Petrus Johannes Blok (10 January 1855, in

Den Helder Den Helder () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Den Helder occupies the northernmost point of the North Holland peninsula. It is home to the country's main naval base. From here the Royal TESO ...

– 24 October 1929, in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...

) was a Dutch

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

Biography

Born in

, Blok studied at the

Latin School The Latin school was the grammar school of 14th- to 19th-century Europe, though the latter term was much more common in England. Emphasis was placed, as the name indicates, on learning to use Latin. The education given at Latin schools gave gre ...

Alkmaar Alkmaar () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the province of North Holland, about 30 km north of Amsterdam. Alkmaar is well known for its traditional cheese market. For tourists, it is a popular cultural destination. The ...

and read

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city o ...

, receiving his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

for a study of Sextus Pompeius. After this, he got a position at the Leiden Latin School, and published two books on the city's

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

and Burgundian history. In 1884, he was made

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...

Dutch History The history of the Netherlands is a history of seafaring people thriving in the lowland river delta on the North Sea in northwestern Europe. Records begin with the four centuries during which the region formed a militarized border zone of the Ro ...

at the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is th ...

, where he supervised the publication of a series of historical documents from the provinces of

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen (province), Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of t ...

and

Drenthe Drenthe () is a province of the Netherlands located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and the German state of Lower Saxony to the east. As of Nove ...

. He was in the habit of traveling much to search for written documents, which brought him as far as

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

: a very long trip back then. Among his students was Pieter Jelles Troelstra. In 1892, Blok was elected a member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

. In 1894, he succeeded

Robert Fruin Robert Jacobus Fruin (11 November 1823 in Rotterdam – 29 January 1899 in Leiden) was a Dutch historian. A follower of Leopold von Ranke, he introduced the scientific study of history in the Netherlands when he was professor of Dutch national his ...

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 ''

Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek The ''Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek'' (''NNBW'') is a biographical reference work in the Dutch language. It has been succeeded by the '' Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland''. It was published in ten parts between 1911 and 1937 b ...

'' ("New Dutch Biographical Dictionary"). His books are biographical in nature and are about Dutch heroes: '' Oranje'' (1919–1920), ''

Frederik Hendrik Frederick Henry ( nl, Frederik Hendrik; 29 January 1584 – 14 March 1647) was the sovereign prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from 1625 until his death in 1647. In the last ...

'' (1924), and '' De Ruyter'' (1928). 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 Pirenne's famous '' Histoire de Belgique'' (1909–1932). (The English translation, by Ruth Putnam and Oscar A. Bierstadt, of Blok's book, ''History of the people of the Netherlands'', is abridged and has five volumes.)

Legacy

His ideas about history as an instrument of nation building have for a long time been out of fashion among academicians, but returned very much to the center of the Dutch public debate in 2006, when politician

Jan Marijnissen Johannes Guillaume Christianus Andreas "Jan" Marijnissen () (born 8 October 1952) is a retired Dutch politician of the Socialist Party (SP). Marijnissen, a welder by occupation, was selected as Leader of the Socialist Party after the death of ...

argued for the creation of a Museum of National History. His proposal was accepted in 2008, but ultimately the museum didn't materialize. Blok is the spiritual father of the Dutch Institute in the

Villa Borghese gardens Villa Borghese is a landscape garden in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums (see Galleria Borghese) and attractions. It is the third largest public park in Rome (80 hectares or 197.7 acres) after the ones of the Villa Doria Pamphili a ...

, which he founded in 1904.

References

External links

*
Biography at DNBL

Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blok, Petrus Johannes 1855 births 1929 deaths 20th-century Dutch historians People from Den Helder Leiden University alumni Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of Teylers Tweede Genootschap 19th-century Dutch historians Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities