Series
history
history
Republic of Amsterdam Radio
6 min reading time
The Secret Soggy Story of Sphagnum
This is how the Dutch have reshaped their wetland wilderness into one of the most densely populated places on the planet.
history
Republic of Amsterdam Radio
1 min reading time
Change the World? Captain Planet and the Dutch Inventors to the Rescue
From maps and microscopes to fire hoses and artificial hearts. Throughout the centuries, the Low Countries have been the breeding ground for many world-changing inventions.
Series
History of the Netherlands
history
Guy Rooryck
6 min reading time
The Dutch Footprint of Napoleon
The French general and emperor left behind deep traces in Dutch society that are still visible today.
history
Dirk Van Assche
2 min reading time
May Day and the Flemish Roots of ‘The Internationale’
The socialist anthem 'The Internationale' was composed by a Belgian who had worked in French factories as a child.
Series
Our Colonial Legacy
history
Betül Sefika
1 min reading time
Betül Sefika: Crops
Betül Sefika was inspired for her visual poem by a rice stalk, which is directly descended from rice seeds that were smuggled from Africa to Suriname by an enslaved woman.
history
Shimanto Reza
3 min reading time
Shimanto Reza: Lines
Shimanto Reza wrote a letter inspired by a map of the Bay of Bengal from around 1695.
Series
Migration, the Other Way Around
history
Elsbet De Pauw
2 min reading time
Elsbet De Pauw: a line, a house, a skin
Elsbet De Pauw wrote a poem in response to an old painting of a doll house.
history
Jordi Lammers
2 min reading time
Jordi Lammers: Letter to the spirits
Jordi Lammers wrote a letter from the perspective of a mouth-bow.
Series
Via Belgica
history
Annemieke Dannenberg
1 min reading time
Annemieke Dannenberg: Disruptive depot
Annemieke Dannenberg gives a voice to a brush used in eighteenth-century incantations.
history
Esha Guy Hadjadj
3 min reading time
Esha Guy Hadjadj: The unknown drummer
Esha Guy Hadjadj gives a voice to a military painting by Cornelis Troost from 1742.
history
Anne Bosveld
3 min reading time
Anne Bosveld: The sea is the bending of a body raising itself up
Anne Bosveld wrote a prose poem inspired by a panorama of Cape Town.
history
Johannes Decat
2 min reading time
Johannes Decat: What lines cannot tell
Johannes Decat gives a voice to the tally marks in an old cash book for a plantation in Brazil.
history
Emma Wiersma
3 min reading time
Emma Wiersma: OKRA / mother of vinegar
Emma Wiersma wrote a poem referencing the oldest existing collection of plants from Suriname.
history
Tijana Stepanovic
4 min reading time
Nicolaes Witsen, The Dutchman Who Taught the Tsar Shipbuilding
In the remote Russian city of Naryan-Mar, an exhibition has opened on the seventeenth-century Dutch statesman Nicolaes Witsen, one of the symbols of the shared history of Russia and the Netherlands.
history
Republic of Amsterdam Radio
8 min reading time
Getting Down in Town
Freed from the need to be working the land due to the improvements in agriculture, people in the Low Countries began congregating in urban centres. For the first time, they were able to put their fingers onto the scales of power.
history
Tessel Veneboer
3 min reading time
Tessel Veneboer: A moralist and a philosopher look at a portrait of a revolutionary
Veneboer wrote a dialogue in response to a portrait of Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution.
history
Derek Blyth
2 min reading time
Never Get Lost Again in Utopia
Abraham Ortelius’ map, inspired by Thomas More’s book, is dotted with amusing place names that suggest the whole thing was a joke.
history
Anne-Goaitske Breteler
2 min reading time
Anne-Goaitske Breteler: The prayer meeting
Anne-Goaitske Breteler wrote a short story inspired by a letter written in response to the abolition of slavery on the French side of Sint Maarten.
history
Jens Meijen
1 min reading time
Jens Meijen: The Undersigned declares to have been informed of the nature and methods of historiography
Jens Meijen wrote a poem inspired by a contract from 1706 between a plantation owner and a painter.
history
Lotte Jensen
7 min reading time
Dear Government, Please Make Use Of Historical Knowledge to Defeat the Pandemic
Four leading Dutch historians call for insights from the past to be used to defeat today's pandemic.
