Spinoza Prize for historian Judith Pollman: ‘We continually reference the past’
How did people in the past deal with change? And how did such change influence personal and collective identities? For her research on these questions, Judith Pollmann (Professor of Early Modern Dutch History) has been awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest academic award in the Netherlands. ‘An unbelievable honour.’
What do you research?
‘My research centres on the question of how people in the past dealt with change. And the period I specialise in, 1500 to 1850, is known as a time when people did not necessarily see change as a good thing. They were scared of what they termed novelty. There was neither a policy on innovation nor a belief that constant innovation or change was necessary – in politics, and certainly not in religion. At the same time, people were living in a society where everything was changing. In the Low Countries, the Eighty Years’ War broke out, for example, a conflict that gave rise to an entirely new nation and a transformed socio-cultural landscape.’
How do you study how people responded to change in the past?
‘I often try to investigate this through diaries or chronicles, a kind of diary about a city. I look at the themes that emerge and how these people perceive what is happening around them. In hindsight, we can easily identify the developments that took place. But for these people, change simply happened to them, and they had to make sense of it using the mental frameworks available to them at the time. That’s what fascinates me.’
What were you doing when you heard you had won the Spinoza Prize?
‘I was working here in my office. Marcel Levi [President of the Dutch Research Council (NWO), Ed.] called and my first thought was, “He wants something.” But instead, he had fantastic news. I was absolutely speechless when I heard I’d been awarded a Spinoza Prize.’
What does this prize mean for you?
‘It’s an unbelievable honour. It’s the best gift an academic can receive because you are given a pot of money and the trust that you will spend it wisely. It also means I really can follow my intuition.
‘It was only later that it dawned on me that you are nominated for this prize. And that’s a lot of work. It’s touching that people around me were prepared to put in that work. It means there’s a sense of goodwill among colleagues, and that’s something really special.’
You were allowed to tell a few colleagues the good news already. How did they respond?
‘They think it’s amazing too. Most of the people I told turned out to be in on it. It’s good news for all of us. I work at a faculty [Humanities, Ed.] that is in financial difficulties – it’s not that we are moping around all day, but it’s an incredibly tough and tense time. Amid all the misery of budget cuts, this prize can offer a much-needed boost. And I hope to also be able to create some space for colleagues.’
NWO says that Spinoza laureates conduct excellent and groundbreaking research with a significant impact. What would you say is the impact of your research?
‘I think that the most visible effect is my work on the Eighty Years’ War. I researched how recollections of the Eighty Years’ War have influenced Dutch identity. When I started the project, I thought we more or less knew what happened in that period. But the more we looked at people’s recollections from the time, the clearer it became that our ideas about the war are, in many respects, the product of seventeenth-century propaganda and all manner of selective processes.
‘That project had all manner of academic impact. But the necessity also arose to rethink the story we want to tell about the Eighty Years’ War. I worked on an NTR TV series [80 jaar oorlog, Ed.] and an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum. The TV series and exhibition really were the first time that recent academic insights into the Eighty Years’ War were presented to a wider audience in an accessible and engaging way.
Why does the general public need to know the new story about the Eighty Years' War?
‘Without us realising it, the public debate continually references the past. When people talk about who we are, what the Netherlands is and where our Dutch values come from, they turn to images associated with that past. But when we talk about the past, we need to know what we are talking about. We have to tell the whole story. The big discussion a few years ago about the term ‘Golden Age’ didn’t come out of nowhere. That term was pushed in the 1990s by politicians who wanted to show that the Netherlands could again grow rich through trade and globalisation rather than industry.
‘It was because it was such a big story that groups began to demand attention for those who had paid the price: people in the Dutch colonies who were brutalised or enslaved. Their message was: let’s not pretend it was some kind of free wealth. The story of the Eighty Years’ War is about how we came to acquire those colonial possessions.’
The Spinoza Prize is 1.5 million euros. What will you do with the money?
‘Luckily, I have the whole summer to decide. To be honest, I’ve got so many ideas I could spend the money 20 times over. Many themes in Dutch history could use an extra boost. I’m currently looking at how and why some sorts of early-modern knowledge have fallen into oblivion. That also requires more research on the history of the Dutch countryside. We know a lot about cities but less about rural culture.
‘I’m also curious about the end of the period of prosperity in the 17th century. After the annus horribilis of 1672, the energy seems to drain away. The Netherlands remained very wealthy, but people in the 18th century complained about decline. The historiography doesn’t give a clear picture of what people tried to do about that. But thanks to new AI technology, we can now recognise manuscripts from the period and make them electronically searchable. That is a revolution in our work because you used to have to do that by hand, which takes a huge amount of time.
‘But I’ve also got some really practical ideas. My colleagues and I want to write a new textbook on Dutch history. We all think the current book is outdated, and had already planned to write a new one together. This funding will ensure we have the time to do so.’