieroglyph" that is God's hand in history by keeping an "eye for the universal" whilst taking "joy in the particular". For other uses, see Scandinavia (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... This article is about the medieval crusades. ...

Following the success of Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514, Ranke was given a position in the University of Berlin. At the university, Ranke became deeply involved in the dispute between the followers of the legal professor Friedrich Carl von Savigny who emphasized the varieties of different periods of history and the followers of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who saw history as the unfolding of a universal story. Ranke supported Savigny and criticized the Hegelian view of history as being a one-size-fits-all approach. Also during his time in Berlin, Ranke became the first historian to utilise the forty-seven volumes that comprised the diplomatic archives of Venice from the 16th and 17th centuries. Ranke came to prefer dealing with primary sources as opposed to secondary sources during this time. Ranke later wrote "I see the time approaching when we shall base modern history, no longer on the reports even of contemporary historians, except in-so-far as they were in the possession of personal and immediate knowledge of facts; and still less on work yet more remote from the source; but rather on the narratives of eyewitnesses, and on genuine and original documents". There is no institution called the University of Berlin, but there are four universities in Berlin, Germany: Humboldt University of Berlin (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) Technical University of Berlin (Technische Universität Berlin) Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin) Berlin University of the Arts (Universität der... Friedrich Carl von Savigny Friedrich Carl von Savigny (February 21, 1779 - 25 October 1861) was one of the most respected and influential 19th-century jurists. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (IPA: ) (August 27, 1770 â€“ November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher and, with Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, one of the representatives of German idealism. ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... For other uses, see Venice (disambiguation). ...

Starting in 1831 at the behest of the Prussian government, Ranke founded and edited the Historisch-Politische Zeitschrift journal. Ranke, who was a conservative, used the journal to attack the ideas of Liberalism. In his 1833 article "The Great Powers" and his 1836 article "Dialogue on Politics" Ranke claimed that every state is given a special moral character from God and individuals should strive to best fulfill the "idea" of their state. Thus, in this way, Ranke urged his readers to stay loyal to the Prussian state and reject the ideas of the French Revolution, which Ranke claimed were meant for France, not Prussia. Ths article deals with conservatism as a political philosophy. ... Liberalism is an ideology, philosophical view, and political tradition which holds that liberty is the primary political value. ... The French Revolution (1789â€“1815) was a period of political and social upheaval in the political history of France and Europe as a whole, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on... For other uses, see Prussia (disambiguation). ...

Between 1834-1836 Ranke produced the multi-volume Die römischen Päpste, ihre kirche und ihr Staat im sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhundert (History of the Popes, their Church and State). As a Protestant, Ranke was barred from viewing the Vatican archives in Rome, but on the basis of private papers in Rome and Venice, Ranke was able to explain the history of the Papacy in the 16th century. In this book, Ranke coined the term the Counter Reformation and offered colourful portrayals of Pope Paul IV, Ignatius of Loyola, and Pope Pius V. The papacy denounced Ranke's book as anti-Catholic while many Protestants denounced Ranke's book as too neutral. However, Ranke has been generally praised by historians for placing the situation of the Catholic Church in the context of the 16th century and for his treatment of the complex interaction of the political and religious issues in the 16th century. In particular, the British Catholic historian Lord Acton defended Ranke's book as the most fair-minded, balanced and objective study ever written on the 16th century Papacy. Ranke followed this book up with multi-volume Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (History of the Reformation in Germany) in 1845-1847. Ranke used the ninety-six volumes from ambassadors at Imperial Diet in Frankfurt to explain the Reformation in Germany as the result of both politics and religion. For other uses, see Rome (disambiguation). ... The Pope is the Catholic Bishop and patriarch of Rome, and head of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... The Counter-Reformation (also Catholic Reformation[1][2] or Catholic Revival[2]) denotes the period of Catholic revival from the pontificate of Pope Pius IV in 1560 to the close of the Thirty Years War, 1648. ... Pope Paul IV (June 28, 1476 â€“ August 18, 1559), nÃ© Giovanni Pietro Carafa, was Pope from May 23, 1555 until his death. ... Saint Ignatius of Loyola, also known as Ignacio (ÃÃ±igo) LÃ³pez de Loyola (December 24, 1491 â€“ July 31, 1556), was the principal founder and first Superior General of the Society of Jesus, a religious order of the Catholic Church professing direct service to the Pope in terms of mission. ... Pope St. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, KCVO (10 January 1834 â€“ 19 June 1902), commonly known as simply Lord Acton, was an English historian, the only son of Sir Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton, 7th Baronet and grandson of the Neapolitan admiral, Sir John Acton, 6th Baronet. ... For other uses, see Frankfurt (disambiguation). ... The Protestant Reformation was a movement which began in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but ended in division and the establishment of new institutions, most importantly Lutheranism, Reformed churches, and Anabaptists. ...

In 1841, Ranke was appointed Royal Historiographer to the Prussian court. In 1849, Ranke published Neun Bücher preussicher Geschichte (transated as Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg and History of Prussia, during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries), where Ranke examined the fortunes of the Hohenzollern family and state from the Middle Ages to the reign of Frederick the Great. Many Prussian nationalists were offended by Ranke's portrayal of Prussia as a typical German medium-sized state rather as an Great Power. The House of Hohenzollern is a German dynasty of electors, kings, and emperors of Prussia, Germany, and Romania. ... Frederick II (German: ; January 24, 1712 â€“ August 17, 1786) was a King of Prussia (1740â€“1786) from the Hohenzollern dynasty. ...

In a series of lectures given to the future King Maximilian of Bavaria, Ranke argued that "every age is next to God," by which Ranke meant that every period of history is unique and must be understood in its own context. He argued that God gazes over history in its totality and finds all periods equal. Ranke rejected the teleological approach to history where every period is inferior to the period that follows. Thus, the Middle Ages were not inferior to the Renaissance; only different. In Ranke's view, the historian had to understand a period on its own terms, and seek to find only the general ideas which animated every period of history. For Ranke, then, history was not to be an account of man's "progress" because, "After Plato, there can be no more Plato." Moreover, for Ranke Christianity was morally most superior and could not be improved upon. Ultimately, "History is no criminal court." Maximilian II of Bavaria (November 28, 1811 â€“ March 10, 1864) was king of Bavaria from 1848 until 1864. ... For other uses, see Bavaria (disambiguation). ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... This article is about the European Renaissance of the 14th-17th centuries. ...

In 1865, Ranke was ennobled, in 1882 appointed a Prussian Privy Councillor and in 1885 he was given an honorary citizenship of Berlin. In 1884, he was appointed the first honorary member of the American Historical Association. After his retirement in 1871, Ranke continued to write on a variety of subjects relating to German history such as the French Revolutionary Wars, Albrecht von Wallenstein, Karl August von Hardenberg, and King Fredrich Wilhelm IV. Starting in 1880, Ranke began a huge six-volume work on World History, which began with ancient Egypt and the Israelites. By the time of Ranke's death in Berlin (1886), he had only reached the 12th century. Subsequently his assistants used his notes to take the series up to 1453. This article is about the capital of Germany. ... The American Historical Association (AHA) is a society of historians and teachers of history founded in 1884 and incorporated by the United States Congress in 1889. ... The History of Germany begins with the establishment of the nation from Ancient Roman times to the 8th century, and then continues into the Holy Roman Empire dating from the 9th century until 1806 . ... Combatants Great Britain Austria Prussia Spain[1] Russia Sardinia Ottoman Empire Portugal Dutch Republic[2] France The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states. ... (also Waldstein; Czech: ;[1] September 24, 1583 â€“ February 25, 1634)[2] was a Bohemian soldier and politician who gave his services (an army of 30,000 to 100,000 men) during the Danish Period of the Thirty Years War to Ferdinand II for no charge except the right to plunder... Karl August von Hardenberg Karl August FÃ¼rst von Hardenberg (en: Prince Charles Augustus von Hardenberg) (May 31, 1750 - November 26, 1822), was a Prussian statesman. ... Photograph of Frederick King Frederick William IV of Prussia (October 15, 1795 - January 2, 1861), the eldest son and successor of Frederick William III of Prussia, reigned as King of Prussia from 1840 to 1861. ... World History is a field of historical study that emerged as a distinct academic field in the 1980s. ... Look up Israelite in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... (11th century - 12th century - 13th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. ...

Methodology

At the core of his method, Ranke did not believe that general theories could cut across time and space. Instead, he made statements about the time using quotations from primary sources. He said, "My understanding of 'leading ideas' is simply that they are the dominant tendencies in each century. These tendencies, however, can only be described; they can not, in the last resort, be summed up in a concept." Ranke objected to philosophy of history, particularly as practiced by Hegel, claiming that Hegel ignored the role of human agency in history, which was too essential to be "characterized through only one idea or one word" or "circumscribed by a concept."^[1] This lack of emphasis on unifying theories or themes lead some to denigrate his "mindless empiricism." In the 19th century, Ranke's work was very popular and his ideas about how an historian should operate were much copied. Starting in 20th century, some historians such as E.H. Carr opposed Ranke's ideas of empiricism as naive, boring and outmoded. However, E.H. Carr, whose primarily speciality is in international relations theory, was, in turn, opposed by many traditional historians. They primarily objected to Carr's relativism and his rejection of contingency as an important factor in historical analysis. One of the most famous debates in British context was between Carr and Geoffrey Rudolph Elton whose work "The Practice of History" was written largely in response to E. H. Carr's book "What is History?". Philosophy of history or historiosophy is an area of philosophy concerning the eventual significance, if any, of human history. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... Edward Hallett Carr (1892–1982) was a British historian and international relations theorist. ... Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton (August 17, 1921 â€“ December 3, 1994) was a pre-eminent British historian of the Tudor period. ...

Relation to Robert Graves

Amalie von Ranke, the historian's niece, was the mother of the well-known British writer and historian Robert Graves. Indeed, Graves' full name was Robert von Ranke Graves. Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 â€“ 7 December 1985) was an English poet, scholar, and novelist. ...

Selected works

Notes

Online works

Google Book Search is a tool from Google that searches the full text of books that Google scans and stores in its digital database. ... The German word Fraktur (pronounced in IPA) refers to a specific blackletter typeface. ...

References

Peter Gay (June 20, 1923-), a Jewish American historian of the social history of ideas, born in Berlin as Peter Joachim FrÃ¶hlich . ... Pieter Carharinus Arie Geyl (1887-1966) was a Dutch historian well known for his studies in early modern Dutch history and in historiography. ... Felix Gilbert (May 21, 1905-February 14, 1991) was a German-born American historian of early modern and modern Europe. ... Insert non-formatted text hereHayden White(1928-3012) is an historian in the tradition of literary criticism, perhaps most famous for his work Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973). ...

External links

Categories: German historians | German Lutherans | People from Thuringia | 1795 births | 1886 deaths Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. ... Humboldt-UniversitÃ¤t zu Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (German Humboldt-UniversitÃ¤t zu Berlin) is Berlins oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin (UniversitÃ¤t zu Berlin) by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt whose university model has strongly influenced...

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