“EUROPE CAN NEVER BE LOST AS LONG AS THERE ARE MEN LIKE YOU” – HUIZINGA AND EUROPE

As a professor in Groningen (1908/09, 1912/13) and Leiden (1916/17, 1922/23, 1931/32, 1939/1940) Huizinga chose to lecture on the “Grondslagen van Europa” (the Foundations of Europe). In these lectures he focused on the ancient and early medieval history of Europe. In 1941 he considered writing a book entitled Een gezicht op Europa (A view on Europe), of which the title page and the first page were printed. This book was supposed to start with the Roman Empire. But after 1933, with the rise of the totalitarian systems of communism and fascism, Huizinga became worried about the future of our civilization in general. He dealt most explicitly with the history of Europe in his Patriotisme en nationalisme in de Europeesche geschiedenis tot het einde der 19de eeuw (Haarlem, 1940; translated a. o. into English and German). In 1943 he preferred to write a short survey about the possibilities of a recovery of our civilization: Geschonden wereld (Haarlem, 1946; translated into German three times, 1945: Wenn die Waffen schweigen; 1948: Geschändete Welt; 2014: Verratene Welt). The article combines an analysis of Huizinga’s published works concerning Europe with unpublished sources from his archives.