by Simone Dubois (Ghent, April 29, 1910 – The Hague, April 5, 2001) in collaboration with Pierre Dubois
I am grateful for the invitation to contribute to the jubilee volume that the Haagse Kunstkring intends to publish on the occasion of its centenary, especially because of the laudable initiative of wanting to devote the volume to cultural policy and the future of our culture in a Europe without borders. For I was asked because of my connection to Belgium and my involvement in the life and work of Belle van Zuylen, this Dutchwoman who wrote in French….
The consequence of that invitation is that my contribution will therefore be about the past and the decline of the French language in Europe rather than the future, but perhaps this will lead to a few related observations, including on the increasing dominance of Anglo-American and its possible influence on the native language and identity of smaller countries.
The preservation of the language that plays a fundamental role in a country’s culture has recently been the subject of numerous discussions and polemics in articles and meetings, in the press and for television.
Some people are totally indifferent to the problem; they have no objection to a future in which, in the Netherlands, English would become predominant. For them, a fusion of every form of communication is purely practical, an economic advantage. Others, on the other hand, worry about the lack of an active, coherent overall cultural policy as a framework of a consistent foreign policy aimed at preserving the autonomy of national and regional cultures within the European community.
I think there is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about these things. I think there is a regional culture, and I think especially that there is not a national culture, but cultural languages, which are not necessarily bounded by national boundaries. For example, in Europe there is Dutch spoken in the Netherlands and Belgium, French spoken in France, Belgium and Switzerland, German spoken in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, in parts of other countries of central Europe; Italian spoken in Italy and Switzerland, etc.
Economic factors used to play a less dominant role than today. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that a “world language like French, two centuries ago and for two centuries in the various countries where it was labeled the “cultural” and “diplomatic” language, did not alienate the autonomy of culture.
Anglo-American, which is rapidly displacing French, is seen primarily as the language of commerce, engineering, economic efficiency, undoubtedly also elements of general culture. However, because its “spiritual branch” is not profitable, it is neglected and what is worse, denatured into a profitable object.
The difference lies not in the language, not in the culture, but in the use of the language and the valuation of the culture. Therefore, above all, vigilance is needed, especially in smaller areas, not to be overwhelmed by the international language and the valuation therein of culture.
If I now take Belle van Zuylen as an example for a moment – after all, that’s partly why you invited me – I want to emphasize above all that, in a Europe as strongly dominated by French (but not always by France) as the eighteenth-century, she was the only author in Holland, apart from the philosopher Frans Hemsterhuis (whose works were written in Latin), who wrote in French. There are explanations for this.
Belle van Zuylen had spent about a year in Geneva in 1750, then 10 years old, with a Swiss governess, where she heard only French around her; she traveled through Switzerland and France and spent a short time in Paris. Upon her return to Holland, she had practically lost her native language.
In her family circle even before her departure, in addition to Dutch, French was spoken and written, and it is remarkable that the effect of that language in the eighteenth century was, so to speak, spontaneous. It took considerable effort later in some countries, when language consciousness everywhere began to take on national forms, to contain that influence. Several factors had contributed to the spread of French in Europe at the time: it began to replace Latin, making it an international and diplomatic language of communication; but also intolerance towards Protestants caused thousands to leave France and settle in Germany, England, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Many practiced professions in those countries as publisher teachers or pastors. This contributed greatly to the fact that French was no longer limited to diplomacy and the environment of science and culture.
“Thanks to the French teachers,” Belle van Zuylen wrote, “the German, Dutch and English children learn La Fontaine by heart as soon as they can speak; for forty years the letters of Mme. de Sévigne have been in the hands of all German, Dutch and Swiss women who have had a little education, and the reign of Louis XIV they know better than any period of their own history.” Through the French Revolution, again with numerous emigrants and then the rule of Napoleon, French was able to hold its own in several countries for a long time, albeit from then on with nationalistic tendencies. But even when France had become the great enemy, there was still a cultural connection to the French language itself.
The most striking example of the supremacy of French in the eighteenth century is Germany. The King of Prussia, Frederick II, wanted to speak only French and wrote his poems and memoirs in that language. At his court, as in fact at most European courts, only French was spoken. In the Netherlands, Prince William V and his wife Wilhelmina of Prussia, a cousin of Frederick II, corresponded with their children exclusively in French as evidenced by Johanna Naber’s edition.
The only novella published by Belle van Zuylen while she was still living in Holland was “Le Noble” (1764) and it is funny that the German philosopher Jacobi had this little work reprinted with an introduction of his own, in which the German public was taken to task for only reading its own authors in translation via Paris, but forgetting that Belle too was writing in a language that was not her own!
The French that endured in the Netherlands until the end of the nineteenth century influenced many Dutch writers, but Belle van Zuylen is the exception who had made the language so much her own that she could also publish in it. Before and after her, there were writers who read, spoke and corresponded in French excellently, but published only in their mother tongue. The fact is that by having chosen French in the eighteenth century, Belle van Zuylen is better known abroad – and not only in French-speaking countries – than other Dutch writers who have to rely on translations. That is not to say that writers would be better off writing in another language that has a wider reach. French, German or – especially – English.
Belle van Zuylen wrote in French because she expressed herself better in it than in Dutch. She found her own style in it. Interestingly, that style was characterized by a spirit and mentality that was not recognized as typically French in the international world, even though the language was classically French. Belle cherished the ideal of being “of all countries” and French was then the most widespread “European” language, but her spirit and mentality were Dutch, her culture European, or if one wishes, universal.
Regarding culture in the Dutch-speaking region, i.e. in the Netherlands and Belgium, there is a difference between the situation in the two countries. In the Flemish part of Belgium, i.e. the provinces of West and East Flanders, Antwerp, Limburg and a part of the province of Brabant, French has had a longer and deeper effect than in the Netherlands. Therefore, we must go back to 1585 when the northern provinces were separated from the southern ones because of the religious wars. The North, called the United Provinces (now the Netherlands), underwent less European influences over the following centuries than the South (now Belgium), which experienced successive Spanish, Austrian and French occupations and was therefore more involved in Europe than the Netherlands. Added to this was the fact that Belgium is closer to France and part of Belgium has Walloon provinces, so the country as a whole underwent the influence of the French language to a greater extent than the Netherlands.
When in 1815 the northern and southern provinces (Belgium and the Netherlands) were again united into one country, a kingdom under William I of Orange, it became apparent that the two parts had undergone a different evolution due to a separation of three centuries and were so estranged from each other that “incompatibility of character” had arisen, with politics also playing an important role. After a brief struggle, another separation occurred and the south also became a kingdom under Leopold I of Saxe-Coburg. Alienation was perhaps felt even more strongly by the Flemings than by the Walloons because Dutch had developed in the north, while in the south French was the official language and most Flemings spoke a Flemish dialect among themselves. Their mother tongue had not cultivated and French was the cultural language. This lasted until the 1920s.
When I tell in Holland, how French a Flemish city like Ghent was in my childhood, it is often not believed and yet it was so. But the Flemings, estranged from Holland and with little or no support, for a long time even with opposition from the central government in their country, fought for their language, literally and figuratively, until finally, in 1830, the University of Ghent was damned. The cries “Gand français” and “Ghent Flemish” still ring in my ears. When change was well underway, World War II broke out; the Flemish feelings of some became political obsessions because of the aversion to France and French. As had happened in the 1914-1918 war, they turned to Germany. Fortunately, this was only a small part of the population, and their sympathies were more Flemish-nationalist than National Socialist.
What I particularly want to note is that notwithstanding the long period of slow evolution of the Flemish language, writers began to emerge who, although they had a good command of French, published in their mother tongue.
I am not thinking so much of Gezelle, who wrote pure poetry from his regional Flemish, or of the first Flemish novelist Hendrik Conscience, but of colorful popular authors like Claes and Timmermans, who, though I don’t mean to be derogatory, were still tied to a region, and especially of authors who transcended that like Buysse, Van de Woestijne, Streuvels, Vermeylen, Teirlinck, still entirely from a time when French dominated in Flanders as well.
Besides them, there were a number of Flemish writers who expressed themselves in French. Their situation was not always easy either; usually they were obliged to settle in Paris and publish their books in France in order to make a name for themselves in French literature. Writers like Maeterlinck, Van Lerberghe, Verhaeren are true Flemish, mostly writing about Flanders but in French. In fact, the Ghent writer Maurice Maeterlinck is so far the only writer from Flanders and the Netherlands who saw his work awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
This tendency has also remained: there is a constant stream of Flemish writers who, raised in French, write in that language, but whose orientation is Flemish or Dutch. By Suzanne Lilar, who published “Une enfance gantoise” a few years ago, plays were regularly performed in Paris, and her daughter Françoise Mallet-Joris, raised in Antwerp, became chairwoman of the jury of the French “Prix Femina. The plays of Michel de Ghelderode, whose oeuvre was published by Gallimard and performed in France and throughout Europe, although written in French, are primal Flemish. By this I mean that culture is not a national but an international concept, that national borders do not necessarily coincide with linguistic borders and linguistic borders with cultural borders; the same culture can be expressed in different languages and partly defined by them.
Anyone who regularly speaks with Flemish and Dutch people discovers that in recent years there has certainly been progress in mutual contacts, but that there are still altiid differences of opinion when it comes to a common policy, including language and culture, in the future Europe.
The often self-righteous attitude of some Dutch people excites many Flemish people. The latter think with misunderstood pride that they may as well keep speaking their dialect and not have to switch to the AN that sounds stiff to their ears. This again creates a barrier, not only in relation to the Netherlands but also to other Flemings who do tend to choose Dutch as a cultural language and already do so for the sake of their role in the European Community.
I limit my remarks only to language, because therein lies most directly the problem of cultural expression. With painters, composers, etc., the country of cultural origin also plays a role, of course, but their expression need not be translated in order to be accessible elsewhere, although their success may also depend on whether or not their work is felt in other countries.
Annie Romein-Verschoor wrote in 1947 in her Booklet “Sludge and Clouds” that language is a barrier and that for centuries, when inhabitants of small countries sought contact with the international literary world, they had to leave their baggage behind at the border, so that they ended up empty-handed in other European communities and had the impression of entering an adult world as children or making her entrance into a circle of old ladies like a young bride.
Fortunately, this has recently changed and, thanks to a larger number and better translations than before, “the young bride” has already managed to conquer a modest place with her literature abroad; but translation will have to take place on a larger and broader scale in the Europe of tomorrow. For it seems to us that for the time being Dutch and Flemish writers will not turn to producing creative work in another cultural language, English for example, a language that does seem most likely to play an important role in international contacts and in everything that has to do with efficiency, economy and commerce first and foremost, but not with artistic forms and culture.
In a united Europe where national borders fall away or no longer count, language borders remain. Cultures that express themselves in a particular language are not threatened by a European unification, only by the dominance of economic and commercial efficiency through the imbalance between selfishness and altruism, by the profit principle, by the idea that what is not profitable cannot exist.
By the way, even in larger language areas, one will have to learn other European languages for the exercise of efficiency because other languages will not accept the exclusive domination of a major language anyway than only for very practical matters. It is already clear that Englishmen learn French and German, Frenchmen learn German and English and Germans learn English and French. And even I have noticed a remarkable growth among the faculties of Germanistics in France and Germany for the minor Dutch!
As far as the Netherlands is concerned, it seems necessary to make the three main European languages compulsory again in secondary schools. If we want to participate smoothly in the New Europe, we must, as in the past, know French, German and English in addition to our own language. This will be necessary in tomorrow’s Europe for all European countries. The only difference is that the smaller countries cannot neglect their own language. In it their culture will continue to express itself.
So the chance of a European Community and of our part in it will depend, in my opinion, mainly on these elementary matters and on the good will and sobriety of many. Culture need not feel threatened if attention continues to be paid to artistic developments that are not sacrificed to economic and technical ones.
