Paul Fredericq
Paul Fredericq | |
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File:Paul Fredericq.jpg
Portrait drawing by Willem Steelink, Jr.
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Born | Ghent, East Flanders, Belgium |
12 August 1850
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Ghent, East Flanders, Belgium |
Occupation | Historian and political activist |
Language | French, Dutch |
Nationality | Belgian |
Education | University of Ghent University of Liège |
Paul Fredericq (12 August 1850 – 23 March 1920) was a Belgian historian at Ghent University active in the promotion of the use of the Dutch language in Belgium.
Early life
Paul Fredericq was born in the Sleepstraat in Ghent, Belgium. A student at the Koninklijk Atheneum of Ghent, where Max Rooses and Jacob Heremans influenced him. He became a Protestant in his youth and his tendencies in religion, as in politics, were liberal.[1] In 1871 he graduated as a high school teacher from the University of Liège and started working as a teacher in Mechelen and Arlon. In 1875, Fredericq received a special doctorate in historical sciences, with his study Essai sur le rôle politique et social des ducs de Bourgogne dans les Pays-Bas, and he became professor of history at the University of Liège.[1]
Academic career
After Jacob Heremans became emeritus, Paul Fredericq became professor of history at Ghent University in 1883. His courses included Dutch literature and practical exercises about Belgian history. Characterizing his sociability: Fredericq also taught in the relaxed surroundings of his home. It was probably during this period that he befriended the students of the 't zal wel gaan movement.
Fredericq was very active in the liberal wing of the Flemish Movement. During the period of 1891–95, he was a liberal member of the city council, and became president of the local Willemsfonds organization and editor in chief of the liberal magazine Het Volksbelang. Then founded the Hooger Onderwijs voor het Volk ("higher education for the people") in 1894, an experiment to close the education-gap between the elite and the workforce. However, Fredericq was especially important during the struggle to include Dutch into the Belgian education system. His activism culminated with his Schets eener Geschiedenis der Vlaamsche Beweging (1906–09), a short history of the Flemish Movement.
During World War I, on the invasion of Belgium by the Germans, Fredericq was active in encouraging the patriotic feelings of his countrymen in occupied Belgium and supporting non-violent resistance to the invader. As a result, he was deported to Germany on 16 March 1916, together with his colleague, the historian Henri Pirenne. He was interned successively at Gütersloh, Jena and Bürgel.[1] The ordeal weakened him both physically and mentally.
After the war, he became rector at Ghent University in 1919. But quickly resigned after only a few weeks, disappointed by the anti-Flemish backlash. He died shortly afterwards in Ghent.
Works
Besides the works mentioned above, he wrote:
- De Nederlanden onder Keizer Karel, vol. i. (1885)
- Verzameling van stukken betreffende de pauselijke en bisschoppelijke Inquisitie in de Nederlanden (1889–96)
- Onze historische volksliederen van voor de zestiende eeuw (1894)
- Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae : Verzameling van stukken betreffende de pauselijke en bisschoppelijke inquisitie in de Nederlanden. - Gent : Vuylstekes'Gravenhage : Nijhoff, 1889. Digital ed.
References
Further reading
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External links
- Works by Paul Frédéricq at Project Gutenberg
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- Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference
- Articles with short description
- Use dmy dates from January 2020
- Articles with invalid date parameter in template
- Pages with broken file links
- Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the New International Encyclopedia
- Articles with Internet Archive links
- 1850 births
- 1920 deaths
- Belgian historians
- University of Liège alumni
- University of Liège faculty
- Ghent University faculty
- Rectors of Ghent University
- World War I civilian detainees held by Germany
- Belgian people of World War I
- Belgian Protestants
- Liberal Party (Belgium) politicians
- Historians of Belgium