A Grand Duchess in the Headlines

This project offers an alternative means to explore historical periods through newspapers published during the lifetimes of notable individuals. In this project, we investigate the means by which Luxembourgish newspapers treated information during historical periods, and take, as an example, the First World War (WWI).

Using the digitised collection available on eluxemburgensia.lu, the project produces a meaningful list of potential sources for further research. Users enter a start and end date to identify newspapers circulated during the period, thereby gaining insight into the density of publication of the selected period. This can then be used to target specific newspapers in which to drill-down for specific articles.

Overview

The process is as follows:

1. The user enters the desired start and end date.
2. Newspapers published within this time-frame and available on eluxemburgensia.lu are identified.
3. The publication density of each newspaper is retrieved and a visualisation is displayed.
4. The user can then select the newspapers of interest to research, in detail, the desired period on eluxemburgensia.lu.

This project employs digital tools, namely Python programming and Jupyter notebooks, to integrate and present data. However, technical expertise is not required to engage with the resource, which is designed to make cultural heritage accessible to a broad audience.

By combining data, historical inquiry, and digital technology, this project showcases the potential of digital humanities to enrich cultural understanding.

Let’s have a look in more detail using an example.

Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde

Grand Duchess Marie Adelheid of Luxembourg (1894–1924) ascended to the throne in 1912 at just eighteen years old. As the historian Josiane Weber pointed out in her reference work Großherzogin Marie Adelheid von Luxemburg: eine politische Biographie (1912-1919) (Luxemburg: Ed. Binsfeld 2019), Marie Adelheid was an idealist who enforced her convictions with uncompromising determination. Her ideals were a deeply catholic faith as well as a high conception of her mission as a Grand-Duchess that she considered as God-given. Marie Adelheid didn't consider her reign a representative dignity. She interfered with the legislative power and with the nomination of civil servants and members of government to the benefit of the Catholic Church and the right-wing party. Through her “personal regime”, she disregarded the Luxembourgers' thoroughly democratic basic attitude. Instead of standing up for inner peace, she increased the tensions between parties and split the population into two adverse camps.

During WWI, Luxembourg remained officially neutral, but was occupied by German forces. During this period, government and institutions survived, but they were controlled by the German military. Marie Adelheid’s descent from the German House of Nassau-Weilburg became a calamity for her. In fact, she cultivated tight family bonds to the princely families in Germany and Austria. She spoke German and received the German emperor at her castle. During war time, German kings, princes and high military brass socialised at court.

In the aftermath of the war, Marie Adelheid was accused of those actions by her political enemies. The liberal and socialist newspapers started a defamatory campaign against her. Growing public and political pressure led Marie Adelheid to abdicate in 1919 in favour of her younger sister, Charlotte. After stepping down, Marie Adelheid withdrew from public life, seeking a spiritual path through religious service. Her health, however, was fragile, and she died only a few years later at the age of twenty-nine. Despite her short reign and life, Marie Adelheid remains a significant historical figure.

Research Configuration

We start by launching the resource via the Binder link provided in the GitHub project linked below. To run the process, click on “Run...Run all Cells” in the menu. When requested (you may need to scroll down), enter the start and end date, in this case, focusing on WWI, we enter 28/07/1914 and 11/11/1918. The system then looks for newspapers published during that period. By scrolling to the bottom, we see the final result: a visualisation showing which newspapers were published and their publication frequency during each year.

To continue exploring the role of Grand Duchess Marie Adelheid, we navigate to eluxemburgensia.lu and can search for “Marie-Adélaïde” and filter our search using the start and end dates of WWI as well as the periodical titles which were displayed in our visualisation, the most notable being the Luxembourger Zeitung, the Obermosel-Zeitung and the Tageblatt. By targeting our search in this way, we have a manageable result list of 12 entries.

On the 7^th May 1915, the Obermosel-Zeitung reproduces an article appearing in the Chicago Tribune where the Grand Duchess Marie Adelheid is seen in a relatively negative light however, it is pre-empted by the following statement:

American agitation against Luxembourg.
In the Luxemburger Zeitung, published in Chicago, we find the following article, which we reproduce without comment because the accusations made in it are so stupid that they do not require refutation, and because, on the other hand, the editors of the American newspaper reject them. We cannot help but ask the question: Do Americans not realise how their newspapers lie?

Explore the project and begin your own journey through time with our GitHub notebook.