Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm - Jacob and Wilhelm - are central figures in the formation of the German fairy-tale tradition as it is now known. Born in Hanau in the late eighteenth century, they were trained as jurists but became foundational scholars of language, folklore, and mythology.

Their aim in collecting and publishing Kinder- und Hausmärchen (first published 1812 and expanded across multiple editions) was to preserve oral folk narratives that they believed were part of a shared German cultural heritage, at a time when such traditions were beginning to disappear. This sense of urgency was shaped by the period of the Napoleonic Wars and the wider rise of German Romantic nationalism. At the time:

• The German lands were still fragmented into many separate states (not one country)
• There was a growing interest among scholars and writers in finding a “shared German identity”
• Language, folklore and myths were seen as evidence of that shared culture

The work is therefore not simply a collection of stories, but a cultural artefact shaped by the broader Romantic effort to define and preserve a shared German cultural identity.