Ein Republikanisches Experiment im 17. Jahrhundert

When the origins of the modern constitutional state and democracy are discussed by the wider public today, the focus is usually on the American and French Revolutions. Few people realise that the first codified constitution in Europe was adopted in England in 1653. In fact, modern democracy owes as much to the legacy of English republicanism as it does to the revolutions of the late 18th century. However, there is one major difference: while the ideas of the Enlightenment are still very familiar to us, the radical Protestantism that characterised the English Revolution and the political reorganisation of the 1650s seems much more alien to us, and this also applies to the ideas of the man who embodied it like no other: Oliver Cromwell. It is the combination of a radical, thoroughly modern break with political traditions and a worldview that remained largely Christian and biblical that gives the English Revolution its particular character, and this often contradictory mixture of different forces is also at the centre of this concise account.