Daan op zijn knieën. De Nederlandse geschiedenis in verhaalvorm [Daan auf seinen Knien: Die niederländische Geschichte in Erzählform]

Pekelder, Jacco; Teneyken, Neele

Abstract

In this forum contribution we review Het verhaal van Nederland (The Story of the Netherlands, 2022), the ten-episode television series of the npo. We assess the structure, content and layout of the series based on three criteria – the educational value for, in particular, young (German) viewers, the dealing with current historiography, and the contribution to critical historical thinking. Doing so, we have a special interest in the use of re-enactment, as the presence of that technique in this 2022 series is relatively unique in Dutch television history. Our verdict is partly negative: Het verhaal van Nederland scores well on the first two criteria, but less so on the third. Partly due to the re-enactment scenes, this series heavily emphasises ‘the story’. Since previous television series and predecessors of this format made efforts to engage the viewer in critical thinking about the construction of historical narratives, we interpret this series as a step back.