August Vermeylen

August Vermeylen (Known as "August Vermeylen")

Art Historian, Novelist, Co-Founder of Van Nu en Straks, First Rector of Ghent University

Born May 12, 1872

Brussels, Belgium

Passed Away Jan 10, 1945 Uccle (Brussels), Belgium

Lifespan 72 years old

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"We want to be Flemish in order to become European; we must open our windows to the winds of the world."

Archival Overview

Visionary Flemish author, art historian, and senator who co-founded the avant-garde journal Van Nu en Straks and became the first rector of the newly Dutchified Ghent University in 1930.

Biographical Record

Studying art history and literature at Brussels, Berlin, and Vienna, Vermeylen founded the seminal literary revue Van Nu en Straks (Today and Tomorrow) in 1893, dragging Flemish literature into European modernism under the banner of intellectual individualism.

His iconic philosophical novel De wandelende Jood (The Wandering Jew, 1906) was a landmark of European symbolism. In 1930, when the Belgian state finally made Ghent University Dutch-speaking, Vermeylen was elected its first rector, famously proclaiming: 'We want to be Flemish in order to become European'.

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Rest in Peace Forever remembered and cherished Your legacy lives on in all of us With deep gratitude for your life and light

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial

Uccle Cemetery (Cimetière d'Uccle)
Uccle (Brussels), Belgium

                         GPS: 50.8028, 4.3361                    

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