Volksgeist: Who Was Johann Gottfried Herder?

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) was an eighteenth-century Prussian polymath who made significant contributions as a theologian, philosopher, and literary critic. He wrote extensively on topics ranging from aesthetic theory and the origins of language, to universal history, folk music, German literature, and the New Testament. Herder is best known for introducing the concept of the Volk (“folk” or “the people”) in the discussion of nations and nationalism. He challenged Enlightenment universalism, arguing that every nation has its own character (Volksgeist) that it should nurture and develop. 

Born in 1744 in Mohrungen, East Prussia, Johann Gottfried Herder rose from humble beginnings to become a philosopher of first-rate importance. He is associated with counter-Enlightenment ideas, Weimar Classicism, and the proto-romantic Sturm und Drang movement in German literature. Above all, Herder is noted for his theory that true German culture resided in the expressions of the common people, or “volk.” 

Herder studied philosophy, theology, and literature at Königsberg, where he worked alongside Immanuel Kant. He then moved to Riga in modern-day Latvia to teach and serve as an assistant pastor. In 1771, he relocated to Bückeberg and produced several works that served as key texts to the Sturm und Drang movement. 

By the mid-1770s, Herder’s growing fame and support from his friend Johann Wolfgang Goethe secured him a position as General Superintendent at the Court of Weimar. During this period, he aligned with the literary and cultural movement of Weimar Classicism. 

Locating the Volk

Like the nineteenth-century romantic intellectuals that followed him, Herder sought to discover vernacular culture among the “ordinary” people of the nation. Contrasting the “learned culture” of elites (Kultur der Geleherten) with the “culture of the people” (Kultur des Volkes), he claimed that folk culture offered an escape from the rationalized, universalized culture of the Enlightenment.

Folk forms, Herder believed, ‘could cleanse the artificiality that was poisoning modern life’ (Filene, 2000). In this regard, he was a staunch critic of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and a pivotal figure in the rise of German romantic nationalism. 

Indeed, he was radical in his belief that the Volk was not equal to “the mob” or “rabble” but a representation of the entirety of ‘national’ society as a class. This notion was a precursor for the twentieth-century idea of “the people” as a classless yet hierarchical national society. For Herder, nations were expressions of cultural differences rather than the creators of them. 

Herder used the term Volksgeist to describe the unique spirit and character of a nation and its people, highlighting a collective sense of belonging distinct from the apparatus of the state. He believed that the true spirit of the nation (der Volksgeist) could be popularized through folk songs, dances, and poetry. As a folk song collector, he promoted his conception of the Volk with the publication in 1773 of “Voices of The People in Their Songs” (Stimmen der Völker in Liedern). 

For Herder, the nation was fundamentally linked to language and culture. He saw nations as natural entities, with their different origins and characters forming the basis of their identity. Politically, the notion of Volksgeist described how nations are bound together and driven by a collective, national spirit. 

Racialization of the Volk

In his original writings, Herder maintained that humans were biologically “one” thus dismissing the concept of “race” as irrelevant. He believed that inherited culture – shaped by climate, historical development, and folk character/personality – was the primary factor that emphasized national differences.  

Yet during the rise of romantic nationalism more overtly political ideas of shared spirit and destiny emerged. Herder’s promotion of romantic nationalist ideas changed the way that Germans thought about their country. The intensification of German nationalism during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich further propelled Herder’s idea of the Volk. 

By the mid-twentieth century, the concept of the Volk had evolved to encompass racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, or national identity – in myriad combinations. In Nazi Germany the “Folk Community” (Volksgemeinschaft) was restricted to those of “Aryan blood.” The will of political elites and the state was justified as the will of the people, against its mortal enemies.