Johan Heisinga (date of birth: December 7, 1872); date of death: February 1, 1945) - Dutch historian, philosopher of culture and one of the founders of modern history of cultures. Having adopted the point of view of his predecessor, Jacob Burckhardt, Hazing considered historical realities not only in the political, but also in the cultural spectrum. He first proposed to define history as the totality of all aspects of human activity, including religion, philosophy, linguistics, traditions, art, literature, mythology, superstition, and so on. Denying philological methodology, Heising tried to depict life, feelings, beliefs, ideas, tastes, moral and aesthetic considerations through the prism of their cultural expression. He tried to compile a chronicle with which readers could imbue the spirit of people who lived in the past, feel their feelings, understand their thoughts. To achieve this goal, the historian used not only literary descriptions, but also illustrations.
"Autumn of the Middle Ages" (1919), a masterpiece of historycultures, combining concepts and images, literature and history, religion and philosophy, became the most famous work of Heising, bringing him the fame of the founder of the history of cultures in the twentieth century and the heir of Burkhardt. Later, Johan Heisinga wrote the work "The Man Who Played" (1938). In it, he connects the essence of man with the concept of "playfulness," calls the game the primordial need of human existence and establishes it as an archetype of diverse cultural forms. Heising clearly demonstrated how all kinds of human cultures were born and developed, remaining modifications and manifestations of playfulness.
Johan Heisinga, whose biography is by no meansreplete with adventures, was born in the city of Groningen, the Netherlands. While studying at the university, he specialized in Sanskrit and defended his doctoral dissertation on "The Role of the Fool in the Indian Drama" in 1897. Only in 1902, Haising was interested in the history of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He stayed to work at the university, teaching Oriental cultures, until he was awarded the title of professor of general and national history in 1905. Ten years later, he was appointed professor of general history at the University of Leiden, where he taught until 1942. From that moment until his death in 1945, Heising was kept in Nazi captivity in a small town near Arnhem. He is buried in the cemetery of the Reformed Church in the town of Ugstgeest.
The predecessor of Heising, Jacob Burckhardt, who lived innineteenth century, first began to view history from the perspective of culture. Burkhardt zealously criticized the widespread among contemporaries philological and political approaches to the consideration of historical realities. Johan Heising (photo) continued and developed the methods of the predecessor, forming a new genre - the history of cultures.
History was considered by him as a collectionmany aspects of human life, including religious beliefs and superstitions, customs and traditions, social restrictions and taboos, a sense of moral duty and beauty, and so on. Heisinga denied conceptual schematization and fitting historical events to intuitive templates. He tried to convey the state of the human spirit and thought through dreams, hopes, fears and worries of past generations. Especially he was interested in the feeling of beauty and his expression through art.
Using his unrivaled literaryskills, Johan Heisinga managed to portray how people of the past lived, felt and interpreted their cultural realities. For him, history was not a series of political events, devoid of real feelings and sensations, without which no one can live. Monumental work of Hayzing, "Autumn of the Middle Ages" (1919), was written precisely from this perspective.
This work is necessary first of allconsidered as a historical study, but it goes far beyond the narrow disciplinary genre of the historical essay as an analytical, philological study of a series of events. On the contrary: this work highlights interdisciplinary cultural realities, where intertwined anthropology, aesthetics, philosophy, mythology, religion, art history and literature. Although the author paid attention to the irrational aspects of human history, he was quite critical of the irrationalism of the "philosophy of life."
At the age of sixty-five, the historianpublished another masterpiece - the work "Man playing" (1938). It was the culmination of his many years of work in the fields of history and philosophy of culture. Heazing's fame was also brought by the publication "Erasmus" (1924).
"Autumn of the Middle Ages" became the most famous book of the historian. It was thanks to her that most of the contemporaries learned who Johan Huizinga was and could get acquainted with the new trends in science.
Jakob Burkhardt and other historians considered the Middlecentury precursor of the Renaissance and described them as the cradle of realism. Burckhardt's works focused on the Italian Renaissance and practically did not cover this period in the cultures of France, the Netherlands and other European states north of the Alps.
Heisinga challenged the interpretation of the Middle Ages withpoint of view of the Renaissance. He believed that medieval cultures blossomed and survived the peak of their development in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and then came to a decline in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. According to Hayzinga, the historical period, like the living being in nature, is born and dies; that is why the Later Middle Ages became the time of the death of the period and the transition to a further revival. For example, in the chapter "Face of Death," Johan Heisinga portrayed the fifteenth century as follows: thoughts of death dominate in the minds of people, and the motif of the "dance of death" becomes a frequent plot of art. He saw more gloom, fatigue and nostalgia for the past - the symptoms of a fading culture, than signs of rebirth and optimism peculiar to the Renaissance.
Despite the somewhat limitedthe worldview presented in the book "Autumn of the Middle Ages", it remains a classic work on the history of cultures and takes an honorable place alongside the famous works of Jacob Burckhardt.
