Federal Capital & Multicultural Brussels

The post-war European integration project binding contemporary member regions across borders.

1 chapter

1958 - 1989

Since 1958, Brussels has been the administrative capital of what became the European Union — but the EU institutional presence is only one thread. Simultaneously, Belgium's linguistic frontier hardened: the language laws of 1962-1963 fixed Brussels as an officially bilingual enclave of 19 municipalities, abolished language censuses, and ended the 'freedom of the head of household' in education. The Berlaymont building rose as the Commission's headquarters, but the Marolles/Marollen district fought its own battle: the 1969 'Battle of the Marolles' saw working-class residents resist demolition of their neighborhood, continuing the district's tradition of resistance to imposed modernization that began with the Palace of Justice's construction. The zwanze (zwans) — a form of ironic, self-deprecating folk humor rooted in working-class oral tradition — survived in the Marolles, though the Marollien dialect that carried it was rapidly declining. French dominated public festival narration, but the traditions themselves — Ommegang, Meyboom, Manneken Pis dressing — all originated in a Dutch-language guild culture that francization had obscured.

1914 - 1958

Both World Wars subjected Brussels to German occupation, and both times the city's festival traditions proved remarkably resilient. The Meyboom was planted under occupation in both wars — a quiet act of civic continuity. The Ommegang was revived in 1930 for the Belgian centenary, but the revival deliberately chose to reenact the 1549 Joyous Entry of Charles V rather than restore the original religious circumambulation — a fundamentally different event that chose imperial pageantry over religious lustral procession. The modern Ommegang (Ommegang de Bruxelles/Ommegang van Brussel) starts at the Sablon and concludes at the Grand-Place in July, not on the Sunday before Pentecost. UNESCO inscribed it in 2019, acknowledging both the medieval and modern layers, but the living practice is the reenactment, not the original rite. Expo 58 and the Atomium announced Brussels' postwar modernity — but the same era saw the first stirrings of linguistic conflict that would reshape the city's governance.

1830 - 1914

The Belgian nation-state made French its sole official language, and Brussels — historically Dutch-speaking — underwent rapid francization. Proficiency in French among Dutch-speakers increased spectacularly after 1880; French became the language of social advancement, and speaking Dutch carried a stigma. The covering of the Senne (1867-1871) under Mayor Jules Anspach addressed genuine sanitation crises but also displaced working-class neighborhoods, buried the river that gave Brussels its name, and replaced organic medieval topography with imposed Haussmann-esque boulevards. Leopold II drove monumental projects that reshaped Brussels — the Parc du Cinquantenaire/Jubelpark (built for the 1880 National Exhibition celebrating 50 years of independence, which included colonial displays), the Royal Palace expansions, the Royal Galleries of Saint-Hubert — funded substantially by revenues from the Congo Free State, his personal colonial domain. The 1897 Colonial Exhibition in Tervuren displayed Congolese people in a 'human zoo'; seven died. Art Nouveau, Brussels' architectural signature, also flowered in this era — but the working-class Brusselian and Marollien culture that had its roots in the guild era was being steadily erased by francization and urban modernization.

1794 - 1830

French Revolutionary forces occupied Brussels in 1794 and systematically dismantled the guild-era civic order. The Nine Nations were suppressed in 1795; their archives and furniture were sold at public auction on the Grand-Place in August 1796, creating a massive gap in the documentary record for Brussels' festival history. Under the brief Dutch Kingdom (1815-1830), William I imposed Dutch as the official language — a policy that antagonized the French-speaking elite who had flourished under French rule. The Belgian Revolution of 1830 was, in part, this elite's rejection of Dutch-language governance. La Monnaie/De Munt became the revolution's stage: the opera 'La Muette de Portici' reportedly sparked the uprising on 25 August 1830. The revolution created a centralized, unilingual French-speaking state — and the francization of Brussels, already underway, accelerated dramatically.