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Johan Huizinga (December 7, 1872 - February 1, 1945), was a Dutch
Netherlands

The Netherlands is a country that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands is located in North-West Europe, and bordered by the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east....
 historian
Historian

A historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time....
 and one of the founders of modern cultural history
Cultural history

The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular culture traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience....
.

Life
Born in Groningen
Groningen (city)

||-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |}Groningen is the capital city of the province of Groningen in the Netherlands. With a population of 185,000, it is by far the largest city in the north of the Netherlands....
 as the son of Dirk Huizinga, a professor of physiology
Physiology

Physiology is the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms. Physiology has traditionally been divided between plant physiology and animal and all living things physiology but the principles of physiology are universal, no matter what particular organism is being studied....
, and Jacoba Tonkens, who died two years after his birth, he started out as a student of Indo-Germanic languages, earning his degree in 1895. He then studied comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics

Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their history relatedness....
, gaining a good command of Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the role of the jester in India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
n drama in 1897.

It was not until 1902 that his interest turned towards medieval
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
 and Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 history.






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Johan Huizinga (December 7, 1872 - February 1, 1945), was a Dutch
Netherlands

The Netherlands is a country that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands is located in North-West Europe, and bordered by the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east....
 historian
Historian

A historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time....
 and one of the founders of modern cultural history
Cultural history

The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular culture traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience....
.

Life


Born in Groningen
Groningen (city)

||-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |}Groningen is the capital city of the province of Groningen in the Netherlands. With a population of 185,000, it is by far the largest city in the north of the Netherlands....
 as the son of Dirk Huizinga, a professor of physiology
Physiology

Physiology is the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms. Physiology has traditionally been divided between plant physiology and animal and all living things physiology but the principles of physiology are universal, no matter what particular organism is being studied....
, and Jacoba Tonkens, who died two years after his birth, he started out as a student of Indo-Germanic languages, earning his degree in 1895. He then studied comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics

Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their history relatedness....
, gaining a good command of Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the role of the jester in India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
n drama in 1897.

It was not until 1902 that his interest turned towards medieval
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
 and Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 history. He continued teaching as an Orientalist until he became a Professor of General and Dutch History at Groningen University in 1905. Then, in 1915, he was made Professor of General History at Leiden University
Leiden University

Leiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Oldest Universities by Region university in the Netherlands....
, a post he held until 1942. From this point until his death in 1945 he was held in detention by the Nazis
Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the colloquial English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party , which established a Totalitarianism dictatorship that existed from 1933 to 1945....
. He died in De Steeg in Gelderland
Gelderland

Gelderland is a Provinces of the Netherlands of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern part of the country. The capital city is Arnhem....
, near Arnhem
Arnhem

Arnhem is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Nederrijn as well as near the St....
, and lies buried in the graveyard of the Reformed Church at 6 Haarlemmerstraatweg in Oegstgeest
Oegstgeest

Media:Nl-Oegstgeest.ogg is a town and municipality in the province of South Holland in the western Netherlands....
.

Works


Huizinga had an aesthetic approach to history, where art and spectacle played an important part. His most famous work is The Autumn of the Middle Ages
The Autumn of the Middle Ages

The Autumn of the Middle Ages, or The Waning of the Middle Ages, is the best-known work by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga.Its subtitle is 'a study of the forms of life, thought and art in France and the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries'....
 (a.k.a. The Waning of the Middle Ages) (1919). He here reinterprets the later Middle Ages as a period of pessimism
Pessimism

Pessimism, from the Latin pessimus , isa painful state of mind which negatively colours the perception of life, specially with regard to future events....
 and decadence
Decadence

Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle, it describes a lack of moral and intellectual discipline, or in the Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"....
 rather than rebirth
Rebirth

Rebirth may refer to:* Reincarnation, belief that some essential part of a living being survives death to be reborn in a new body* Rebirth , belief that consciousness arising in the new person is neither identical to, nor different from, the old consciousness, but forms part of a causal continuum...
.

Worthy of mentioning are also Erasmus (1924) and Homo Ludens
Homo Ludens

Homo Ludens, or "Man the Player," is a book written in 1938 by The Netherlands historian, cultural theorist and professor Johan Huizinga.It discusses the importance of the play element of culture and society....
 (1938). In the latter book he discusses the influence of play on European culture. Huizinga also published books on American history and Dutch history in the 17th century.

Family


Huizinga's son Leonhard Huizinga became a well known writer in the Netherlands, especially renowned for his series of tongue in cheek fiction novels on the Dutch aristocratic twins Adrian and Oliver ("Adriaan en Olivier").

Works

  • Mensch en menigte in America (1918)
  • Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen (1919), translated as The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924) and as The Autumn of the Middle Ages
    The Autumn of the Middle Ages

    The Autumn of the Middle Ages, or The Waning of the Middle Ages, is the best-known work by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga.Its subtitle is 'a study of the forms of life, thought and art in France and the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries'....
     (1996)
  • Erasmus of Rotterdam (1924)
  • Amerika Levend en Denkend (1926), translated by H.H. Rowen as America: A Dutch Historian's Vision, from Afar and Near (1972)
  • Leven en werk van Jan Veth (1927)
  • Cultuurhistorische verkenningen (1929)
  • In de schaduwen van morgen (1935), translated by his son Jacob Herman Huizingaas In the Shadow of Tomorrow
  • De wetenschap der geschiedenis (1937)
  • Homo Ludens
    Homo Ludens

    Homo Ludens, or "Man the Player," is a book written in 1938 by The Netherlands historian, cultural theorist and professor Johan Huizinga.It discusses the importance of the play element of culture and society....
     (1938)


External links

  • at The Dictionary of Art Historians.