Jörg Jenatsch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jenatsch 1636
Jenatsch on a drawing by Heinrich Kraneck, 1832

Jörg Jenatsch , also Jürg Jenatsch or Georg Jenatsch (emphasized on the A; Rhaeto-Romanic : Gieri Genatsch , * 1596 in Lohn or in the Upper Engadin ; † January 24, 1639 in Chur ) was a Graubünden Protestant pastor , military leader and politician . In the eyes of many followers, he was considered to be the savior of Graubünden in the Thirty Years' War .

Life

Georg Jenatsch was born in 1596. He was a great son of pastor Andreas Jenatsch and the eldest son of notary and pastor Israel Jenatsch and his wife Ursina Balsamin. He had five younger siblings named Katharina, Susanna and Nuttin, and two who died early. To this day, it has not been fully clarified whether he was born in the Upper Engadin or in Lohn im Schams , as his father moved from Silvaplana to the Schams valley in the year of his birth . From 1599 he spent his childhood in the rectory of Silvaplana. In 1610 he and other Graubünden students attended the lectureship in Zurich, where he was registered under the name Georgius Jenatius, Engadino-Rhetus . He lived with the schoolmaster and minister preacher Caspar Murer. In June 1616 he was able to enroll in the theological faculty of the University of Basel . After graduating, he worked as a preacher in Scharans im Domleschg from the summer of 1617 .

From 1618 Jenatsch took part in the wild party struggles within the three leagues . He appeared at the criminal court of Thusis as a fanatical opponent of the Spanish Catholic party and was jointly responsible for the judicial murder of Nicolò Rusca , archpriest of Sondrio, and Johann Baptist Prevost of Vicosoprano. In the same year Jenatsch became a reformed preacher in Berbenno near Sondrio in the predominantly Catholic valley Valtellina . In 1620 he narrowly escaped the Veltliner Protestant murder and fled to Silvaplana. As an act of revenge, Jenatsch murdered the leader of the Spanish Catholic Party in the Three Leagues in 1621 with some helpers, Pompejus Planta at Rietberg Castle in Domleschg.

After the Spanish and Austrians marched into the Drei Bünde in 1620, the country was drawn into the warfare of the Thirty Years' War during the turmoil in Graubünden . The theologian Jenatsch began his military career, first as a partisan leader, then as a cavalry captain in the army of General Ernst von Mansfeld from the Palatinate . In 1627 he rose to major, but entered into a duel with his superior, Colonel Jacob von Ruinelli, whom he stabbed to death. In the following year Jenatsch entered the Venetian service, but was imprisoned there and then moved with his family to Schloss Katzensteig near Bischofszell in the federally controlled Thurgau in 1629 .

When the reformed Duke Henri II. De Rohan occupied Graubünden on behalf of Cardinal Richelieu in 1634 , Jenatsch was his right-hand man with the rank of colonel. But since Richelieu showed intentions to keep Graubünden and its subject areas as pledge for the peace treaty, Jenatsch led negotiations with Austria-Spain to liberate his homeland. For this purpose he converted to the Catholic Church in 1635 in the Capuchin monastery in Rapperswil . He succeeded in a masterly way in deceiving Rohan and at the same time winning the Graubünden members of the French army, as well as the whole country, for his plan ( chain league). He was appointed General of the Three Leagues and, with the support of Spain, was able to force the French to withdraw on May 5, 1637. At the same time, with diplomatic skill, he succeeded in obtaining the return of the Valtellina to Graubünden from Spain.

«Der Untergang des Jürg Jenatsch»
historical picture by E. Sturtevant
Sturtevant's depiction is based precisely on the novel by CF Meyer: “Jenatsch reached for the nearby sideboard and reached there with his free hand a heavy bronze candlestick, the weight of which he pressed against his Attacker swung, parrying the blows falling from the front. "
Place of the former dusty hut , today part of the old building

From then on Jenatsch was the political and military ruler of his country, was showered with riches as the "director" of the Spanish-Austrian alliance and ennobled by Philip IV of Spain. During a night drinking party in Chur, he was murdered by a group of masked conspirators on January 21, 1639 in the tavern of the pâté baker Lorenz (Laurentz) Fausch, the “Dusty Hüetli”. The first perpetrator, disguised as a bear, fired at him with a pistol, whereupon the others knocked him down with clubs and axes. Jenatsch was buried the same day in an elaborate funeral service in the cathedral in Chur. The “Staubige Hüetli” stood on the site of the old building at Poststrasse 14.

Jenatsch's murderers could never be traced, but it was suspected that in addition to the elite families of Planta and Guler , Spanish agents were also involved in the plans for the murder. The Chronicle of Fortunat Speaker v. Bernegg suspected the perpetrators in Counter-Reformation circles, who resented Jenatsch for having switched to the Catholic faith. An accomplice by the name of "Zambra", who on October 30, 1639 at the Brauli Pass (located on the Stilfserjoch) had killed a member of the von Planta family, who had an imperial-Catholic mind, and on February 24, 1639 another family member, who was also otherwise in further armed assassinations were involved, was executed on March 7, 1640 in Tarasp by opening the arteries, "without having to use the executioner". It is noticeable that the accumulation of assassinations during the Bündner turmoil on the elites and their partisans had a system: Jenatsch himself murdered an adversary in Chiavenna named Johann Peter Stampa on July 26, 1638 . The aim was to bring the Free State of the Three Leagues back into full possession of the subject area of Valtellina after the capitulate of Milan .

Publications

Exhumations

Summer 1959

In the summer of 1959, the Zurich anthropologist Erik Hug (1911–1991) exhumed the body of Georg Jenatsch in the Chur cathedral.

Although the exhumation of Jenatsch's remains was exceptional at that time for scientific reasons alone, the then Bishop of Chur, Christian Caminada , supported the action. On July 30th, in front of the Katharinen altar in the cathedral, to the left of the entrance, the workers came across a skeleton believed to be Jenatsch's. Although the bishop then declared the search to be over, Hug continued to dig without permission. On August 4, 1959, a worker came across a skull with a smashed temple and tufts of black hair, 110 centimeters below today's stone floor, east of the place where Jenatsch's grave slab had been until 1921. The complete exhumation took place on August 5th, now with the consent of the bishop.

The corpse, lying on its back, was already badly decomposed; only the front side and the top of the skull remained of the skull. Of the remaining bones, only remnants of the right forearm, a left carpal bone, the left pubic bone and remains of the left leg and foot were found. The body length was about 170 centimeters.

Jenatsch was buried in his clothes - shoulder coat, silk vest, shirt, breeches and knee socks - in a conical coffin made of fir wood. Jenatsch wore a scapular under his shirt , and there were also remains of a rosary and two medallions.

On August 4, 1961, the bones were buried again in the same pit. Dresses, scapulars and rosary were retained. They are kept in the Chur Cathedral Treasury Museum.

Due to differences of opinion with the Bünder historian Jon Mathieu, Erik Hug did not bequeath his extensive investigation documents to the Bündner Staatsarchiv, as promised, but to the Einsiedeln Monastery , where they came to light again in July 2009, 18 years after Hug's death after a long search in a safe. Hug-Mathieu's argument also found its way into the film Jenatsch by Daniel Schmid, based on the script by Martin Suter , in the form of the journalist speaker, who is received by the "quirky anthropologist". Hug's research results have not yet been published.

March 2012 / result October 2012

In March 2012 the grave in the Chur cathedral was reopened. A comparative DNA analysis with today's descendants of Jenatsch should clarify whether it is actually the body of Jenatsch. The results were presented on October 25, 2012. The result of the DNA analysis was not clear: the chance that the skeleton was Jörg Jenatsch is 96 percent. There are other indications for this: the exact position of the grave was compared with historical sources, the medallions from the grave and extensive textile examinations clearly date from the time of Jörg Jenatsch. The age of the deceased and the nature of his injuries also suggest Jenatsch. The researchers therefore assume that it is Jörg Jenatsch. The researchers are using computed tomography to create a three-dimensional reconstruction of the dead person's face in order to find out what the dead person looked like.

Jenatsch in the eyes of posterity

Jenatsch and his achievements were rather criticized by contemporaries who knew him, such as Bartholomäus Anhorn , Fortunat Sprecher , Ulysses von Salis and Fortunat von Juvalta, from whom the few contemporary written appraisals come. Everyone condemned Jenatsch's conversion as an unforgivable betrayal and everyone, except Anhorn, looked down on him as a social climber who threatened to break up the social structure (aristocrats, clergy and common people). With the exception of Salis, who, like Jenatsch, was involved in Pompejus von Planta's assassination, everyone felt offended by Jenatsch's violence. Von Salis' image of Jenatsch is shaped by the betrayal of France and the way in which he pushed leading figures such as Salis himself from the limelight. Juvalta's personal memories testify to anger over Jenatsch's role in the Thusner criminal court. Bartholomäus Anhorn in particular reported on the highlights in Jenatsch's career and in particular his role in the temporary recovery of the Valtellina and the withdrawal of the French army from the Free State. Incidentally, Jenatsch played a rather minor role in the written reports of the contemporaries named, who all tried to place their observations in a larger historical context, and only appears there sporadically.

Jenatsch statue from 2000 as an advertising medium for a hotel in Parpan
transfiguring information board for the statue

Apart from these chronicles , posterity retained a rather distorted memory of the power man Jenatsch for a few decades through folk songs and mocking songs, some of which were already circulating before his death.

It was only in the middle of the 19th century, when the former subject areas of Valtellina, Bormio and Chiavenna had long since been lost and the Free State had become a canton of the Swiss Confederation with the help of the French , did the people in Graubünden long for someone to identify with - after the publication of a systematic study of Swiss history by Louis Vulliemin in 1844, in which Georg Jenatsch was honored in detail as a major protagonist of the diplomatic maneuvers of the 1630s - found in Jenatsch. The myth of a freedom hero began to form around himself, who, detached from historical facts, developed in literary works and patriotic stage plays.

The main reason why Jenatsch found its way back into the historical memory of the people in the 19th century was the success of the novel by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer Jürg Jenatsch , published in 1876 . This was even part of the curriculum for secondary schools during the following decades, which was how the image of Jenatsch as an intrepid freedom hero and his tragically ending, forbidden love for the daughter of his mortal enemy Pompejus Planta was shaped among generations of students.

Scientific historical research, especially from the 20th century onwards, revised the image of Georg Jenatsch. Both in the biography of Ernst Haffter published in 1894 and in that biography of Alexander Pfister, which has been published in several revised and expanded editions since 1938, less altruistic characteristics of Jenatsch, such as unscrupulousness and inclination to excesses of violence , emerge again due to a comprehensive evaluation of contemporary documents and letters to terrorism, unconditional pursuit of elevation to the nobility and greed for power as a motive for his work. Some historians see his conversion to Catholicism less clearly as an expression of unscrupulous opportunism, but rather consider the possibility of a profound change in his inner convictions. Since armed events (including weapons and mercenaries) always require financial backers, the causes and effects of bribes (pensions) on the main actors in this regard are unclear. Randolph C. Head's book Jenatschs Axt from 2012 represents the current state of research.

While largely suppressing historical facts, Jenatsch's myth as a freedom hero is often used for commercial purposes in Graubünden, especially for the names of inns.

reception

literature

  • Balzer Gartmann: Georg Jenatsch in literature. Condrau, Dissentis 1946, DNB 570218942 (Bern, University, dissertation, 1946).
  • Ernst Haffter: Georg Jenatsch. A contribution to the history of the Bündner turmoil. Hugo Richter, Davos 1894, ( digitized version ).
  • Randolph C. Head: Jenatsch's ax. Social boundaries, identity, and myth in the era of the Thirty Years' War (= Changing Perspectives on Early Modern Europe. Vol. 9). University of Rochester Press, Rochester et al. 2008, ISBN 978-1-58046-276-1 (In German: Jenatschs Axt. Social limits, identity and myth in the epoch of the Thirty Years War (= series cultura alpina. Vol. 5). From the American by Peter Jäger. Updated and authorized by the author. Desertina, Chur 2012, ISBN 978-3-85637-413-6 ).
  • Manuel Janosa: The exhumation of Jörg Jenatsch in 1959. In: Bündner Monatsblatt. No. 5, 2010, pp. 431-452, ( online ).
  • Manuel Janosa (editor): Buried under the org. The grave of Jörg Jenatsch in the cathedral in Chur (= Archeology Graubünden. Special issue. 4). Somedia-Buchverlag, Glarus 2014, ISBN 978-3-906064-35-2 .
  • Christian Immanuel child :  Jenatsch, Georg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, pp. 763-766.
  • Wolfram Mirbach:  Jenatsch, Georg (Jürg). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 3, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-035-2 , Sp. 23-24.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive  on 2007-06-29)
  • Gaudenz Meili : The murder of Jörg Jenatsch (January 24, 1639) . In: Appenzeller Calendar, Volume 243, Herisau 1964 doi : 10.5169 / seals-375782 .
  • Hansruedi Näf: Jenatsch - In a nutshell! Crüzer, Stampa / Samedan 2017
  • Alexander Pfister: Jörg Jenatsch. His life and his time. Published by the Jörg Jenatsch Foundation. 5th edition. Verlag Bündner Monatsblatt, Chur 1991, ISBN 3-905241-21-8 (first edition: Georg Jenatsch. His life and his time. On the 300th anniversary of his death. Schwabe, Basel 1938).
  • Peter Conradin von Planta : History of Graubünden. Commonly presented in their main features. 3rd edition, edited by Constanz Jecklin. Wyss, Bern 1913, DNB 361578180 , p. 197 ff.
  • Markus Schmid-Lengersdorf: Bündner turmoil. Scenes around Jörg Jenatsch. Libretto for a performance in the anniversary year 700 years of the Davos Lehensbrief, June 30, 1989, July 1 and July 2, 1989 in the Davos ice rink. Bündner Wirren Committee, Davos 1989, DNB 941304655 .
  • Jean J. Winkler: Jörg Jenatsch and the first loss of the Valtellina. Winkler, Zurich 1965, DNB 576933260 .
  • Hansmartin Schmid: Jenatsch was never a Bündner national hero. Bündner monthly newspaper 3/2012

Audio

Web links

Commons : Jörg Jenatsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hansruedi Näf: Jenatsch - In a nutshell! Crüzer, Stampa / Samedan 2017, pp. 6–9
  2. ^ Peter Dürrenmatt : Swiss history . Swiss publishing house, Zurich 1976
  3. ↑ Silvio Färber: Jörg Jenatsch. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . October 16, 2013 , accessed June 12, 2019 .
  4. ^ City of Chur ( Memento from June 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 25, 2015 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rtr.ch
  6. ↑ Manuel Janosa: The exhumation of Jörg Jenatsch in 1959 . In: Bündner Monatsblatt , 5/2010
  7. ↑ NZZ
  8. ↑ Urs Willmann: Jörg Jenatsch: It is him! Probably. In 1639, the Bündner freedom hero Jörg Jenatsch was murdered in a pub attack and buried the same day in the cathedral in Chur. But to this day, archaeologists argue whether his body is actually there. A new study by the University of Zurich is now providing clarity . Die Zeit (online), January 23, 2017
  9. ↑ Brigit Weibel: DNA test cannot solve Jenatsch puzzles . Swiss television , October 25, 2012
  10. ↑ Everything the same with Jenatsch . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , October 25, 2012
  11. ↑ Simone Rau: file number JJ unsolved - still further . In: Tages-Anzeiger , October 25, 2012
  12. ↑ on this and the following: in detail in Head, 2012 (see above: literature) pp. 208–211
  13. ^ Head, p. 211
  14. ↑ Louis Vulliemin: History of the Confederates during the 16th and 17th centuries , 3 parts. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1844 (German translation from French)
  15. ↑ 2nd part of the book on Google Books
  16. ↑ Head, p. 214 ff.
  17. ^ Head, p. 233
  18. ↑ on this and the following: Head, p. 233 ff.
  19. ^ Head, p. 241 ff.
  20. ↑ Universal Edition ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.universaledition.com
personal data
SURNAME Jenatsch, Jörg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jenatsch, Juerg; Jenatsch, Georg; Genatsch, Gieri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss Protestant pastor, politician and military leader in Graubünden
DATE OF BIRTH 1596
PLACE OF BIRTH Lohn or Upper Engadine
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1639
Place of death Chur