Soren Kierkegaard

Bisserup, and a revolutionary watchmaker known as Danton. In the end,
this fellow, Danton, was not included on the editorial committee; he was
just a bit too revolutionary for that. But it was he who gave the journal its
name. When he heard that there were plans for a witty and political weekly
he immediately rushed to the barricades, exclaiming enthusiastically,
“That’s it! A new paper, a Devil of a paper, a real ‘Corsair-Devil’ like they
have in Paris!”
In addition to a bit of satanic satire, the first issue contained two articles
of a programmatic nature. The first of these—“A Toast That Can Serve as
a Program”—states that it is the intention that the journal remain in opposi-
tion both to conservatives and to liberals, holding the middle ground be-
tween both parties. In a slogan borrowed from the French bourgeois mon-
arch, the moderate Louis Philippe, this was called thejuste-milieu, which
the journal later illustrated in striking fashion: “When you see two people
fighting and a third person comes along and fights with both of them, what
do you call this third person? A rowdy? That may certainly be true, but you
ought to say that he is thejuste-milieu. Because he sides neither with the one
nor with the other; he fights with both of them inunpartisanfashion, and
this is precisely what is called thejuste-milieuwhen it is most salutary.” In
the other program article—“The Real Program”—Goldschmidt maintains
further thatThe Corsairwill not function as a political journal in the narrow
sense of the term but will be an organ for “public opinion” and will thus
be of “interest to all classes of readers.” In this same article we learn that
“most of us are university students,” who therefore naturally view it as a
duty “to fulfill to the best of our ability the obligation most closely con-
nected with being a citizen of the academy: the maintenance and defense
of the purity and dignity of literature.” In conclusion, “The Real Program”
includes a few words about the name of the journal “because there might
perhaps be some who would argue as follows: ‘A corsair is a pirate ship or
not much better than a pirate ship. Consequently this paper will not be
much better than a pirate paper, and if it doesn’t plunder people, it will at
any rate flay them.’ ” To the relief of all, the editors could provide assurances
that there were quite different, indeed noble, visions behind the paper: “We
have imagined a ship manned by courageous young men who, in the thick
of battle and headed out to sea under full sail, are determined to fight under
their own banner for right, loyalty, and honor.” In other words,The Corsair
was not to be a chatty little rag like the others of period,Politvennen[Danish:
“The Policeman’s Friend”] andRaketten, for example.
There was a good deal of unconscious irony embedded in these program-
matic declarations, because they charted a course from whichThe Corsair
deviated right from the start. In fact the journal never navigated between