National hero
As a national hero is called people that are part of the political myth of a nation are.
The myth of a person idealized as a national hero serves to personalize the story . In this way, the complexity of historical and political processes is hidden from the historical image of a society and reduced to a few factors. The appeal to a national hero creates the impression of a historical tradition and continuity, "so that the present is seen as the result of the achievement of the mythically transfigured person". The story of national heroes, like other political myths, thus fulfills a meaningful function for the community. As “educators of the whole people”, the national heroes, with their stylized role models and their historical achievements, should offer the members of the nation an orientation for action.
Examples
Well-known examples of national heroes are William Wallace in Scotland, Jeanne d'Arc in France and William Tell in Switzerland.
In Germany , the stylization of Arminius as the national hero Hermann the Cheruscan and Siegfried the Dragon Slayer is one of the important elements in the development of a German national and national consciousness since the early modern period . In the 19th century, the growing national movement used well-known people from German history to celebrate festivals and inaugurate monuments in honor of these people. Cultural and historical events were given national political significance. The most famous example is the construction of the Hermann Monument in honor of Arminius from 1838. The Gutenberg Festival in Mainz in 1837, the inauguration of monuments for Schiller in Stuttgart in 1839, for Dürer in Nuremberg in 1840 or for Bach in Leipzig in 1843, at which the bourgeois classes could present themselves as a national society, play a similar role .
For the French nation, especially in the late 19th century, the legendary Gaul chief Vercingetorix assumed a role similar to that of “Hermann the Cheruscan” for the Germans .
For several South American countries, the independence fighters Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín are considered national heroes. In many countries the founding fathers and deserving politicians and government leaders are also considered national heroes, for example in the United States .
Sometimes there are also local heroes who are mostly folkloric, such as the blacksmith von Kochel in Bavaria and Till Eulenspiegel in northern Germany .
In some countries, a national hero is or was also the name for an order of merit (see Held der DDR ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heidi Hein-Kircher : Politische Mythen , in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 11-2007, pp. 26–31, here p. 27.
- ↑ Hein-Kircher, p. 30.
- ↑ Otto Dann : Nation und Nationalismus in Deutschland 1770–1990, Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-34086-5 , here p. 42.
- ^ Then 1996, pp. 119f.