Mediating Local Identities as a Tool of Integration. The Austrian and French Regimes Compared (Southern Netherlands, 1715-1814)
In recent decades, the rise of transnational perspectives has profoundly changed our understanding of early modern regime changes and the integration of newly acquired territories, moving from the idea of occupation to adaptation, negotiation and the quest for legitimacy. This contribution applies t...
محفوظ في:
| الحاوية / القاعدة: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/etudes18, |
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| المؤلفون الرئيسيون: | , |
| التنسيق: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| اللغة: | Anglais |
| منشور في: |
Études sur le XVIIIe siècle
2025
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| الموضوعات: | |
| الوصول للمادة أونلاين: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| الملخص: | In recent decades, the rise of transnational perspectives has profoundly changed our understanding of early modern regime changes and the integration of newly acquired territories, moving from the idea of occupation to adaptation, negotiation and the quest for legitimacy. This contribution applies these insights to two moments of regime change in the Southern Netherlands: the establishment of the Austrian regime in the formerly Spanish Habsburg Netherlands after 1715, and the annexation of the Austrian Netherlands and Liège by, and their integration in, the French Republic (1794), which later evolved into the French Empire. Both regime changes have mostly been viewed from a national perspective focusing on conquest and mutual difference. In this contribution, we develop a comparison between these two regime changes, concentrating particularly on local and regional identities and how the new authorities tried to integrate them into the official discourse. Such cultural integration was often stimulated from above, but, to a considerable degree, depended on the implication of regional and local administrators. More specifically, we analyse how the Austrian regime associated itself with local devotions that were closely linked with urban pride and identities, such as the veneration of the Sacrament of Miracle in Brussels. Similar policies were put in place during the French takeover. Via historical narratives displayed in speeches and ceremonial, and via their patronage of local art schools, commissaires and prefects in the Dyle and Deux Nethes departments conspicuously targeted local and regional identities rooted in the artistic past. Highlighting these practices contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the integration of the Southern Netherlands into larger state conglomerates. |
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