Isle of the Blessed (quote)

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Island of the Blessed or Islands of the Blessed is a phrase used to express that a community is spared from injustice, but which occurs widely in the surrounding area. The term is often used in political speeches, especially in Austria, but is also used elsewhere in German-speaking countries.

origin

The "Islands of the Blessed" (Greek Elysion , Latin Elysium ) are places in Greek mythology in the far west of the world to which selected heroes are raptured in order to live a happy life as immortals.

use

The expression that Austria is an "Isola felice", a "happy island" is used by Pope Paul VI. Attributed on the occasion of a visit to the Vatican by Federal President Franz Jonas . In the 1970s it was reformulated under Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky as the Isle of the Blessed . This mainly expressed the myth of the Austrian welfare state , Austrian neutrality and the high degree of social peace compared to the interwar period. To this day, this expression is used to indicate whether one wants to praise certain conditions or whether one wants to warn something, such as “Austria is not an island of the blessed!” . Pope Benedict XVI in his speech at the Vienna Hofburg during a visit to Austria in autumn 2007, for example, expressly emphasized that Austria was not an “isola felice”.

Insel der Seligen was also the title of a silent film by Max Reinhardt made for PAGU in 1913, with which the Union Theater, “UT Kurfürstendamm” 26 in Berlin , builtfor an upscale, bourgeois audience, opened on October 3, 1913.

Examples from the literature

Karl Kraus and other authors used the term several times in the torch , according to Bruno Wolfgang: “ I feel as if I were on an island of the blessed, freed from the urge of all passion, to serve a self-chosen deity. "

In the eighteenth chapter of Theodor Fontane's novel Cécile there is the following passage: “'Island of the Blessed', Gordon said to himself […]”. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in Ecce Homo : " Tribschen - a distant island of the blissful." and Kurt Tucholsky in Gallettiana in 1922 : “It's nice and quiet here, in the library. [...] an island of the blessed. "

literature

  • Anton Pelinka : On the pitfalls of multiculturalism . In: Reinhold Gärtner (Ed.): Blitzlichter . Studienverlag, Innsbruck / Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-7065-1326-9 .
  • Günter Lanczkowski: The islands of the blessed and related ideas . Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1986, ISBN 3-8204-8253-9 (Europäische Hochschulschriften. Series XXIII. Theology, Vol. 261).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The end of the cyclical island of the blessed ( Memento of May 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). In WirtschaftsBlatt of May 5, 2009 (queried on May 31, 2009)
  2. ↑ Germany is an island of the blessed . In: Die Welt online (queried on May 31, 2009)
    Switzerland is not an island of the blessed ( memento of the original from March 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , In: SRG SSG idée suisse (accessed on June 2, 2009) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ideesuisse.ch
  3. ^ Austria - Insel der Glückliche Arbeiterzeitung from November 19, 1971
  4. ↑ l'Austria non è un '“isola felice” ( Memento of the original of September 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Speech by Benedict XVI. on September 7, 2007 in front of the Diplomatic Corps in the Hofburg (accessed June 1, 2009)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ratzingerbenedettoxvi.com
  5. ↑ Film by Max Reinhardt ( Memento of the original from December 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (queried on May 31, 2009)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.webloc.de
  6. ↑ Find places in the torch (author: Karl Kraus):
    • Issue 197 of February 28, 1906, p. 18 (report on the Konkordia ball.)
    • Issue 237 of December 2, 1907, p. 1.
    • Issue 601–607 from November 1922, p. 98.
    • Issue 873-875 from April 1932, p. 43.
  7. ↑ Issue 264–265 of November 18, 1908, p. 40
  8. ^ Theodor Fontane : Cécile in the Gutenberg-DE project
  9. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche : Ecce Homo in the Gutenberg-DE project
  10. ^ Gallettiana (zeno.org; accessed June 2, 2009)

Web links

  • Isle of the Blessed on www.demokratiezentrum.org (accessed September 24, 2009)
  • Islands of the Blessed In: Meyers Konversationslexikon . 8th volume. Leipzig and Vienna, fourth edition, 1885–1892, p. 984. (accessed on June 2, 2009)