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Peter Funke on the reception and evaluation of Greek history in German historiography of the 19th century. In 1988, Karl Christ identified the "politicization of antiquity" as well as the "idealization of antiquity" and the "scientification of antiquity" as typical characteristics of the reception of antiquity in German classical studies in the 19th century. All three manifestations did not exist in direct parallel, but rather formed a mutually dependent network of relationships in which politicization played a decisive role. Thus, the study of ancient Greece was shaped in a very specific way by the contemporary political debates about the reorganization of Germany as a state in the 19th century. Nation-state thinking in the 19th century became an effective model of interpretation of the history of the ancient Greek states, not only but especially in German classical studies. The idea developed that the Greek polis world was a closed space of national sentiment and was therefore, by its nature, destined to be a correspondingly comprehensive political unit. However, the political incompetence of the Greeks prevented this from happening. The course of ancient Greek history was thus interpreted as the history of a failed nation. It was only in the course of the 20th century that a fundamental change in perspective began. The lecture will trace the genesis and the quite changing form of these patterns of interpretation in the 19th century. An event organized by the Center for Basic Research on the Ancient World (ZGAW). *** PROGRAM 00:00 Welcome Tonio Sebastian Richter (Spokesperson of the ZGAW Member of the Academy Free University of Berlin) 02:30 Introduction by the speaker Klaus Hallof (Deputy Speaker of the ZGAW) 05:56 Lecture by Peter Funke (Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster) 54:49 Discussion