2004 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Comprehensive Studies of the relation between utopist thought and life-reform-movements in modern times in Germany
| Project/Area Number |
14510576
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
独語・独文学
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| Research Institution | Otaru University of Commerce |
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Principal Investigator |
SOEJIMA Miyuki Otaru University of Commerce, Foreign Language Center, Associate Professor, 言語センター, 助教授 (20226707)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2002 – 2004
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| Keywords | Utopia / Social Reform / Pamnhletist / garden city-movement / German Culture History / Artist-Colony / Kaspar Stiblin / Johann Valentin Andreae |
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| Research Abstract |
This research on the relation between utopist thought and life-reform-movements in modern times in Germany is based on my former research on various kind of life-reform-movements since the mid-nineteenth century. The aim of these movements was betterment of the quality of life, which underwent deterioration in the process of the Industrial Revolution. So they have characteristics of pre-weimar era, yet they are-and especially the garden city-movement-a part of the long tradition of utopia plans in the history of European thought since Plato's Politeia. So I researched into the German tradition of utopist thought, in order to get an insight into broader spectrum of social reformist thought in Germany. The first notable reformists in German history were pamphletists who spread their reform ideas through handwritten pamphlets in 15^<th> and 16^<th> centuries. I mentioned works such as Reformatio Sigismundi and Revolutionalist in Oberrhein, they advocated a drastic reform in class system and had a great influence on the movements of serfs' emancipation. Then I reviewed the first two utopia novels in Germany. Commentariolus de Eudaemonensium Republica, i. e. a short report on Republic of Eudaimon, is the first utopia novel in the history of German literature, but it's totally unknown in Japan. It was written in the era of Counter Reformation and describes an utopia from catholic point of view. Christianopolis on the other hand was written by a Lutheran theologian and is referred to as the only Lutheran utopia in the World literature. These two novels are not only about religious life, but they rather suggest a social reform into a just and peaceful society. Interestingly enough the reformist thought in early times has more radical character then the life-reform-movements in modern era.
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