Partition of Belgium Belgian identity was not defined on racial, ethnic or linguistic lines, but in the civilizational community of the Belgian people. Supporters of a partition of Belgium argue that the synchronized attempts to forge a national identity and culture have been unable to forestall ethno-linguistic rivalries. French was the only official language of Belgium until 1898, even though Flanders was and still is predominantly Dutch-speaking. The government's long refusal to acknowledge Dutch as an official language led to hostilities between Flanders and the French-speaking bourgeoisie who held both political and economic power. These hostilities gave rise to the Flemish movement, which
The Sorrow of Belgium The Sorrow of Belgium The Sorrow of Belgium () is a major novel first published in 1983 by the Belgian author Hugo Claus (1929–2008). It is widely considered Claus' major work and "the most important Dutch-language novel of the twentieth century". "The Sorrow of Belgium" explores the childhood and youth of Louis Seynaeve, a Flemish schoolboy living in the region of Kortrijk during World War II when Belgium was under German occupation. The novel itself is a "bildungsroman" formed from two sections: The work was first published in an English translation by Arnold J. Pomerans in 1994. It was also