10 Facts About Johan Huizinga

1.

Johan Huizinga was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history.

2.

Johan Huizinga then studied comparative linguistics, gaining a good command of Sanskrit.

3.

Johan Huizinga wrote his doctoral thesis on the role of the jester in Indian drama in 1897.

4.

Johan Huizinga continued teaching as an Orientalist until he became a Professor of General and Dutch History at Groningen University in 1905.

5.

Johan Huizinga was held in detention by the Nazis between August and October 1942.

6.

Johan Huizinga subsequently lived at the house of his colleague Rudolph Cleveringa in De Steeg in Gelderland, near Arnhem, where he died just a few weeks before Nazi rule ended.

7.

Johan Huizinga lies buried in the graveyard of the Reformed Church at 6 Haarlemmerstraatweg in Oegstgeest.

8.

Johan Huizinga had an aesthetic approach to history, where art and spectacle played an important part.

9.

Johan Huizinga published books on American history and Dutch history in the 17th century.

10.

Johan Huizinga argued that the spirit of technical and mechanical organisation had replaced spontaneous and organic order in cultural as well as political life.