Junges Deutschland

(Young Germany), a literary movement that emerged in the early 1830’s during the social upsurge that occurred after the July Revolution of 1830. Junges Deutschland was the name of a group of progressive writers, united by their liberal-bourgeois sentiments, their desire for political reform, and similarity of aesthetic views.

The Junges Deutschland movement was inspired by L. Börne; its main proponents were L. Wienbarg, K. Gutzkow, H. Laube, T. Mundt, and G. Kühne. The movement proclaimed the civic role of art, believing that modern literature required social criticism and topical themes. Certain aesthetic pronouncements of the movement’s members were too one-sided. Their ideas on social and national equality, religious tolerance, and women’s emancipation were expressed mainly in their publicistic writings. The movement’s publications attracted dissident youth. The young F. Engels was published.

Junges Deutschland aroused interest in Russia (V. G. Belinskii, A. V. Druzhinin). In 1835 the Diet of the German Confederation banned the works of the writers of Junges Deutschland, including the works of H. Heine. By the early 1840’s the movement, whose program had been vague and undefined ceased to exist.

(Young Germany), a secret revolutionary conspiratorial republican-democratic society established by German emigres in Switzerland in 1834. The society was originally called Neues Deutschland (New Germany). Its membership included mainly petit bourgeois intellectuals who had developed a plan for a revolutionary march on Germany to overthrow absolutist governments. Gradually, artisans and workers acquired greater influence in Junges Deutschland. Top priority was accorded to clandestine revolutionary propaganda in Germany. Mass deportation of German emigres from Switzerland in the summer of 1836 led to the collapse of the society. In 1845, Junges Deutschland was reestablished in Switzerland. Its members participated in uprisings in southwestern Germany during the Revolution of 1848–49. In 1850 the society was finally dissolved.