Title: The Historical Writing and Founding Myth of Early Brandenburg-Prussia in Michael Kohlhaas

Abstract: Kleist’s novel Michael Kohlhaas narrates superficially a story about resisting tyranny and pursuing justice. However, from the perspective of covert progression, it is actually writing a splendid Brandenburg-Prussian dynastic history from the side with a hidden method. The novel takes the Kohlhase rebellion in history as starting point, fabricates many historical details such as war and political games between countries, contrasts entirely different fates and political moods of Brandenburg and Saxony. The dynastic oracles made by the gypsy woman illustrate the political wisdom of Brandenburg-Prussia at the starting time by comparing Saxony to it. The novel presents a founding myth of early Brandenburg-Prussia for the late Prussia, which was politically declining during the Napoleonic War, intently guides the Prussians even the Germans to take the history of nation founding of early Prussia as its example for the moment, thereby to get rid of the current situation being politically conquered.

Keywords: Michael Kohlhaas, historical writing, Brandenburg-Prussia, founding myth

Author: Yue Zeng, Associate Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Nanchang Hangkong University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2024.04.008