Whether by Sir Walter Scott or by Abraham Mapu, the historical novel of the 19th century played a significant part in the rise of national consciousness that changed the face of Europe. The Jews of Europe were no exception to this trend

In today’s fast-moving world of multimedia it is hard to imagine that the gentle whisper of pages being turned by the fire on a winter evening could have serious, even world-shaking consequences, but in a world without radio, cinema, or television, the historical novel burst upon the public sphere like a spark to a tinder-box. The new genre seemed innocent enough at first, but as a flood of historical romances swept Western Europe, and readers allowed themselves to fly on the wings of imagination into an enchanted past, these retellings of brave deeds and dramatic victories gave birth to the idea of a new world in which individuals could – and would – change the path of history.

Cheaply produced, and so available to rich and poor alike, historical novels bridged social gaps and class divisions. They were conspicuously successful in Germany, where Joseph Victor von Scheffel’s Ekkehard, a Tale of the Tenth Century, on the life of a German monk, went through 173 printings by 1900. Louise Mühlbach, a particularly prolific German novelist, saw it as her mission to make history accessible to all social classes, wresting it from the exclusive possession of the learned. Her two hundred or so romances were just a drop in the ocean: in the mid-1890s, tens of thousands of historical novels were sold in Germany, and reached some twenty million people of all ages.

For the British, German, and French of the period, these gripping, idealized versions of their national heritage became part of their social education, shaping their cultural identity. Contemporary research shows that these novels were powerful instruments, augmenting the knowledge acquired from the general education system and shaping awareness of the past among young and old alike. For the most part, the establishment tended to decry what they saw as popular distortions of the past that often pandered to some decidedly commercial as well as artistic considerations. Every author created his own reality, the product of his personal inclinations, cognitive horizons, and ideology. Since its inception, the genre has seen innumerable compositions, some better, some worse, and many highly political.

 

Ivanhoe Meets Isaac and Rebecca

Without a doubt, the most influential author in the development of the 19th-century historical novel was Sir Walter Scott, a crippled attorney from Scotland whose books boasted unprecedented success in Britain and throughout Europe. Germany, where the fad for historical novels was particularly strong, became gripped by “Scottomania” – shops sold dresses designed on the basis of his descriptions, a costume parade with characters dressed as Scott’s heroes was held in Berlin, and a pocket English-German dictionary was published with vocabulary tailored to his books.  A feeling of common destiny and spiritual kinship between Teutonic peoples may have contributed to the popularity of Scotts work – as Goethe put it, “Only a Scot can understand us Germans.” Heinrich Heine, the greatest of the 19th-century German poets, wrote that every German – from duchess to tailor’s apprentice – had read Scott’s novels. Heine himself later tried his hand at the genre, writing part of a novel loosely based on the life of Abarbanel.