Cultural history

The cultural history (or Kulturhistorik ) deals with the exploration and presentation of the intellectual and cultural life in periods and landscapes.

Term and subject area

Elements of the cultural history of the family, language, customs, religion, art and science. The cultural history is based on a wide source term that also "everyday sources " includes, for example.

The cultural history does not deal directly with the political history or state history. In the cultural history of the specifying exact time points is less relevant than in political history.

The term cultural history dates back to the 18th century and is based in the faith of the Enlightenment (Voltaire ) to the ever-advancing cultural development of mankind. In the German Romantic (Johann Gottfried Herder) we saw each unconscious work as a part of cultural history and recognized him as the expression of a " folk spirit ". The 20th century led to a cultural philosophy with representatives such as Arnold J. Toynbee and Oswald Spengler, who developed their findings from a comparative cultural history of the peoples. Alfred Weber developed the cultural history more towards the intellectual history of cultural sociology.

" New Cultural History " in History

Under cultural history be understood in historical science are very different concepts. Firstly, there are historians who have certain research subjects understand the " cultural history ", which are generally deferred from the political history. On the other hand is represented in more recent times by historians as Ute Daniel, Barbara Stollberg Rilinger Thomas marl or a cultural conception of history, which does not apply to certain items.

In the 1980s, emerged within the social history of a critical community, in particular the "search for social, political and especially economic determinants / factors and the resulting explainable long-term processes " as " Euro -centric history of progress " refused. In this " social, political or economic history oriented structure and process history " can not get the "cultural creativity of the people in shaping their relationships ," appropriate ' to wear. Thus, it was with a "new cultural history " (New Cultural History ) research interest in " symbolic forms of the past " as directed " characters, metaphors, political languages ​​, collective representations or rituals ". The transitions on the social history are therefore fluent in practice.

Rather, it is this new cultural history, therefore, is to address a specific, precisely cultural history, perspective on all sorts of objects. In this way, it is claimed, to explore especially cultural historical objects on road, of which the traditional culture history always clearly demarcated, as the policy and the law. In the center of a cultural-historical analysis of the political and legal standing the communicative processes in contrast to the traditional political history. From a cultural -historical perspective, political and legal institutions are no objective facts with rational structure, but condensates communicative raised, accepted or rejected claims to validity. Communication is understood as a sign of exchange, which is why most elaborate signs - symbols, rituals or ceremonies - for the new cultural history play a prominent role. For text and icon sources opens no objective view of the facts of history, but only provide clues to the linguistic communication of the past. This as linguistic turn ( Linguistic turn ) is ganger in the history of science paradigm was based on the view that "social positions, market pressures or demographic development in turn act as independent factors on the semiotic practices of the people concerned ."