CUisis AuthoU(s): ReinhaUt Koselleck and Michaela W ... - iSites

Koselleck + Crisis
and "crisis" are both being historicized. But the German biblical version
came closer to carrying the sense of those religious impulses Arndt wished
to turn in a democratic direction.
VI. "CRISIS" AND CRISES:
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (GERMANY)
"God, when will this world crisis pass and the spirit of justice and order
become common once again!" So ends a petition written in 1814 to the
governor (Oberprdsident) of a Prussian province by a journalist. The exag-
gerated choice of words is symptomatic.82 The era of the Revolution had
apparently ended; but not the effects of having experienced its prolonged
upheavals, the transition to a new order, or the hopes it had raised. For this
aftermath, the concept of "crisis," precisely because of its various mean-
ings, seemed especially appropriate. It could express long-term changes as
well as occasional outbursts, apocalyptic expectations as well as skeptical
fears.
1. "Crisis" in Everyday Experience
If we take the frequency of its use as indicating the actuality of a crisis, then
the modern period since the turn of the nineteenth century can be called the
age of crisis. The "global crisis" encompassed all spheres. Already in 1820
Schlegel spoke of a "great crisis of German philosophy" demanding action
by the younger generation.83 The 1839 Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon
der Gegenwart (Conversational Lexicon of the Present Time) spoke of the
"literary crisis" of "Young Germany,"84 while in 1837 Bruno Bauer spoke
of a "universal theological crisis."8' The extensive correspondence of Perthes,
which provides a privileged view of contemporary public opinion, re-
82 Arnold Mallinckbrodt to Ludvig v. Wincke, Westphalia, Hefte fair Geschichte, Kunst,
und V85lkerkunde 44 (1966): 268.
83 Schlegel, Signatur des Zeitalters, 517.
84 Brockhaus,, Article on "Junges Deutschland" in Conversations-Lexikon der Gegenwart,
vol. 2 (1839), 1181.
5 Bruno Bauer, review of Strauss' "Leben Jesu" in Jahrbuch fiir wissentschaftliche Kritik,
1 (1837), 325; cited in Horst Stuke, Philosophie der Tat: Studien zur 'Verwirklichung der
Philosophie' bei den Junghegelianern und den wahren Sozialisten (Stuttgart, 1963), p.
131
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