The flag of the seven upright ones

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The flag of the seven upright is a novella by the Swiss poet Gottfried Keller .

Title page of Berthold Auerbach's Volkskalender 1861

Written in 1860 for Berthold Auerbach's German People's Calendar , it appeared in Leipzig in 1861 , was immediately reprinted by the Bern daily newspaper Der Bund and established Keller's fame as Switzerland's national poet.

The story in the tone of folk play and calendar story takes place in Zurich , but the happy ending is in Aarau , where in 1849, the year after the founding of the modern Swiss federal state , the "Federal Free Shooting" took place, where the liberals celebrated the victory of their cause. The “upright”, a group of friends of seven Zurich craftsmen and innkeepers, all veteran freedom fighters, decide to join in the celebration, and for the first time under their own banner . The two spokesmen of the association, the wealthy master carpenter Frymann and the poor tailor Hediger, thus get into serious trouble: no one can think of suitable greetings for the thousand-headed assembly. At the last minute she saves Karl, the youngest son of the tailor, with a lively and cheerful speech that wins the hearts of the crowd in an instant. What inspires him is his love for Hermione, the carpenter's only daughter. The two would like to get married, but their fathers are against it, the rich one out of business interests, the poor one out of pride. When Karl, cheered on by Hermine, earns more laurels during the festival, the resistance of the ancients melts and the story ends with an engagement.

Keller included the little flag in his Zurich novellas in 1877 . It is one of his most famous works and is an example of the style of poetic realism .

action

Almost like a play, the story is divided into acts and scenes. It contains other notable speeches and a lot of dialogue compared to other Keller stories .

first act

Swiss Republicans , title page 1836 by Martin Disteli

In Hediger's study one afternoon in March: The tailor's only luxury is this extra room for his collection of political books. His rifle hangs here among portraits of Washington and Robespierre . With this he has often marched out, as a revolutionary against aristocrats, Jesuits and Sonderbundler . The master is just about to delve into the latest issue of the Swiss Republican when his youngest enters and asks him for the rifle. Karl's military training has started and if he comes to the parade ground without a weapon he will be punished. “I won't give my weapon to anyone who can't handle it,” replied the master. To check Karl, he dismantled the shotgun lock. Karl can't put it back together. But his mother knows what to do: she sends her husband the invitation from the seven-man society, whereupon the old man hastily leaves the house: “So! now he won't come before ten o'clock at night! ” Then she reassembles the lock with practiced movements. "Where the hell did you learn that, mother?" Ms. Hediger tells how her father and brothers, passionate shooters, waste their house and yard. As a child, she was trained to maintain their luxurious weapons.

On the evening of the same day: Karl hung the rifle back and dismantled the lock again. Now he is rowing on Lake Zurich under the full moon , with Hermione next to him in another boat. Far out there is a conversation going on from board to board: “When I was ten years old and you were seven,” he tells her, “how often did we kiss there, and now I'm twenty I can't even get your fingertips closed kiss " . But Fraulein Frymann no longer wants to hear about such childish things, especially since her father forbids her to continue dealing with Karl. The carpenter is a widower and for the sake of his daughter he stopped marrying. Hermione therefore does not want to openly oppose his wishes. At most every month, she announces, she will appear for the rendezvous in the future. Karl feels challenged and is maneuvering his boat so skillfully that Hermione has to endure a few more kisses for fear of falling into the water. Angrily she rowed back to the bank: "Just wait, you rascal, until I've got you under my slipper!"

Area of ​​the Federal Free Shooting in Aarau (1849)

Meanwhile, the upright take the decision at their regulars' table to crown their political life's work with a joint appearance at the Aarauer Freischießen. They quickly come to an agreement about the flag and the inscription - friendship in freedom - but there is a heated debate about the appropriate celebration. Five of the seven sense the opportunity to get rid of slow-moving goods, the silversmith an old-fashioned goblet, the blacksmith a plow, the carpenter a four-poster bed. One landlord would like to sell a barrel of wine, the other even a cow. Hediger takes her suggestions under the microscope and does n’t skimp on sarcastic remarks: The cow “can only be said to have regularly turned over the bucket during milking!” Ashamed, the five agree with him.

Frymann suggests letting the silversmith make a modern cup with a noble shape without unnecessary ornamentation (like the new federal constitution). When this was unanimously accepted, he brought up his private concerns: He owned a lot of building land and wanted a son-in-law with capital and business ideas. Karl, who has turned his daughter's head, is currently earning his first bread as a clerk and is unwelcome to him. Apart from that, it is important to keep the friendship free from family ties. The tailor sees it too. He worries that none of his four sons has stuck to the trade that he let them learn - according to their wishes. Everyone wants to go higher. What if wealth by marriage seduces you into luxury and waste? He gave everyone a good education. So they turned away one after the other and found accommodation in the new state-owned companies and authorities. The necessary official guarantees have signed the upright. How does he stand in front of his friends when a son is guilty of something? "Papperlapapp!" It sounds in the group. But the two fathers remain firm and vow solemnly: "Nothing of Schwäherschaft ! To continue with the Gegenschwäher" This oath excited at the comrades cheerfulness: "Who was going to believe that you two, the only wise spoken words in the Fatherland thing and Washed our heads, now if you looked around, such foolish things would begin! ” The session closes with a bet: If Karl and Hermine get together, the bride's father gives the club a keg of“ Swiss blood ” , then the landlord also has an advantage. The old, however, give the young the two-sleeper four-poster bed, which the carpenter has left with.

Second act

The next day after dinner, Hediger reveals what he has decided with Frymann: “Of course we are political friends; but in order to stay that way, we don't want to mess up families and drive communism with the wealth of one. I am poor and Frymann is rich and it should stay that way; the more inner equality gives us joy ” . Mrs. Hediger finds this principle ridiculous: “Nice friendship when a friend does not want to give his daughter to the other's son! And since when has it been called communism when wealth is brought into a family through marriage? ” She eloquently describes the opportunities that her husband is about to waste: perhaps one of the sons himself has a gifted son “ who gets on high would vibrate if the ability were there to let him study ” . "Castles in the air!" Is annoyed Hediger and counters with a juicy satire on the nouveau riche cousin among his poor relatives. Against wealth he has nothing unless he as acquired his friend through diligence and is in the right hands - "! But let even guys with millions arise, have the political ambition, and you'll see what they're up to mischief" on the This prophecy makes no impression on woman. It is clear to them that the principle of separating friendship and family is a pretext behind which Frymann hides his self-interest. Doesn't her husband see that he's the fool in the game? Karl, who was embarrassed about the dispute, has quietly gone. In the evening on the lake he waits in vain for Hermione.

The next days and weeks bring changes that fill the master tailor with secret pride, but also with concern. Karl, obviously a natural, has been admitted to sniper training and has moved to the barracks. Mrs. Hediger is now taking care of Hermione, giving her motherly advice on market walks. Once he surprises the two of them in the living room with their knitting over coffee and homemade baked goods. He makes a stern face, but Hermione was so gracious and resolute at the same time that he sat there as if on his mouth and ended up fetching a 'glass of wine' himself from the cellar and even from the little keg . Alarmed, he runs to Frymann:

"We must pay attention! Your daughter sits in the best friendship with my old woman, and it is a very suspicious act. You know women are the devil. "
"Why don't you chase the monkey away?" Said Frymann angrily.
"I chase away? I'll let that stay, that's a state witch! Come on and see for yourself! "

The conspirators only find Karl who is eating the rest of the pastry. Hermione has lovingly saved it for him and sent him an invitation to a rendezvous.

In the evening on the lake: Karl confronts Hermione: In the barracks, a certain Ruckstuhl boasts that he will soon have a rich wife, namely the carpenter's daughter. Ruckstuhl is a show-off, got rich through housing speculation and excessive rents; one laughs at him, but behind his back, because his much money gives him influence. “I know,” she replied, “that this monsieur desires me to be a wife, and that my father is not averse; he has already spoken of it. ”-“ Does the devil ride him to give you to this rascal and thief? Where are his solemn principles? ” The father is eager for a young entrepreneur as a son-in-law and has already asked Ruckstuhl for lunch tomorrow, Sunday. Of course Hermione will turn him off, but it would be even better if he didn't come into her house in the first place. She already has a plan. Could Karl not seduce him into something stupid, “that you were arrested together for twenty-four or forty-eight hours?” - “You are very kind to send me into the hole for two days to save yourself a no! Don't you do it cheaper? ” Because of the moral symmetry, she says, it should be like that, and when Karl makes her face to move closer, she clearly shows him that this time she will disembark without being kissed.

Karl has an idea how to put Ruckstuhl out of action without suffering himself. On the way to the barracks, he meets the victim together with his satellite, a filthy farmer's son who makes the generous loudspeaker the lackey. Both are already settled. Karl suggests illegally emptying a few more bottles after the tattoo in the dormitory, as a test of courage. Ruckstuhl, flattered, rags and donates plenty of wine. The feast ends with him and his companion standing in the hallway, in a “little uniform”. H. in a nightgown with a rifle and cartridge pouch. Karl pushes the bolt, his comrades clear the dormitory in a flash, everything disappears into the beds as if nothing had happened. The guard is coming. The drunken team crawls, makes fun of the officer and is led away. The dormitory complains hypocritically about the disturbance of the night's sleep.

The carpenter waits for the Sunday lunch guest for free. "Certainly he didn't get a vacation, you don't have to judge him prematurely!" Hermione defends him with an innocent look . In the afternoon she invited Mrs. Hediger for coffee. Frymann arrives as they finish the cakes that have been bought for the guest. Did Ms. Hediger learn anything about Ruckstuhl's whereabouts from Karl? Yes, he sleeps off his intoxication, in arrest with another, "it should have been a great comedy" . Frymann angrily rushes to the Sunday meeting of the upright and takes on Hediger:

"Now your wife is sitting with my daughter in the garden and is happy with her that my marriage project has failed!"
“Why don't you chase them away? Why didn't you purr at her? "
"How can I, since we are in old friendship? You see, this damned story is already confusing the situation for us! "

Once again the two domestic tyrants vow: Nothing of intimacy, friendship in freedom!

Third act

In July: The shooting festival is imminent. The seven are only missing one who speaks for them. Nobody wants it. Should you leave the flag and mug at home and go to Aarau incognito? A great dejection followed these words . Five against two it is decided that Fryman and Hediger must draw among themselves. It hits Frymann. His anticipation is now gone. Day and night he thinks of the cursed speech. Instead of expressing himself normally as if among friends, he drafts a political manifesto, peppered with "thunderous words against Jesuits and aristocrats" . It is scary to himself. Hermione, to whom he showed it, said, "The speech is very forceful, but it seems to her a little late, since the Jesuits and aristocrats have been defeated for once, and she thinks a cheerful and hilarious rally would be better." He knows better of course; after all, he wants to soften the expression "here and there a little." - "That will be good," continued Hermione, "since there are so many 'so'." Frymann gives up and tears the paper, he can embarrass himself without preparation .

In Aarau: The people are surging under a bright blue July sky. Shooting clubs from all over Switzerland march to the fairground, in the middle of the crowd the seven upright men. Karl, who traveled separately, spotted them from afar. They move to the beat of the music and seem lively, only - Frymann carried the flag first with a face as if he were being led to execution. Suddenly they are gone. Karl searches, finds her on the benches of a small tavern, facing away from the crowd, as if hailed by a thunderstorm . Frymann is on strike - “Period! I'm not doing it! ” - and put the flag in the corner. Hediger, who loves evil, advises to retreat. Then Karl steps forward: "I wear it and speak for you, I don't care about it!" His father's objection is lost in joyful approval.

On the fairground: the seven old heads swam like a sunlit ice floe in the dark sea . Karl begins his speech: “Dear Confederates! We came here with our eight men with a flag, seven gray heads with a young gunner! ” They aren't here to hunt trophies, but to inaugurate their flag, on which it is written what the association of old people has been without a name for forty years , Statutes and offices together. Then they wanted to step back into the “forest thicket of the nation” . Karl speaks impromptu and without exaggerated reverence: "Look at them, these old sinners!" You rarely see them in the church, but "whenever the fatherland is in danger, they begin to believe in God very gently" . The main sentence of their theology then reads: “ Help yourself, God will help you !” Even days of joy made them pious and tolerant again. Especially today they are satisfied with the opening words of the new Federal Constitution "In the name of God Almighty" and did not ask whether it meant the Catholic or the Reformed Lord of hosts. In general, continues Karl, the diversity of beliefs, customs and languages ​​is the school of this friendship: so many different people are united in the narrow area of ​​Switzerland: “What clever heads and what moon calves are not running around, what noble plants and what weeds bloom there funny mess, and everything is good and wonderful and has grown fond of the heart; for it is in the fatherland! ” But that would have turned friends into philosophers who looked respectfully across borders at other countries; “But their motto always remained: Respect every man's fatherland, but love yours.” As some traveled to the bathroom to rejuvenate, the seven old people went to the festival. “The federal festival wine is the fountain of health that refreshes your heart. The speech closes with the words: Long live friendship in the fatherland! Long live friendship in freedom! " Cheers from all sides, the receptionist hands over the welcome drink and replies to the address: " Your, as you call it, anonymous and stateless association, venerable men, live high! "

In the marquee: the upright, including the amazed Frymann, shake hands with their speaker: “As spoken from our hearts!” And to Hediger: “Chäppermann! This is good wood on your boy, he'll be fine, just let him do it! Just like us, only smarter, we are old donkeys. ” Karl now gets a long speech from his father: “ Son! You have betrayed a beautiful but dangerous gift, cultivate it “ […]; followed by an even longer one from Frymann: "Evenly develop your knowledge and enrich your basics so that you don't fall into empty words!" The irony of the situation does not go unnoticed: "Now look at these two who did not want to speak for us and now talk again like books! ” Karl is accepted into the circle of the old. - After breakfast everyone goes their own way, they meet again in the tent for lunch for the crowd. Hermione is there now. A speaker appears, quotes Karl and remembers the appearance of the seven old men. Blushing, the upright put their knife and fork aside and look at the originator of their fame. Then they think of the bet again. Wouldn't it be time, the silversmith asks, to award the couple the four-poster bed and the club a keg of Swiss blood? But the carpenter frowns: "A good mouth is not paid for with a woman!"

At the shooting range: The couple escaped the table talk. Karl also finally wants to try his luck as a marksman. "You have to win a mug!" Hermione commands. He protests, it takes 25 hits and he can just afford 25 shots. But Hermione does more with her eyes than with words: Do me the will, I have more to give you than you suspect! said those eyes, and Karl looked questioningly and curiously into it, until they understood each other in the noise and roar of the party. When curious people gather around them after the first hits, they switch to another disc. Karl shoots deliberately and without haste. One bullet after the other hits the mark. He treats the last ones carefully like pieces of gold ; none misses the mark.

The day is drawing to a close: the old people sat in deep and happy conversations . Hediger falls silent when it becomes known that Karl is fortunate in arms and resolves not to patronize him any longer. The cup won, gilded on the inside, stands in front of Hermione, its highlights play on her face. The people sitting around notice, men take off their hats, students congratulate Frymann on his beautiful daughter. But Karl also has another opportunity to shine. A rustic couple, father and son, herdsmen from Entlebuch , join them at the table. The eighty-year-old father tries in vain to keep his fifty-year-old and no longer quite sober little boy from a trial of strength. Karl defeats the bear by finger-wrestling . “That just comes from doing gymnastics,” he apologizes when the old people are silent. Hediger is the first to find words again and praises the new age, which educates people to be all-round and also instructs the tailor's child to exercise his body. Frymann, also awakened from thought , agrees. They all helped to bring about the new era, now the rest should be left to the youth. Since no one can claim to be upright stubborn, he gives up his resistance and invites the tailor to do the same. Hediger assumes the seven will rise, Karl and Hermione's hands are clasped. "Lucky too! There's an engagement, so it has to come! ” The people shout and hurry over. The couple eludes hello to the empty festival area at night. Karl and Hermione exchange kisses and promises under the flag castle. Would Hermione really want to lead the regiment from now on and put him under the slipper? Yes, she replies, “in the meantime a law and a constitution will develop between us” .

About the work

The flag is a political and didactic story. Keller demonstrates how a conflict arises from the social contradictions between rich and poor, man and woman, old and young , and how the characters in the action solve it: the young by “showing it to the old”, namely understanding, talent and use charm instead of running your head through the wall; the women as well, whereby they excel through diplomacy and know how to steer the men skilfully; finally, the ancients themselves, realizing that the new times demand new behaviors. Instead of proud stubbornness, friendly respect is now expected, no less in the family than in the state and among peoples. With this awareness, the fathers voluntarily cede the claim to determine the future of their children; the son of the poor has the daughter of the rich; as a man and woman they will get along well.

Contemporary history background

Keller as a drummer for the first free parade in 1844

The little flag was the first story that Keller completed after his return from Berlin and at the same time the first historical novella from his pen. In contrast to the Seldwyler novels , it takes place in real locations and is based on historical events. The seven-man association really existed, and Keller's biographers even pass on the names of the craftsmen after whom the “upright” are modeled. The archetype of old Hediger was the master tailor Konrad Wuhrmann (1791-1858), friend of Keller's father, participant in both free troops and lender of the shotgun that the young Keller carried on the second. Keller was also familiar with Wuhrmann's political study; in 1843 he was defeated there in a speech battle with a supporter of the tailor's journeyman and early communist Wilhelm Weitling . Incidentally, the poet “corrected nature” and poetized his narrative raw material through a love story, which, like Karl's speech, is fictitious. The fact that the association attended shooting festivals, which once led to a tangible row because nobody wanted to give the speech, has been documented, even if not for the Aarau free shooting of 1849.

The "flag castle" at the Zurich rifle festival of 1859

Keller knew the hard scene of Fähnlein not from personal experience. The atmosphere he describes is that of the Zurich Federal Shooting Festival. It took place in 1859, when the civil war that had led to the unification of Switzerland had been twelve years ago. Nevertheless, there was still a need for conciliatory words and gestures towards the defeated party, especially since Switzerland was threatened from outside. The narrator humorously takes this into account by making the former winners appear as defeated - overcome by their own children.

Origin and goal setting

The correspondence with his German client Berthold Auerbach provides information about Keller's political and didactic intentions . He had ordered "something short and rounded" on a Swiss topic. Keller promised a story and at the same time expressed his unease about the fashionable enthusiasm for Switzerland and his anger at writers who exploited them to create a Helvetic national literature and national theater, as it were: “A Viennese refugee, Dr. Eckart in Bern, engages in such hyper-patriotic and supra-Swiss philistine talk of glory and foolishness that we should be ashamed of such truly helotic [slavish] behavior. " On the other hand, he, Keller, strives to " combine the joy of the country with a salutary criticism " . When Auerbach was delighted with the finished story, Keller explained his popular educational ideas even more clearly:

In Switzerland, of course, we have some good dispositions, and as far as the public character is concerned, we are now evidently genuinely striving to bring it to a decent and enjoyable way of life, and the people are vivid and cheerful; but all that glitters is far from being gold; on the other hand, I consider it the duty of a poet not only to glorify the past, but also the present, to strengthen and beautify the germs of the future to such an extent that people can still believe that this is how they are and that is how it is! If this is done with some benevolent irony, which takes away the false pathos from the witness, then I believe that the people, what they think they are good-natured and what their internal disposition already is, will in the end actually and also be external. In short, one must, just as one holds up beautiful sculptures in front of pregnant women, always show something better than it already is to the constantly pregnant national stock; for that one can blame him all the more boldly where he deserves it .

As a title, Keller had suggested “The Little Flag of Seven Friends” . Auerbach found "The Flag of the Seven Upright" more sparkling, but shortened the love scenes out of consideration for the prudish readership of his calendar. Keller let him go: “We are losing some of the novelistic parsley, which is necessary to decorate the didactic bone; but that's the way it is. ” For the reprint of the story in the Zurich novellas , he restored the original text; He retained Auerbach's title.

Social criticism and topicality

As a social critic, Keller targeted appearances of varying depth and hit them with different stylistic devices: He made fun of excesses of archery, extravagance and boastfulness - the military clothes with a back chair. He poured Molièreschen derision about inveterate greed and pride in money - through the mouth of the sarcastic master tailor. He expressed his more serious concerns through the same mouthpiece, but in the tone of a prophecy:

“There will come a time when, in our country, as elsewhere, large masses of money are connected without having been worked out and saved in a good way; then it will be necessary to show the devil the teeth; then it will show whether the thread and the color are good on our flag! "

A contemporary literary critic calls these words “foreboding”. Like the interspersed “cheeky reprimand”, they ensured that Keller's “satisfaction with the patriotic conditions” did not slip into national self-adulation anywhere. Later he regretted painting the world as good and finished. He only allowed the story to be seen as a beautiful snapshot, the magical role model he had hoped for had not materialized. He wrote to Theodor Storm : “The 'little flag', barely 18 years old, is already an antiquated grandfather's piece; the patriotic-political satisfaction, the victorious old-fashioned freedom have disappeared, social discomfort, railroad misery, an endless hunt have taken their place. "

Celebrations have a community-building and community- preserving effect. In Keller's Fähnlein the purpose of the national festival is to balance conflicting interests. Alliances are renewed or newly concluded at all levels of the community, state, canton, association, circle of friends, family . The engagement of the upright children fulfills the general expectation: “This is how it must come!” Shouted the people. After years in civil service, Keller began to doubt this easy reconciliation of private and public interest. Accordingly, his attitude towards national festivals changed. This becomes clear in his later narrative works: in the novella Das verlorene Lachen (1874) such a festival forms the backdrop to a problematic one, in Martin Salander's novel (1886) that of an unhappy marriage.

literature

Texts

  • Gottfried Keller: The flag of the seven upright ones. Philipp Reclam jun., Ditzingen 1986, ISBN 3-15-006184-9 .
  • Urs Widmer: The flag of the seven upright ones. Newly unrolled and held up by Urs Widmer. Wagenbach publishing house. Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-8031-2141-8 . (= Wagenbach's pocket book 141)

Secondary literature

  • Josef Schmidt: The flag of the seven upright ones. Explanations and documents. Philipp Reclam jun., Ditzingen 1994, ISBN 3-15-008121-1 .

Film adaptations

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ All verbatim quotations based on the text of the Frankel edition of Keller's works, Vol. 10, pp. 3–90; P. 6.
  2. ↑ Hedigers first name is Chäpper, Swiss German for Kaspar.
  3. ↑ Jakob Baechtold : Gottfried Keller's life. His letters and diaries . 3 volumes. Wilhelm Hertz , Berlin 1894-97. Vol. I, pp. 246-8. Emil Ermatinger : Gottfried Keller's Life . 8th edition. Artemis, Zurich 1950, p. 147 f.
  4. ^ Wuhrmann was Weitling's employer during his stay in Zurich. Weitling was arrested in June 1843 and Wuhrmann's house was searched. On July 16, 1843, Keller wrote in his diary: These communists are obsessed. I argued with some for two hours. They were tailors together with their master and a somewhat well-educated boy with a good tongue. The tailors could not at all be induced to step outside communism and its ideas and look at it from the outside without prejudice; and when they could no longer express themselves or were forgiven, the student quickly approached with Sukkurs [support] and built a building with a common tongue, in which almost every stone had to be recognized and which one in the end could only be knocked over again with the words: “It will and cannot be!” Of course, not to his conviction. The master, however, is a fierce democrat and honest republican, who hopes communism will finally defeat all aristocracy and their clan and therefore believes in him. (Baechtold, vol. I, p. 204 f.) In the Fähnlein no such sympathies are ascribed to the master, be it because the original changed its mind after defeating the aristocrats, or because it fitted Keller better into the concept.
  5. ↑ See Sonderbund War .
  6. ^ Rolf A. Meyer: in the NZZ of July 31, 1980.
  7. ↑ See Savoy trade .
  8. ↑ Correspondence from February 22 to September 15, 1860, in Gottfried Keller Gesammelte Briefe , ed. by Carl Helbling, Vol. 3.2, pp. 187-202, Bern 1953.
  9. ↑ Cf. Gerhardt Kaiser: Gottfried Keller. The poetic life. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1981, p. 481.
  10. ↑ See Gottfried Keller: "Self-biography" p. 5.
  11. ^ Letter of June 25, 1878, in Gottfried Keller Gesammelte Briefe , ed. by Carl Helbling, Vol. 3.1, p. 420, Bern 1953..