Freethinkers in Europe: National and Transnational Secularities, 1789−1920s

This volume brings together for the first time case studies on secularists of the 19th and early 20th centuries in national and transnational perspectives including examples from all over Europe. Its focus is on freethinkers taken as secular avant-gardes and early promoters of secularity. The authors of this book deal with multiple historical, religious, social, and cultural backgrounds and, in these contexts, analyze freethinkers' organizations, projects, networks, and contributions to forming a secular worldview, in particular, the promotion of concrete undertakings such as civil baptism or initiatives to leave church. Next to this secularist agenda, the contributions also take into account ambivalences and difficulties freethinkers were faced with, namely, the tensions between a national self-image and the transnational direction the movement has taken; the regional base of many projects and their transregional horizon; freethinkers' cultural programs and their immanent political mission; and the dialogue with respectively the conceptual distinction from other secularist groups. Readers interested in the history of secularity will learn that it was a heterogeneous enterprise already in its beginnings. This set the course for later European and global developments. Table of Contents Notes on Contributors Abstracts Freethinkers in Modern Europe’s Secularities: Introduction • Carolin Kosuch Freidenkerei, Libre-pensée, Szabadgondolkodás – Concepts of Freethinking during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries • Daniela Haarmann I Secularities: National Perspectives Garibaldi and Mazzini: Anticlericalism, Laicism, and the Concept of a National Religion • Laura Fournier-Finocchiaro Group Portrait with Freethinker: Jacob Moleschott, Risorgimento Culture, and the Italian Nation-Building Process • Costanza D’Elia Secularity in the New State: The Case of Poland • Barbara Wagner Friends and Foes: Two Secularisms in late Nineteenth-Century Sweden • Anton Jansson II Organized Freethought in National, International, and Transnational Entanglements Integration through Science? Nationalism and Internationalism in the German Monist Movement (1906–1918) • Christoffer Leber “The Most Advanced Nation on the Path of Liberty”: Universalism and National Difference in International Freethought • Daniel Laqua Socialist Secularism between Nation, State, and the Transnational Movement: The International of Proletarian Freethinkers in Central and Eastern Europe • Johannes Gleixner III Freethinkers’ Networks and Projects Critically Revised A Movement That Never Materialized: The Perception of Scientific Materialism as a Secular Movement in Nineteenth-Century Germany • Claus Spenninger Politicizing a (Non)Religious Act: The Secularist Church Exit Propaganda of the Komitee Konfessionslos (1908–1914) • Katharina Neef A Secular Avant-Garde? About the Unknown Freethinker Roots of Today’s French Civil Baptism • Antoine Mandret-Degeilh Illustrations Index of Names Index of Places Index of Subjects