Capital gains
Review of a heavyweight encyclopedia about Brussels and the people who shaped it.
It is perfectly possible to pursue a career in and around the European Union’s institutions while remaining utterly ignorant of Belgium. For all that the perceived evils of the European Union are frequently attributed to something called “Brussels”, the authors of those misfortunes are often well insulated from Belgium’s capital city. Instead, they inhabit some pseudo-Metropolis, the lost city of Europa, which floats, Laputa-like, above Brussels, tethered perhaps to the Rond-Point Schuman.
It need not be so. Some European Union officials do engage with Brussels, and they – and the city – are sometimes the better for it. Roy Jenkins, who was president of the European Commission between 1977 and 1981, included a chapter about Brussels in a memoir published in 2002, entitled “Twelve Cities”. There is, as one might expect, a lot about restaurants, but also a few acute observations about Brussels’s defining characteristics.
The “Dictionnaire d’Histoire de Bruxelles” is an easy route by which those who inhabit the EU’s world might learn a little more about the city whose name they have (voluntarily or not) appropriated.
Name game
This is not, let us be clear, a guidebook. Nobody in their right mind would carry this 2kg hardback on a walk round the city. Apart from anything else, it contains no map, and its entries are not always precise about place: this is not a gazetteer.
The underlying principle is that this is a book of names – of people, of places, of institutions. Using a team of 85 writers, the editors have put together entries for 4,200 names. That results in a book that is ideal for browsing. Such structure as there is comes from the arbitrariness of alphabetical order: “Mort Subite, café la” precedes “Morts, monument aux”, which is followed by “Motz, Roger” (a liberal politician who, after the Second World War, opposed the return of Leopold III).
The accidental discovery – serendipity – is part of the pleasure, which makes for leisurely reading whose endpoint is unclear (those who read from cover to cover, from “Aa, famille de” to “Zwanze”, should go back to reading European Commission working documents). But this does not necessarily mean a slow read. The entries are, for the most part, brisk and business-like. Paul-Henri Spaak, a prime minister and foreign minister, who shaped the early stages of what is now the European Union, is despatched in 20 lines. Hubert-Walthère Frère-Orban, a liberal politician, finance minister and campaigner for secular education, takes 30 lines.
Short-term approach
The dictionary contains more than just politicians. Artists, musicians, sportsmen, actors and teachers also feature. There is a tendency, perhaps, to concentrate on the recent past, and some entries may not pass the test of time. One wonders, for instance, about the value of the entry for Full Moon Bar: “Le 7 de la rue de l’Aqueduc fut un temple de la vie nocturne bruxelloise connu sous le nom de Full Moon. Comme tout phénomène de mode, il n’eut qu’un temps et la faillite prononcée en 2005 scella la destine du lieu.”
The attentive reader will also encounter the occasional frustration. The entries for Merode railway station and Merode metro station each tell you that they take their name from the square Princesse Jean de Merode, but there is no entry for Jean de Merode, nor indeed for the House of Merode or anyone from it. There is a fine photograph of the Brusilia tower block in Schaerbeek, but no accompanying entry, though the photo caption tells you that it was built where the Palais des Sports de Schaerbeek once stood. The entry for the Palais tells you about a sports venue that was used for international cycling races, equestrian events, boxing and a show by the Harlem Globetrotters. It was also a music venue played by the Rolling Stones. And a place for political meetings, notably the “Huit jours du Rex”, organised by Léon Degrelle, leader of the Rexists, who collaborated with the Nazis. He has his own entry in the book, which refers more accurately to “Six Jours de Rex”. He fled in 1945 to Spain, where he lived in exile for almost another half-century. He died in Malaga in 1994 at the age of 87. Eight years before that, Spain had joined the European Union, thanks in some small part to the work of those people in “Brussels”.
Book reviewed:
Dictionnaire d’Histoire de Bruxelles
896 pages
Editions Prosopon, Collection Dictionnaires, Bruxelles, 2013.
€40
87.
History throws up many such inter-connections and contradictions. This book is an entertaining way to encounter a few more.