La pace perpetua come problema politico. Über den ewigen Frieden di Friedrich Gentz

This article examines Friedrich Gentz’s early reflections on perpetual peace through a close reading of Über den ewigen Frieden (1800), written in response to Kant’s 1795 project. This youthful text clarifies Gentz’s critique of the rationalistic and normative premises of Enlightenment theories of peace. Rather than rejecting the cosmopolitan horizon, Gentz subjects it to a critical reassessment grounded in political prudence and historical experience. What emerges is a realistic, though not pessimistic, conception of international order, centred on balance and equilibrium rather than on juridical abstractions. By focusing on this early intervention prior to Gentz’s later involvement in Metternichian politics, the article situates his thought within the transformations of European political theory at the turn of the nineteenth century, highlighting his position between Kantian universalism and post-Enlightenment political realism.