Cultura del recuerdo y del olvido en los Países Bajos: Las Conmemoriaciones de la Paz de Münster, 1748-1948

Abstract

Remembering and forgetting in the Low Countries: The commemorations of the Peace of Münster, 1748-1948

Besides the Black Legend the "United Provinces" cherished the illusion of being the (reformed) God's chosen people. Under His protection they had beaten Spain. The contribution of Flanders and Brabant, later recovered by the Spanish, was forgotten. The rift between the adherents of the Prince of Orange and the Estates party faction, which had thrown the Republic into a regime crisis after Münster, was also blotted out of the public memory.

Memorial texts also reflect the time in which they are written. Riots, the res toration of the Oranges and the Peace of Aachen (1747-48) were compared to Munster and its context. The failing memorial of 1848 reflected the antagonism between the reformed Protestants, who monopolized the memory of Munster, and the Catholics, who protested against their second-class citizenship.

The other Netherlands, Belgium since 1830/39, never felt the need to commemorate Munster. Their Catholic writers held a reverse position and buried their Dutch antecedents to oblivion in order to legitimate the new sta te. Some important freethinking historians, however, pursued the study of all the Netherlands.

In the 20th century Geyl exposed the nationalistic myths by his Great Netherlands myth based on the affinity of language, but there were others who defended an all Netherlands approach of the Revolt. The supranational integration processes enforced this scientific perspective after the Second World War.