Page 219 - Stati inu obstati, revija za vprašanja protestantizma, letnik XIV (2018), številka 27, ISSN 2590-9754
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synopses
proverbs (“‘I see one of them, I hear the other, and I am running after the third,’ an-
swered the wise boy.” (The Wise Servant)) or the textual world (Doctor Luther at the
Wartburg) the Grimm brothers present mythical figures, stories or situations in their
fairytales. Motif-story analogies (a biblical example: Lot and his Daughters and the
fairytale All-Kinds-of-Fur) are also frequent. Sometimes values are expressed directly,
through literal quotation (to be humble), or indirectly, through actions.
Keywords: J. and W. Grimm, Children’s and Household Tales, motifs, Bible, religion
UDC 929Luther M.:930
Jonatan Vinkler
Is it possible to write about Luther the same way as in the past?
The imaginary of Luther throughout time – the relation to historiographical
paradigms.
In the (non)German-speaking region of Central Europe (the Holy Roman Empire
of German nationality and, after its collapse, the countries which had historical deal-
ings with the reception of the Lutheran Reformation) the imaginary and the idearium
of Martin Luther underwent a considerable change from the 16th century onwards. The
textual and pictorial expressions of Luther’s image were predominantly influenced by
the dominant social (religious, intellectual, cultural) “explanatory” models.
In the 16th century the religious conceptual framework was the biggest and most com-
plete interpretative model known to European culture at that time. For religion explained
everything to everyman – from here to the next world, from yesterday to eternity, and
even what everyman could possibly think of “asleep or awake”. Thus Luther in his own
time and right to the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1648) was read in a decidedly one-di-
mensional- and binary way: as a schismatic theologian (the Catholic view) or as “the apos-
tle of the true old Christian faith” (the Protestant view). Historiography between 1517 and
1738 thus cast him in the images of “bestiae Triumphans” or “God’s herald”. We find such
imaginary and idearium in Lutheran biography which on the Protestant side develops
from the obituary sermon of Johannes Bugenhagen Pomoranus at Luther’s graveside, as
also in the first editions of Luther’s collected works and even in editions of pseudo Luther
(“Table Talk”). On the Catholic side the imaginary and the idearium of Luther as the fore-
most champion of Lutheran heresy is especially represented by pamphlet- and biograph-
ical literature; the typical nature of Luther’s textual image on the Catholic side in the 16th
century is presentation through the medieval imaginary of heretics (arbor vitiorum).
With the end of the 18th century, the Napoleonic wars, romanticism and the advent
of Fichte in German philosophy (Addresses to the German Nation, 1807), ideas about
national identity begin to take clearer shape in German culture – about the identifying
marks “that separate Germans from all other nations”. Fichte stresses that it is precise-
217
proverbs (“‘I see one of them, I hear the other, and I am running after the third,’ an-
swered the wise boy.” (The Wise Servant)) or the textual world (Doctor Luther at the
Wartburg) the Grimm brothers present mythical figures, stories or situations in their
fairytales. Motif-story analogies (a biblical example: Lot and his Daughters and the
fairytale All-Kinds-of-Fur) are also frequent. Sometimes values are expressed directly,
through literal quotation (to be humble), or indirectly, through actions.
Keywords: J. and W. Grimm, Children’s and Household Tales, motifs, Bible, religion
UDC 929Luther M.:930
Jonatan Vinkler
Is it possible to write about Luther the same way as in the past?
The imaginary of Luther throughout time – the relation to historiographical
paradigms.
In the (non)German-speaking region of Central Europe (the Holy Roman Empire
of German nationality and, after its collapse, the countries which had historical deal-
ings with the reception of the Lutheran Reformation) the imaginary and the idearium
of Martin Luther underwent a considerable change from the 16th century onwards. The
textual and pictorial expressions of Luther’s image were predominantly influenced by
the dominant social (religious, intellectual, cultural) “explanatory” models.
In the 16th century the religious conceptual framework was the biggest and most com-
plete interpretative model known to European culture at that time. For religion explained
everything to everyman – from here to the next world, from yesterday to eternity, and
even what everyman could possibly think of “asleep or awake”. Thus Luther in his own
time and right to the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1648) was read in a decidedly one-di-
mensional- and binary way: as a schismatic theologian (the Catholic view) or as “the apos-
tle of the true old Christian faith” (the Protestant view). Historiography between 1517 and
1738 thus cast him in the images of “bestiae Triumphans” or “God’s herald”. We find such
imaginary and idearium in Lutheran biography which on the Protestant side develops
from the obituary sermon of Johannes Bugenhagen Pomoranus at Luther’s graveside, as
also in the first editions of Luther’s collected works and even in editions of pseudo Luther
(“Table Talk”). On the Catholic side the imaginary and the idearium of Luther as the fore-
most champion of Lutheran heresy is especially represented by pamphlet- and biograph-
ical literature; the typical nature of Luther’s textual image on the Catholic side in the 16th
century is presentation through the medieval imaginary of heretics (arbor vitiorum).
With the end of the 18th century, the Napoleonic wars, romanticism and the advent
of Fichte in German philosophy (Addresses to the German Nation, 1807), ideas about
national identity begin to take clearer shape in German culture – about the identifying
marks “that separate Germans from all other nations”. Fichte stresses that it is precise-
217
