Cultural Centuries in European History

[Vosem]

I'd always thought the idea of a Long Eighteenth (1688-1815), starting with the Glorious Revolution/Siege of Vienna/discovery of calculus/ascension of Peter the Great and ending with the ultimate defeat of Napoleon, made significantly more sense than the idea of a Long Nineteenth; the Long Eighteenth began after the era of large-scale religious wars in Europe effectively ended and were replaced with a struggle against French dominance of the European continent, which did not come to an end until the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars.

Which leads to 1815-1914 as the cultural Nineteenth Century, marked by an era of general peace along with the unification of Germany, followed by a shorter Twentieth Century, 1914-hard to say, an era in which Europe was repeatedly riven by rival wars (first hot, then cold) between first empires, then ideologies; hard to say when exactly the end was, though I would put it around 1999 or so, when the euro was introduced, pan-European governance started to become more of a reality, and the final ethnic wars (to date) ethnic wars in the Balkans which had set off the whole conflagration were concluded. The era of the Yugoslav Wars and the ethnic balkanization of Eastern Europe, along with the collapse of economies followed by their restructuring in the 1990s, seems to meaningfully be part of the 20th century for me.

[Vosem]

I'd always thought the idea of a Long Eighteenth (1688-1815), starting with the Glorious Revolution/Siege of Vienna/discovery of calculus/ascension of Peter the Great and ending with the ultimate defeat of Napoleon, made significantly more sense than the idea of a Long Nineteenth; the Long Eighteenth began after the era of large-scale religious wars in Europe effectively ended and were replaced with a struggle against French dominance of the European continent, which did not come to an end until the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars.

Louis XIV just seems like such a defining figure of the 17th century though. It feels wrong to put any of his life in the 18th. His death and the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, which is the last truly 17th century war in many ways, just feels like a better endpoint to the 17th than any earlier date. Maybe for England the Long 18th works, considering the idea of the "Second Hundred Years' War", but for the Continent I don't like it. Also, I know this isn't very important for defining centuries, but men's whig styles didn't really change until after the King's death either. Men often continued to wear the curly, long, and distinctive brown, blonde, or black whigs of the 17th century up until the King's death. The short, white powdered whig of the 18th didn't really come into fashion until then. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the King's death is also a good marking point for the replacement of the austere 17th century baroque style with the more frivolous 18th century rococo style. The first great rococo painter, Watteau, didn't flourish until the last few years of his life after the death of the King.

There existed 2 Louis XIV: The gloriously shining monarch of French classicism, who is commonly known. And the diminishing sun since ~Nantes, reigning too long, being defeated outside, hated inside France.

While in politics and economy, religion and arts a stagnation was generally indeed the case, it was at the same time a period of incubation for new ideas: When the Baroque's mechanistical aristotelic NeoScholasticism crashed with the InertiaLaw in a broader philosophical discours de la methode, the XVIIIth century's "Enlightenment" was born.

I agree that there existed two Louis XIV. However, I fail to see how Louis in decline is more 18th and less 17th century than Louis at his apex. In fact, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which you mentioned as the start of his decline, fits in much better with the bigoted and intolerant atmosphere of the 17th century than with the more open and secular 18th century.

Something else I forgot to mention when I defined the 17th century was the Great Northern War. In my timeline, the majority of the war goes inside of the 17th century, as I think it ought to. The Swedish Empire was a uniquely 17th century phenomenon, and the end of the Great Northern War and the ensuing Age of Liberty was the real beginning of the 18th century for Sweden.

As a Russophone American who sometimes looks at European history predominantly through the prisms of Russian and English history, it's impossible to overstate just how significant turning points the (nearly-simultaneous) ascensions of Peter the Great and William of Orange were; both countries, but Russia especially, saw entirely new definitions of what it means to be Russian and English emerge. The Great Northern War, from the viewpoint of Russian history, is therefore the first in a sequence of 18th-century European wars that Russia became intimately involved in, and which ended with either Catherine the Great's war against the Ottomans (which essentially brought the Russosphere to its modern boundaries) or the war against Napoleon (which saw the first peak of Russian power in Europe at its conclusion, before Russia declined during the 19th century, especially after the Decembrist Uprising in 1825).