{"id":55787,"date":"2023-09-04T16:54:55","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T15:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/?p=55787"},"modified":"2023-09-05T11:58:21","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T10:58:21","slug":"spreading-the-revolution-paines-rights-of-man-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2023\/09\/04\/spreading-the-revolution-paines-rights-of-man-in-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Spreading the Revolution: Paine\u2019s Rights of Man in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tom Paine\u2019s revolutionary Rights of Man<\/em>, whose first part was published in London in 1791, was an extraordinary publishing success and extremely influential. That applies far beyond Britain and my article explores its echo in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central character in the story is Meta Forkel, whose translation of Rights of Man<\/em> was published at Berlin in 1792. In addition to her language skills, Forkel\u2019s political sympathies made her a likely accomplice in the dissemination of Paine\u2019s work. She was part of the Jacobin circle around Georg Forster at Mainz and would even be imprisoned for several months after the forceful dissolution of the Mainz Republic in 1793. It was certainly no coincidence that Forkel translated Rights of Man<\/em> and other radical works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Berlin publisher Christian Friedrich Vo\u00df proved reluctant to publish Rights of Man<\/em> (as had Paine\u2019s original publisher), Forkel urged him to do it despite possible dangers. Upon seeing the book, she told Vo\u00df, he would not be able to resist printing it, \u2018even if it was charged with high treason, and of course it\u2019s high treason to tear down the consecrated idols of many centuries\u2019. When apparently no reply was forthcoming, she submitted the manuscript to the printer anyway. Vo\u00df finally came around and the book was published. This episode powerfully demonstrates the translator\u2019s initiative and reminds us of the factor of contingency; it is only due to Forkel\u2019s commitment that Rights of Man<\/em> appeared in German.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forkel not only provided a faithful translation of Paine\u2019s English text that was hailed by contemporary reviewers and still reproduced by the prestigious German publisher Suhrkamp in 1973, but she also made an important addition by supplementing the French Constitution of 1791. Forkel referred to it as a \u2018charter of human freedom\u2019 and accorded it world-historical significance. Presumably, adding the Constitution was so important to her because nothing comparable existed in the German states and she hoped it might serve as an inspiring blueprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forkel\u2019s translation no doubt facilitated more widespread access to Paine\u2019s work. Yet its impact in Germany was not only dependent on translation, as Paine\u2019s ideas spread through other languages as well. Paine was an international celebrity and his work became very visible in Germany during the 1790s. German intellectuals read his works in the original or in French while reviews popularized his ideas or opposition to them. Accordingly, the story of Paine\u2019s impact in the German-speaking parts of Europe involves a rather disparate group of actors, not least several detractors whose criticism unintentionally helped to spread his ideas further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The generally accepted view is that Paine\u2019s reputation soon became tarnished by the anti-Christian Age of Reason<\/em>, which was also translated into German. But worries about his influence in both religious and political matters evidently persisted amongst his opponents. After all, Paine\u2019s declared aim was to spread revolution. What is more, he described despotism as the German principle of government and, in his dedication of Rights of Man, Part Two<\/em> explicitly expressed hope for the liberation of Germany. And Paine\u2019s writing proved popular and effective. The Jacobins of Altona, for example, explicitly commended Rights of Man<\/em> in a pamphlet that called for revolution. Undoubtedly, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Paine\u2019s work deserves a more central place in future scholarship on the Revolution debate in Germany. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image: Wha wants me \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum, released as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Paine\u2019s revolutionary Rights of Man, whose first part was published in London in 1791, was an extraordinary publishing success and extremely influential. That applies far beyond Britain and my article explores its echo in Germany. The central character in the story is Meta Forkel, whose translation of Rights of Man was published at Berlin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":822,"featured_media":55792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2364],"coauthors":[10932],"class_list":["post-55787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-the-historical-journal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/822"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55790,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55787\/revisions\/55790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55787"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=55787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}