Republican Traditions: Patriotism, Gender, and War in Hamburg, 1770—1815

This article explores the intersection of patriotism and gender in the republican city-state of Hamburg from the Enlightenment to the Napoleonic Wars. In eighteenth-century Hamburg, Patriotismus reflected a republican worldview that regarded public and private as fluid and that contributed to the common good. Eighteenth-century patriotic conduct emphasized the shared values and mutual obligations of women and men to the republican community, not innate or ‘natural’ gender differences. Yet the crisis of war redefined patriotism as defense of the city and therefore generated a rupture in traditional notions of communal patriotism. Although both men and women articulated this new martial patriotism, only men could practice patriotic vigor by taking up arms. Through practical functions in supporting the local militias, however, women claimed a patriotic role for themselves during the Wars of Liberation.