Ursula (story)

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Ursula is a story by Gottfried Keller . It appeared in the context of the Zurich novellas in 1877.

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The traveler Hansli Gyr returned from Lombardy to his home on Lake Zurich in 1523 and was shocked to discover that the sectarian character of Anabaptism had spread here and completely changed the neighboring girl Ursula, whom he had wanted to marry for a long time. So Ursula offers him her love as soon as he returns, as if a proper marriage and wedding were no longer necessary. In the house of Ursula's father, the farmer Enoch Schnurrenberger, who also adheres to the new faith, his friends meet and are introduced in their enthusiastic speeches of the imminent kingdom of God on earth, in which they vehemently oppose the new Zurich authorities and their head, the reformer Huldrych Zwingli , go out. Hans Gyr only draws one conclusion from this: that he has to find out what Zwingli is doing in Zurich, whom he got to know and appreciate as a field preacher in the battle of Marignano . He becomes a partisan of Zwingli, who fights the Reislauf, but is ready to defend and implement his Reformation by force of arms. When the Anabaptists were arrested and locked up in Zurich, Hans Gyr helped them to escape because he was sorry for the confused Ursula, who in the end no longer recognized him but took him for the angel Gabriel . Later he takes part in the first Müsserkrieg and tries to maintain discipline and order with the Zurich servants, which is why they lure him into an inn and get him drunk. The sight of the beautiful fresco that waits for him beguiles him, he follows her inside the house - but there he discovers a ring on her finger that looks like the one he once put on Ursula and which she rejected. Freska tells him that she has been given to a man who has lived as a bandit and is in prison as a hit man. Hans Gyr remembers Ursula ruefully: Freska is loyal to a bandit, but he wanted to forget a girl who was nothing more than religiously confused! He returns home, where there is great unrest: The Kappel War breaks out between the Reformed and the Old Believer cantons . When Ursula hears that her fiancé is back and is recruiting men for the campaign, the confusion falls away, she equips herself with provisions, goes after the army and hides between the roots of an old beech tree in the forest. The main Catholic force breaks through this forest and completely defeats the Zurich armed forces. Zwingli's death is described, Hans Gyr, walking backwards in battle, fell into a ditch and lies stunned at the bottom. There Ursula tracks him down and saves him with the help of two Catholic men who help bring him to a monastery. Hans Gyr and Ursula Schnurrenberger become a couple, and "for about two hundred years" their "descendants lived on the well-tended farm that was named the Gyrenhof."

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With Ursula , Keller has erected a memorial in his hometown, which made him its state clerk and thereby remedied his constant material need, in which he clearly speaks out in favor of Zwingli's state-supporting Zurich Reformation and the Anabaptists as amiable originals, but also as Confused represents. To a large extent, the story reports historical facts from the Müsser and Second Kappel Wars, mentions the iconoclasm of 1525 and in this way introduces a good introduction to an era that became fundamental for today's Zurich . The establishment of numerous Anabaptists in the heretic tower as well as their enigmatic liberation, in popular belief by an angel, is also historical. Despite the partially didactic aim of the text, Keller's poetic ability shines again and again, for example in the grotesquely exaggerated conversion speeches of the Anabaptists, but also in the profound introduction:

When the religions turn, it is as when the mountains open; between the great magic snakes, golden dragons and crystal spirits of the human mind that rise to the light, all the ugly tatzelworms and the army of rats and mice emerge. This was also the case in the north-eastern parts of Switzerland during the first Reformation ...

- or when he describes Zwingli's death on the battlefield, ignoring all the ugly side effects:

He had not struck, but had only stood manly in the ranks of his own to tolerate what was meant for them. He had sunk several times when the flight began and had risen again until a blow on and through the helmet held him on and on Mother Earth. The setting sun shone on his face, which was still firm and peaceful; it seemed to testify to him that after all he had done right after all and administered his office as a hero. Like the great golden world host of the purified Lord's Supper, the star hovered over the earth for a last moment and lured the eye of the prostrate man over to heaven.

swell

For the historical part of the novella, Keller drew primarily from two sources:

  • Melchior Schuler: deeds and customs of the confederates . Volume 2, Friedrich Schulthess, Zurich 1838, including the chapter “The Anabaptists”, p. 64 ff
  • Johann Caspar Mörikofer: Ulrich Zwingli according to the documented sources . S. Hirzel, Leipzig, 1867/69

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