National myths of Switzerland

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The Landsgemeinde as the source of Switzerland's direct democratic tradition. Paintings by Albert Welti and Wilhelm Balmer . (1907–12), Council of States Chamber in the Federal Palace in Bern (detail).

The national myth (in the sense of a “narrative with a collective, meaningful and identity-creating potential”) of Switzerland is often referred to as “ perpetual neutrality ” (also “perpetual armed neutrality ”); in addition, the “ direct democracy ”, the “ humanitarian tradition ”, the Swiss Reduit and the willingness to defend themselves in the Second World War, in some cases also more sophisticated institutions such as the Swiss franc , (former) banking secrecy , the federal railways and the (former institutions) Post and Swissair which are understood as expressing “national” characteristics such as punctuality or stability .

The national founding myths are the historiographical legends of the origins and growth of the Old Confederation in the 14th century, especially the legend of the Rütli oath and William Tell . The “national myth” also includes the role of the Alps (“Alpine myth” ) and self-perception as a “peasant nation” or as a “shepherd people” influenced by the Alps .

In the political discourse in the early 20th century, the concept of “national myth” had a positive connotation as a basis for national identity to be cultivated; It was often emphasized that as a “ nation of will ” (as opposed to an ethnically homogeneous nation state ), Switzerland is even more dependent than other states on the unifying effect of national myths. Since the 1960s, however, the term has mostly been used critically or disparagingly, for errors from the realm of "myths and legends" that need to be deconstructed . The term “myth” is thus politically charged today; anyone who calls something a "myth" wants to expose it as unrealizable or as fiction.

Liberation tradition

See also: Rütli oath , origins and growth of the Old Confederation

The tradition of liberation had a long history of impact in the Old Confederation , since the 16th century in its traditional form of the Rütli oath of the three confederates, the apple shot and tyrannicide by Wilhelm Tell and the subsequent rebellion ( broken castles ) against the Lords of Habsburg and the confrontation near Morgarten (1315). In all of these narratives historical events are mixed with the creation of legends .

Not actually part of the liberation tradition or the «founding myth», but nevertheless often perceived as «national myths», are stories about the development of the eight-town Confederation (1353–1481), beginning with Winkelried's self-sacrifice in the battle of Sempach (1386), next to the battle at St. Jakob an der Birs (1444) and episodes from the Burgundian Wars (1474–1477).

Early modern reception

The written tradition of the founding of the Confederation began in the 15th century. The tradition of liberation was first fully recorded in writing in the White Book of Sarnen of 1470 and at that time it had already played an important role as an identity-creating narrative of origin for the Old Confederation, which was further developed in the early 16th century in a culture of remembrance such as the Tell Games or the Tell Chapel .

The dreizehnörtige Confederation looked after the Reformation to the eight old places back as a lost era of unity. In the 17th century, the disagreement between Catholic and Reformed places was often deplored as a sign of decadence and decline and calls for a return to the unity of the old confederates. So in Johann Caspar Weissenbach's Eydtgnossisch Contrafeth- Auff und Abnemmender Jungfrawen Helvetiae of 1672 (at the same time the first use of the allegorical female figure Helvetia ), which contrasts the virtuous ascent of the «Jungfrau Helvetia» with her decadence as a result of the Reformation. Thus, the encounter Abnemmende Helvetiae the fourth act the figures Atheysmus and Politicus and abandoned by their old virtues. In the last scene, Christ appears to punish the foolish virgin, but at the request of Our Lady and Brother Klaus , the repentant sinner is forgiven.

Reception in the 19th century

Johannes von Müller processed traditional historiography in his Stories of the Swiss Confederation (1786–1806).

Von Müller's work was very influential during the Restoration and Regeneration Period (1814–1848), when Switzerland was looking for a new, modern identity, including the new French-speaking cantons.

Von Müller's stories were limited to the Old Confederation up to the Swabian War of 1499. Later historians such as Robert Glutz von Blotzheim and Johann Jakob Hottinger in German-speaking Switzerland and Louis Vuillemin and Charles Monnard in French -speaking Switzerland translated or expanded von Müller's work, with the aim of making it coherent national history for the territory and population of Switzerland after 1848.

Von Müller was replaced by the history of the Swiss Confederation by Johannes Dierauer (1887–1917, with extensions until 1974). The duration remains v. a. because of its extensive critical apparatus still a standard work today.

In addition to the construction of a national history by academic historians, there are influential works of "popular history", namely by Heinrich Zschokke and André Daguet .

The focus of both academic and popular histories in the 19th century was on the earlier history of the Confederation, from the founding period and the phase of growth in the late Middle Ages to the Reformation in the 16th century. On the other hand, early modernism (17th and 18th centuries) .) viewed as a rather uninteresting period of stagnation.

The figure of William Tell played a particularly ambivalent role at this time : William Tell was already celebrated as the embodiment of the tyrant murderer by the French Revolution and the elite of the hated Helvetic Republic. Tell's role in the French Revolution goes back to a play by Antoine-Marin Lemierre (1766). The Helvetic Republic used Tell as its symbol, including on the state seal.

Schiller's Wilhelm Tell (1804) was criticized by contemporaries because it refused to take a political position in favor of the French Revolution, but it was precisely for this reason that it found a grateful reception in Switzerland after 1815 and contributed to "rehabilitating" Tell as a Swiss national hero (inauguration in 1859 des Schillerstein , dedicated to the singer Tell ).

The Unspunnen Festival , an alpine shepherd festival that was held for the first time in 1805 (after the end of the Helvetic Republic) near Unspunnen Castle near Interlaken , played an important role in the development of an “alpine” identity in modern Switzerland . The Unspunnen Festival was inspired by four aristocratic Bernburgers , i.e. members of the Bernese patriciate : first of all, the mayor Niklaus Friedrich von Mülinen (1760–1833), who had commanded soldiers from the Bernese Oberland in 1798 in the battle against the advancing Napoleonic troops .

The Unspunnen Festival of 1805 was announced in the Moniteur Universel in Paris and in the non-profit Swiss news , where co-initiator Wagner described the festival idea as follows: «After the long years of dictation and humiliation by the French, the Swiss people should once again have the opportunity to enjoy the festivities Swiss fighting games and songs should strengthen self-esteem and national awareness. "

The Bernese Oberland supporters of the Helvetic, the so-called patriots, criticized the undertaking with a rural festival "out of that love for the old folk customs also the newly sprouting flower of their conservative aristocracy should be watered". The Bern government closely followed the political machinations of these patriots, who took the position that the city of Bern wanted “basically nothing more than the restoration of the old relations of rule”.

According to the organizers, the Unspunnen Festival should have a mediating function; The dialect writer Rudolf von Tavel , also a Bernese patrician, gave testimony to this in his work Unspunnen : here an educated government that exercises its self-evident political and economic leadership role for the benefit of the entire Bernese region, there a hard-working population that works from the kitchen sent the field to the battlefield and obediently fulfills their role also for the benefit of the entire Bernese country.

The planned annual repetition did not take place. It was not until 1808 that a second Unspunnen festival was launched in memory of the legendary Rütli oath of 1307. When the third edition began to be organized in 1905, the intention was on the one hand to be touristy, as the festival was expressly celebrated 100 years of tourism and set the date to be June 24th to 27th in order to liven up the season. On the other hand, in the course of the 19th century a new, almost in contrast to the class nationalism of the patricians, a bourgeois nationalism had established itself: The Federal Rifle Club, Federal Gymnastics Association, Federal Singers' Association and Federal Wrestling Club were first in line in 1905 when the Unspunnen Festival was under the affiche VI. Swiss Wrestling and Alpine Festival went off successfully.

Neutrality and Reduit

The Swiss neutrality is regarded as self-chosen , permanent and armed . In its modern form it goes back to the Congress of Vienna of 1814/1815. The Geneva politician Charles Pictet de Rochemont campaigned for a neutral Switzerland at the Congress of Vienna . The tradition of the Confederation's foreign policy neutrality goes back to the Italian Wars , and in particular to the Battle of Marignano (1515), de facto the last military conflict in which the Confederation was a party. A call for foreign policy neutrality (which, however, was only obeyed after Marignano) is already attributed to Niklaus von Flüe (1417–1487), in the wording "do not get involved in foreign deals".

The modern return to Marignano as the starting point of the policy of neutrality has its roots in the history of Swiss neutrality published in 1895 by the Zurich state archivist and history professor Paul Schweizer. Schweizer's thesis was further developed by Edgar Bonjour , whose nine-volume history of Swiss neutrality , published from 1946 to 1975, had a formative effect for a long time. The continuity constructed in this way between Marignano and the present at that time was presented by later historians as an " invented tradition ".

The practical implementation of military neutrality took place in the 19th and 20th centuries through the so-called "border occupation" in military conflicts near Swiss territory. B. 1866, 1871, see also Savoy trade (1859/1860). The last border occupation took place at the beginning of the Second World War. Later in the war, the border occupation was supplemented in the form of the Réduit strategy . In the meantime, the return to this has already been located as a "myth" intended to divert attention from the collaboration with Nazi Germany.

Intellectual national defense

In the course of the spiritual national defense , an important conservative-anti-fascist movement against the annexation of Switzerland to the Third Reich , the "national myths" were given special weight. An example of this is the film Landammann Stauffacher . General Henri Guisan referred to the tradition of liberation when he called the officers' roll call, known as the Rütli Report , on the legendary founding site of the Swiss Confederation, the Rütli .

Deconstruction after 1945

From the 1960s onwards, the public began to critically examine the traditional or popular view of Swiss history, which Max Frisch took up, for example, in his story Wilhelm Tell für die Schule (1971). Also in 1971, Otto Marchi portrayed the founding legends of the Rütli oath and Wilhelm Tell as unhistorical in Swiss History for Heretics .

In the 1990s, an “identity crisis” was noted in Switzerland, which emerged in the media, particularly in connection with the preparations for Expo 02 . As a result of decades of deconstruction of traditional images of history, since the 1980s, national manifestations such as a national exhibition could no longer be based on a broad consensus, but every statement on Swiss history seemed overshadowed by the cultural struggle between left or urban deconstruction and right-wing conservative or rural preservation of the traditional national self-perception. In doing so, however, the discourse moved away from the founding myths; instead he crystallized the “myths” of the “ nation of will ” on the one hand and that of the “ special case ” on the other. From a left-liberal point of view, the term “nation of will” was perceived as a positive, identity-creating myth that could be carried over into a future multicultural society , while the “ myth of the special case ” was criticized as an expression of an “outdated self- image of the post-war period”.

In the late 1990s, the concept of Swissness was finally coined, which could well contain traditional elements of national self-perception or identity, but which, as a pseudo-Anglicist neologism, gave them a "trendy" look that freed them from suspicion of old-fashioned patriotism. The political meaning of the term is described by the Zurich historian Jakob Tanner as integrating the national Swiss symbols into the “global competition”. "Swissness" is the opposite of the political catchphrase of the "special case of Switzerland", which is characterized by a complex of threats and fear of foreign infiltration .

The rise of the national-conservative Swiss People's Party also fell in the 1990s (from 11.9% of the vote in 1991 to 26.8% in 2003 ). Their opponents also portrayed this as a reaction to the “identity crisis” and the “insecurity” it triggered in the population.

The old work of the retired Medievalist Roger Sablonier , Founding time without Confederates (2008) is a summary of the results of half a century of critical examination of the founding legends of the Swiss Confederation through historical studies. Although the title suggests that historians of Sablonier's generation continue to "enjoy smashing historical images of history that have long been outdated", the actual content of the work offers a relaxed overview of the situation in Central Switzerland around 1300 in the broader context of politics at the time.

In the election year 2015 , at the same time the anniversary year of Morgarten (1315), Marignano (1515) and the Congress of Vienna (1815), Blick diagnosed "a new historian's dispute about the myths of the Confederation, between the national conservative SVP and opponent Maissen". Thomas Maissen is the author of Swiss hero stories - and what is behind them , in which, in 15 chapters, a quote from SVP exponents Christoph Blocher and Ueli Maurer on "national myths" is critically examined.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ z. B. Eszter Pabis: Switzerland as a narrative: national and narrative identity constructions in Max Frisch's Stiller, Wilhelm Tell for the school and service booklet , Peter Lang (2010), p. 171 .
  2. ↑ "But the term [‹ humanitarian tradition ›] is more of a myth than a historical reality." The renaissance of the humanitarian tradition , Swissinfo, August 26, 2006. Balz Spörri: Generous to yourself. The myth of the humanitarian tradition: Switzerland wanted above all to benefit from the refugees. In: Sunday newspaper , August 7, 2006.
  3. ^ Swiss francs: Jakob Tanner: Gold parity in the Gotthard state: National myths and the stability of the Swiss franc in the 1930s and 40s. In: Studien und Quellen 26 (2000), 45–81. Banking secrecy: Daniel Woker: Terminology and Reality. Myths and their justification , Journal21, February 10, 2015.
  4. ^ R. Bernhard: The alpine myth of Switzerland yesterday, today and tomorrow. New Helvetic Society (2011)
  5. ↑ «The Myth of the Alteidg. The struggle for freedom occupied an important place and became the base of a historical national understanding, i. H. an idea of ​​Switzerland shaped by the course of history. That of Habsburg comes from this time. Nobility meant negatively and from the Federal. Confederation positively reinterpreted designation of the peasant nation (shepherd people) also claimed by the urban bourgeoisie. " Georg Kreis: Nation. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . J. Jetzer: The origin of the alpine myth. ( Memento from April 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: NZZ, March 11, 2006.
  6. ↑ Can a people do without the national myth? , We Swiss, our neutrality and the war , collective publication, Zurich 1915 (Richard Fritz Walter Behrendt: Switzerland and imperialism: the economy of the high capitalist small state in the age of political and economic nationalism , 1932, p. 145). Wilhelm Tell (or the adaptation of Tell material for the stage) as a “national myth”: Das Schweizer Drama, 1914–1944 , Yearbook of the Society for Swiss Theater Culture (1944), p. 88.
  7. ^ The constitutional and international law expert Carl Hilty formulated the new creed in a text from 1875 as follows: "We have a strong will to be a nation." The legal scholar Johann Caspar Bluntschli , who taught in Heidelberg, demanded at the same time that Switzerland must give itself an explanation of itself, otherwise it would be endangered. This created a paradox: in order to be a nation, one arrived at a definition that did not correspond to the nationality principle of the time. Federal Councilor Jakob Stämpfli already stated in the 1860s: "If the principle of nationality were recognized, the existence of Switzerland would be destroyed." Feelings of threat are also expressed here. Switzerland countered with a double strategy: on the one hand, with the self-confident upgrading of historical images, on the other hand, with a rapid development of the economy. Jakob Tanner: Switzerland is a divided nation. In: Magazin 3/11 (2011), p. 38.
  8. ↑ Praise for the will to distance themselves from “hypocritical Alpine wreath romance and heroic patriotism and fake national festive pathos” of the designers of the Swiss Path . - Heinz Ochsenbein, Peter Stähli: Way of Switzerland. Expo 1964. Haupt, Bern 1969, p. 18 (= Swiss home books , 127–129). Swiss neutrality as a “national myth”: François Da Pozzo: Elements of the Swiss political system as reflected in international political science. Francke, Bern 1977, p. 134. A "myth" about the battle of Sempach: Heinrich Thommen: The battle of Sempach in the image of posterity. Lehrmittelverlag, Lucerne 1986, ISBN 3-271-00009-3 .
  9. ↑ "Anyone who calls the Réduit or even direct democracy a myth wants to expose these variables as fictions and make it clear that they were or are not realizable." P. Rusterholz and E. Facon in: Swiss peculiarity, peculiar Switzerland: the small state in the field of forces of European integration. 1996, p. 293. "The gap, the balancing act, between the institutional regulations and the factual relationships is covered by national myths such as neutrality, independence, sovereignty, etc." E. Schmid in: A constitution for the European Union: Contributions to a fundamental and current discussion , Springer-Verlag (2013), p. 368 .
  10. ↑ Ulrich Im Hof : From the Chronicles of the Old Confederation to the New “History of Switzerland - and the Swiss” (2006) pp. 16–22.
  11. ↑ Im Hof ​​(2005), p. 18.
  12. ^ Rudolf Gallati and Christoph Wyss (eds.): Unspunnen 1805-2005. The history of the Alpine Shepherd Festival. New edition, Tourist Museum of the Jungfrau Region, Unterseen-Interlaken 2005, ISBN 3-9521339-1-4 . Martin Sebastian: Unspunnenfest 1805 until today. Stone throwing, swinging, traditional costume dance, folklore, tourism, Swiss history. Self-published, Dübendorf 2006, ISBN 3-9523162-0-2 .
  13. ↑ Andreas Suter: Neutrality. Principle, Practice and Awareness of History . In: A little history of Switzerland . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1998, ISBN 3-518-12079-4 , pp. 163 .
  14. ^ Edgar Bonjour: History of Swiss Neutrality: Four Centuries of Federal Foreign Policy . Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel 1965–1976 (9 volumes).
  15. ↑ Andreas Suter: Neutrality. Principle, Practice and Awareness of History . In: A little history of Switzerland . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1998, ISBN 3-518-12079-4 , pp. 167 .
  16. ↑ Markus Somm: General Guisan. Swiss Art Resistance . Verlag Stämpfli, Bern 2010. Jürg Fink, Switzerland from the perspective of the Third Reich , 1985. At the end of the 20th century, the opinion that neutral Switzerland should not become a member of international organizations like the UN was - in a negative sense - as Branded expression of the “reduit thinking”. Federal Councilor Leuenberger in December 2001 ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2010 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.uvek.admin.ch
  17. ↑ Max Frisch : Wilhelm Tell for the school . With old illustrations. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1971, ISBN 978-3-518-36502-1 .
  18. ↑ At that time the legend of William Tell had long been recognized as unhistorical; For the first time by Melchior Goldast (1607), and to a greater extent by Simeon Uriel Freudenberger (1760), Tell was recognized as a local expression of a " Danish fable ".
  19. ↑ «A whole series of significant developments and events had shaken the traditional self-image of the country in the 80s and 90s. The formation of the EU, globalization and the end of the Cold War presented the country with new challenges. The growing contradictions between the generations, the individual parts of the country and between urban and rural areas created uncertainty. In addition, the new look at the history of Switzerland in the Second World War destroyed the myth of the defensive and independent small state. The heroic historical image of Switzerland that was staged at the diamond celebrations of 1989, as well as the historical understanding of a continuous development of the special case of Switzerland, which had been conjured up in 1939, 1964 and even 1991, could no longer be maintained. [...] In addition, a large part of the Swiss treasure trove of myths, especially the image of heroic Switzerland, which always defended its independence and freedom, no longer played a role in the discourse on the genesis of the latest national exhibition. Only the myth of the willing nation and the Swiss special case were discussed. While the myth of the special case reflected the outdated self-image of the post-war period and was accordingly criticized, the idea of ​​the willing nation embodied the modern, efficient, cosmopolitan and creative Switzerland that the organizers of the most recent national exhibition wanted to show at the beginning of the third millennium. The idea of ​​the nation of will was perceived as an identity-creating myth that embodied the present and future as well as historical tradition, without paying homage to the principle of the traditional special case. " Andreas Müller: Expo.nentielle Imagi.nation: The media discussion on the history of the origins of Expo.02 (1993–2002). A contribution to the historical culture of remembrance and the identity debate in Switzerland in the 1990s (2005).
  20. ↑ Hannes Nussbaumer: Revive or dispose of the special case? Tages-Anzeiger, December 6, 2007, p. 53 , archived from the original on October 10, 2012 ; Retrieved May 17, 2011 .
  21. ↑ "In this situation, the national right was able to successfully occupy historical terrain that had been represented as the core of the Swiss nation for decades and that had been upgraded with a lot of federal money." Jakob Tanner: Switzerland is a divided nation. In: Magazin 3/11 (2011), 38–42. Thomas Maissen: « Helvetic Myths : Backward into the Future. For politicians who like to refer to Helvetic myths, 2015 is a dream year: Marignano, Morgarten and the Congress of Vienna are celebrating their anniversary. But the hero stories are hardly suitable as recipes for current problems. " March 16, 2015. "The SVP has not only inherited this percentage of votes [from the CVP], but also the corresponding historical image, in which the medieval fictions are more important than the Welschen and Ticinese, who were equal partners in 1803 and 1815."
  22. ↑ «Royal privileges played an important role in central Switzerland, where there was no longer any intermediate ducal power after the Hohenstaufen dynasty. In addition, constant dynasty changes since 1291, especially the double election of 1314, accelerated the development of the imperial immediacy of original Switzerland. [...] The thought that the imperial bailiwick, which was then emerging, had inspired the idea of ​​a common imperial freedom of the three countries, but only documented for Schwyz, is captivating. [...] As plausible or at least worthy of discussion much in this book, Sablonier's endeavors to present important documents as younger than their date suggests appear to me as helpless and unthought. " A. Meyer: Review (sehepunkte.de)
  23. ↑ Stefan Bergen: New battle for old Swiss battles . In the election year, a debate broke out over the interpretation of Tell, Marignano and Reduit. Federal Councilor Berset calls for an agreement. The historian Thomas Maissen, however, pleads for the open dispute over the national conservative view of history of the SVP. Berner Zeitung, March 21, 2015.