Summer 2015. The sun is shining between huts and rows of tents at the Wolin open-air archaeological museum, which is picturesquely situated on Wolinska K⅞pa, an island in the Szczecin Lagoon between Wolin and Reclaw in Poland.
The Festival of Slavs and Vikings taking place here is organized annually by the Centrum Slowian i Wikingow (Slav and Viking Center) in Wolin, which also runs the outdoor archaeological museum with funding from the Polish government and the European Union.
Hundreds of visitors are strolling among the numerous stalls, craftspeople, and groups of reenactors. Among the many people in historicizing attire, a surprising number of visitors are wearing T-shirts and other items of clothing bearing symbols used by right-wing extremist organizations and political parties from all over Europe and even overseas, such as Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski (National Revival of Poland) and the US-based Wotansvolk (Odin’s Folk) (Banghard, 2016, pp. 3-10). The festival presents a varied program ranging from displays of historical crafts, musical performances, and games for children to the staging of medieval pagan rituals adapted from written sources and, of course, the main attraction of the festival: the reenactment of a Viking-Slavic battle. The members of Ulfhednar, a reenactment group from Germany, stand alongside hundreds more men attired in ancient-looking clothes and accoutrements decorated with symbols. Swastikas, kolovrats, runes, and pseudo-runes are emblazoned on the hundreds of belts, braids, shields, flags, jewelry, and other accessories (CvK, 2015a; 2015b).Spring 2008. The exhibition Eine Welt in Bewegung—unterwegs zu Zentren desfrtihen Mittelalters (“A World in Motion: On Route to Centers of the Early Middle Ages”) is being officially opened in the inner courtyard of the Museum of History at Neuhauser Marstall, Paderborn. It’s a gorgeous day, and the visitors are listening to an actor dressed as an armed warrior from the Early Middle Ages and mounted on horseback. He shows them the decorative elements and clothing of a female performer as well as his
DOI: 10.4324/9780429445668-7 own weapons.
They are members of Ulfhednar, who were booked for the opening. The visitors can see the performers’ accoutrements and, above all, admire their fighting skills, while the youngest can try their hand at throwing axes under guidance. Shields decorated with runes or other motifs lean against the tents, conjuring up a romantic atmosphere. Many of the symbols and decorative elements shown seem to be variations of the swastika. Even the warrior is sitting on a saddlecloth with trimming decorated with swastikas, and he also displays the symbol tattooed on his right forearm. It’s such a hot day that a member of the Ulfhednar team who was previously in charge of the axe-throwing is stripped to his waist. Across his torso, a large tattoo reads Meine Ehre heiβt Treue (“My honor is loyalty”), the SS motto.Spring 2006. The sound of electric guitars blending with keyboards floods Stadthalle, a music venue in Lichtenfels in Upper Franconia, Bavaria. The band Menhir is playing to over a 1,000 spectators at Ragnaroek, a festival featuring mainly pagan metal bands. The stage is decorated with weapons and other equipment provided by the Ulfhednar reenactment group since some of its performers are members of Menhir. In the center of the stage is a large wooden stele showing a bearded, helmeted man. A swastika is emblazoned on the forehead of the helmet. The musicians lit up by spotlights on stage are wearing clothes apparently from a bygone age. They sing about their version of a glorious Thuringian history and praise the sacrifices made by their ancestors, without which none of “their tribe” would still be alive today.
These three cameos highlight the main activities of just one German reenactment group and its high-profile public perception. Historical reenactments of the type celebrated at festivals such as Wolin—attempting to recreate a historical battle situation—have increasingly attracted enthusiasts since the turn of the millennium. They promise to provide historical experiences with which no textbook or academic debate can compete.
Most forms of historical reenactment are based on a claim to authenticity, which for the performers usually means aiming for the most accurate replicas possible of historical accoutrements, as well as the faithful copying of certain activities, and thus an apparently seamless simulation of the past. Many reenactors assume that this simulation can be used to bridge or even suspend the temporal gap between past and present (Handler and Saxton, 1988; Molders, 2009, p. 158). Consequently, authenticity is understood as striving for the closest possible approximation to a vision of the past that is perceived as historical reality (see also Agnew and Tomann, 2020). For this reason, references are often made to historical evidence for the objects used and the actions depicted. In order to meet the claim to authenticity by offering well-founded, well-researched performances, many reenactment groups even establish their own guidelines, such as those contained in the charter of the former association Pax Celtic (2007, cited in Molders, 2009 p. 158). Such attempts at detailed portrayals of historical epochs pursued through the performative approaches of reenactment and living history areIn Honor of the Forefathers 79 generally regarded as a legitimate way of presenting and conveying the past, positioning authenticity as the central core of the performative historical experience. In addition to the authenticity of the objects, which is associated with the items of clothing and equipment produced with great attention to detail, the authenticity of the subject plays a significant role (Samida, 2014, p. 146). This type of authenticity refers to the personal experience of the reenactors, i.e., the immersive, physical, and sensual experiencing of historical reconstruction and simulation as the fiction of a precise reliving of the past.This concept of historical knowledge bases understanding of the past on practical comprehension and on the reenactment of historical events in the present; hence, it seems suitable for gaining a deeper awareness of life in times past.
It has been contradicted, though, by a number of fundamental insights from theories of knowledge and history. Apart from generally critical viewpoints—which conceptualize perception and knowledge as human constructs controlled by cognitive and social processes with, at most, conditional reference to an ontic reality—the main problem for any appropriation of history is that the past can no longer be perceived or empirically experienced. Even though remnants from the past—whether archaeological finds or historically preserved evidence of observations—seem to provide a direct connection to the past that can serve as the basis for generating specific ideas about past events, these remnants no longer belong to the past because they are being considered in the present (Goertz, 2001, p. 95; Landwehr, 2016, p. 77). Therefore, concepts of the past should instead be understood as part of the present, representing the cognitive and social results of the present (Molders, 2009, p. 159). This, however, gives rise to the possibility of the truth of multiple histories, and historiography, like other representations of history, can only produce more or less plausible statements about the past. Within the rational and methodological framework of historical sciences, the degree of plausibility is primarily determined by the density and proximity of sources, which, when critically analyzed, are granted a “right of veto” to rule out invalid concepts of history (Koselleck, 1977, p. 45; Molders, 2009, p. 159). Consequently, this makes it impossible to relive the past, and the claim to authentic historical reconstructions even harbors the risk that, as Molders points out, “military actions and wars are trivialized and heroized since the reenactment cannot depict military actions along with their hardships, cruelties and fears, fatal wounds, and deaths” (Molders, 2009, p. 161).Today’s European archaeology museums evince the growing significance of performative practices as ways of communicating history.
Most museums, and nearly all open-air museums, employ these “living history” programs, and numerous exhibition openings make use of performative depictions in order to stage memorable events. In addition, TV productions and other media on early historical themes regularly include reenactments and hence often contribute to the popularization of very specific, mostlyone-dimensional (yet all the more impressive) images of the past. As a result, the boundaries between scientifically based historical evidence and entertainment are becoming increasingly blurred.Compared to its large contribution to the public production of historical images, there has been far too little critical examination of reenactment as a means of appropriating and conveying ancient history. Regarding the prehistoric and early historical sphere, which is largely lacking in descriptive information from written sources, it must be stated that even the best possible sources and research on the material culture of a certain era cannot solve the dilemma that we still lack knowledge of the practical embedding of objects within that culture and thus of the elementary actions and routines of its people (Jung, 2017, p. 378). It is precisely the notion that it is possible to authentically represent past epochs, or the claim to have done so, that offers a gateway for convictions mostly acquired through non-scientific means, with which the gaps in archaeological and historical tradition are filled to achieve narrative coherence. What is more, performative staging, which goes beyond merely presenting objects replicating archaeological or historical sources, can sometimes achieve a more informative and thus supposedly even more authentic effect by compiling, condensing, and emphasizing selected aspects (Groschwitz, 2010, p. 153). An apparent totality of respective life worlds is created and equated with historical truth. It is therefore not surprising that in some groups, in addition to the joy of shared experience, interest in history is combined with other areas of their own reality and, in some cases, consciously or unconsciously, serves as a vehicle to transport ideological or religious convictions.
This applies in particular to those areas of the reenactment scene dealing with the representation of Celts, Germanic peoples, Slavs, and Vikings, which, as we will show by the example of the Germanic peoples, often form historical reference points for current ethnic identifications. With such identifications, the understanding and presentation of history are fed not only by the engagement with historical sources but also by the supposed ethnic identity and constructed ancestral reference, which allegedly give intuitive and unadulterated insights into pre-Christian pasts.This chapter aims to draw attention to the problematic aspects of this sector of historical reenactment. We observe an adherence to simplified and romanticized images of ancient societies that, ignoring academic discourse arguing for a much more complex and differentiated understanding, interpret groups such as Germanic tribes, Slavs, and Vikings as monolithic ethnic units and, moreover, often glorify them as forefathers. Studies based on interviews cite the social experience of acting within a group as an especially appealing factor to reenactors. Belonging to a reenactment group offers comradeship as well as identification with past societies. Additionally, acting the part of someone from a society in the ancient past is frequently perceived as a temporary escape fromIn Honor of the Forefathers 81 the complexities of contemporary life. This appeal is explained by not only the naturalness and simplicity ascribed to a pre-modern lifestyle but also the projection of clear social orders regarding gender and age relations, group hierarchies, and concepts of allegiance (Drieschner,
2005, pp. 51-60; Hunt, 2004, pp. 395-398; Samida, 2012, pp. 212-215; 2014, pp. 142f.). Most reenactments depict male warrior elites and focus on their weapons, equipment, and the scenic demonstration of combat methods. Far less attention is devoted to other aspects of society, notwithstanding the wealth of research findings.
Thus, the motivation of many performers seems to be linked to a view of prehistoric and early historical societies as objects of ancestral identification and projection for seemingly “natural” and “unadulterated” ways of life and social orders, notions that could easily intertwine with rightist and even extremist political agendas. Below, the Ulfhednar group is taken as an example to illustrate some of the problems that may underlie reenactment as a form of historical appropriation when parts of the reenactment scene overlap with nationalist, racist sections of the neopagan movement and certain musical subcultures influenced by neo-Nazism and volkisch thought. The term volkisch was coined in Germany in the 1920s and is always linked to a biological concept of race. Following Puschner, the volkisch worldview “strives on the basis of racial ideology [...] to create an anti-egalitarian, corporately organized and religiously founded society with a value system linked to Germanic ideology” (Puschner,
2006, p. 6). We explore the way this overlap enables such ideas and rightwing extremist concepts to find their way into popular conceptions of the past and history cultures and, thus to slip guilelessly into the cultural mainstream.
For the most part, the material we present and analyze comes from accounts given by reenactors and related protagonists themselves on websites, in interviews, or in music albums and concerts. We contextualize this material in its traditions of the history of ideas and in the recognizable related socio-political networks, and we discuss it with reference to observations by academic researchers and institutions monitoring and investigating the neopagan right-wing extremist scene.