Bündner Volksblatt

The Bündner Volksblatt was a mostly social-liberal German-language daily newspaper for Graubünden, edited by Fritz Manatschal . It was published from 1877 to 1889 by the “Druckerei Christian Senti” publishing house.

history

Manat scarves early years

Fritz Manatschal first did an internship at the Free Rätier under Florian Gengel . Then he worked for a Winterthur newspaper. In 1877 he founded his own newspaper, the “Bündner Volksblatt”. It was also the "organ of the Graubünden liberal party", with Manatschal always advocating socially committed liberalism.

For a social state

The "Bündner Volksblatt" campaigned for social welfare. The federal state of Switzerland should support the poor, the sick and other needy people. It was new for Graubünden that a newspaper stood up so tenaciously for social equality. Their attention was correspondingly great.

Party colleagues in competition

Florian Gengel from the “Free Councilor” took the opposite position, although he was a party colleague of Manatschal, namely that the state should not interfere in social conditions. According to Gengel's understanding of liberalism, the state should only guarantee civil liberties. The two papers fought an ideal competition for years.

Merger with the local newspaper

At the beginning of 1890, the “Bündner Volksblatt” merged with the weekly newspaper for the Davos landscape . For two years, the Fusionsblatt appeared as the “Davoser Zeitung and Bündner Volksblatt” and was no longer a party organ of the Liberals.

Manatschal buys the competition sheet

In 1892 a strange castling took place in the Graubünden press. The left-wing Fritz Manatschal bought the right-wing "Free Rätier", which robbed the right wing of the Liberals of their paper. But immediately, 31 right-wing cantonal parliamentarians suggested founding a newspaper in their favor. It turned out that they were able to acquire the printing works of the former “Bündner Volksblatt” along with the rights to this title. So the merger of 1890 was quasi reversed. The newspaper that was published from then on still had the name “Bündner Volksblatt” in the subtitle, but its real name was Neue Bündner Zeitung .

Even then, everyone wanted to be seen as “liberal”

Grotesquely, both the “Free Rätier” under Manatschal and the “Neue Bündner Zeitung” of the right-wing liberals now claimed to be the “organ of the liberal party of Graubünden”. A clear indication that the term “liberal” was used differently over and over again in the 19th century and only indicated a basic spiritual consensus.

«Bündner Volksblatt» continues posthumously

Since the publishing group of the “Neue Bündner Zeitung” had bought the rights to the “Bündner Volksblatt”, they felt compelled to set the foundation of the new paper to the year 1877 - possibly in order to create an impression rich in tradition. Foppa points out, however, that from a factual point of view, the year 1892 is more appropriate as the founding year of the “Neue Bündner Zeitung”, as the “Bündner Volksblatt” had a different character in terms of political course and journalistic character. Which would then also mean that the “Bündner Volksblatt” expired at the end of 1889, although the name as a subtitle of the “Neue Bündner Zeitung” and the Bündner Zeitung haunted the Bündner press for many years.

Previous research leaves questions unanswered

In a deviating addition to Foppa's argument, it must be mentioned here that the initially right-wing liberal editorial staff of the "Neue Bündner Zeitung" declared in its first edition of December 8, 1892, that they also see themselves in the tradition of the "Bündner Volksblatt" editor, Mr. Fient, about which nothing further is known. This shows that Foppa's classification of the “Bündner Volksblatt” as a left-liberal newspaper is not entirely correct. The announcements in the first edition of the “Neue Bündner Zeitung” indicate that the program differences within the liberal movement only differed greatly in individual points (welfare state and centralization), but that diversity of opinion was generally welcomed. So far, it has not been adequately clarified whether the competition between the liberal circles of the former Graubünden actually had programmatic reasons or whether this competition was a power struggle between different (family) clans.

Remarks

↑ Foppa does not provide any information about which Winterthur paper Manatschal was employed by. Foppa (2002), page 10.
^ See Metz (1975), p. 137.
↑ Foppa does not mention the motives that led to the merger. Foppa (2002), page 12.
↑ Foppa (2002), page 12.

literature

Daniel Foppa: The history of the German-language daily press in the canton of Graubünden . In: Yearbook of the Historical Society of Graubünden 132, 2002, ISSN 1011-2049 , pp. 1–71, (also Separatum).
Peter Metz: Falling leaves in autumn . In: Bündner Jahrbuch 1975, ISSN 0524-9287 , pp. 136-139.