O filo-helenismo da bildung alemã e a invenção da Grécia Antiga como "berço do Ocidente"

Abstract

Using critical-comprehensive-hermeneutic and conceptual history as a methodological tools, the aim of the article is to explore the historical construction of the conception that Ancient Greece was the forerunner of "western civilization". To do so, we go through some fundamental historical processes for the consolidation of such an idea, such as philo-Hellenism and the studies of Greek antiquity promoted by Johann Joachim Winckelmann in the German-speaking world; the development of German romanticism and its relationship with the need to formulate a Germanic cultural identity in the face of the Napoleonic invasions of Prussia, which was based on the idealization of Greek culture; the reform of the Prussian educational system promoted by Wilhelm von Humboldt, based on a humanist conception that especially valued Hellenic studies; and the development of comparative historical linguistics and the "discovery" of the Indo-European language family. As a result, we understand that if we want to advance a decolonial critique of Ancient History and our historiographic literacy on the issue, it is first necessary to think more carefully about these ideas. It was possible to conclude, then, that the importance we attribute to Ancient Greece was conceived in the German language around the period of the emergence of the University of Berlin, in 1810, considering the historical processes we have listed, however the idea was extended to other places in Europe and not only Ancient Greece, but Ancient History in general, came to be used as a support for the idea of "Western civilization", which would have its origin in this supposed Greek cultural heritage.