Petrus Johannes Blok
Painting by Thérèse Schwartze
Petrus Johannes Blok (10 January 1855, in Den Helder – 24 October 1929, in Leiden) was a Dutch historian.
Biography
Born in
In 1884, he was made professor of Dutch History at the University of Groningen, where he supervised the publication of a series of historical documents from the provinces of Groningen and Drenthe. He was in the habit of traveling long distances to search for written documents, which brought him as far as Rome. Among his students was Pieter Jelles Troelstra.
In 1892, Blok was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[1] In 1894, he succeeded Robert Fruin as professor of Dutch History in Leiden.
Ideas
Blok believed that it was the task of a historian to stress a country's national past and contribute to a sense of unity. It does not come as a surprise that he was one of the editors of the
His work, the Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche volk, consists of eight volumes, published between 1892 and 1907. It is really a history of a nation – with its arts, economy, religions, laws, and daily life – and not the story of a state. It is a book about people, but not a real social history; Blok's magnum opus has unfavorably been compared to
Legacy
His ideas about history as an instrument of
Blok is the spiritual father of the Dutch Institute in the Villa Borghese gardens, which he founded in 1904.
References
- ^ "Petrus Johannes Blok (1855 - 1929)". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
External links
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