Guillaume Tell

Guillaume Tell (in German Wilhelm Such ) is a Héros Mythes founders of Switzerland. He would have lived in the Canton of Uri at the beginning of the 14th century and would have rebelled against the Austrian Baillif which had defied it to draw a square from crossbow in a Pomme posed on the head of sound wire.

Account

According to the tradition, Guillaume Tell was old a Mercenaire, withdrawn in her mountains and known to be an expert in the handling of the crossbow.

At the time the emperor of Austria (a Habsbourg) sought to dominate the canton of Uri. Its Austrian governor, Hermann Gessler, lately named as a Baillif, set up a post on the central place of the village of Altdorf and hung his hat there, with an aim of obliging all the inhabitants to curve itself in front of his cover-chief, in order to put to the test honesty population.

However, Guillaume Tell spent one day with her son in front of the post capped without achieving the procedure required; decree, it continued to refuse to achieve this obligatory gesture. The baillif Gessler ordered to him, under penalty of setting with death, to bore of an arrow a Pomme posed on the head of his son, using his crossbow.

Guillaume Tell makes a success of her exploit and cut the fruit as of her first square without touching the child. But he says to the baillif that if he had killed his son in this attempt, he would have immediately drawn a second arrow on him. This comment insolate enragea Gessler which made stop and throw Guillaume Tell in prison at once. This one the Jura to be avenged. The baillif left then by ship for Austria with the prisoner, who escaped and killed it.

This heroic episode would have been at the origin of the rebellion of Swiss against the dukes of Austria, which led to the unification of the historical cantons and the Indépendance of the Suisse.

The myth

Its birth

The literary birth of the Mythe is discrete and hard. The White paper of Sarnen , the Ballade of Such or the Chronicle of Etterlin date from the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century and seem to be originating in the surroundings of the Lac of the Four-Cantons. All thus seems to initially locate the return of Guillaume Tell in her own country, where its memory had been deformed, idealized, but not lost. But this return to the sources is not the fruit of the chance. It comes to recall to an alpine world in full decline the time of successes. The myth becomes generating of courage in one moment of crisis and disillusion.

This myth is annexed soon by the cities of the low-country which is themselves partially responsible for the decline of the alpine areas. It is brought to assume two first of all function S. a function of gathering in an alliance where the confederal spirit is threatened by political particularisms, the economic interests and soon the denominational divergences. The second function of the myth is the moral Légitimation and policy of the Confederation compared to the Empire of which it forms part still formally. The myth goes here to the help of an ideal of independence.

In 1565 appears with Basle the heroes of the German nation of Henri Pantaléon. It revealed there side by side Guillaume Tell and the Danish gunner Toko which it discovered at Saxo Grammaticus. It is starting from this bringing together that is born at the 18th century and especially at the 19th century the doubt about the historical authenticity from the national Héros Switzerland. At the 16th century nevertheless the myth triumphs that it is in Suisse power station or in the others cantons of the Confederation.

At the 17th century and the 18th century

Two designs of Guillaume Tell dominate. The people in mystical and such a confused vision of the history see in him a man of the people which released the country of the oppressor formerly. The leading classes have a more political vision and see in him a rassemblor who highlights the political legitimacy of the Confederation.

Guillaume Tell moreover kept a total religious neutrality during this long period of interdenominational disputes. Its image is omnipresent on paintings, engravings and the other supports. At the 18th century the myth evolves/moves, Such becomes the rassemblor of the spirits, the catalyst of the national identity and the civic teacher. A mission which he exerts during all the 19th century and the 20th century.

At the end of the 18th century, Guillaume Tell was of course to take the head of the revolutionary movement in Switzerland. He is indeed the man of the people, the symbol of freedom against aristocratic oppression. The French revolutionists confiscate the hero: the Jacobins for example glorifient through the Such tyrannicide and justify the Terreur. It thus returns to Switzerland in 1798 in the luggage of the French Armies. The career of Such internationalizes with the publication in particular drama of Friedrich Schiller which enriches the intrigue by many additions and an universal value gives him.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Such is also asserted by various political parties and social movements, except undoubtedly the catholic conservatives returned to the capacity at the time of the Restoration. In 1835, Joseph Kopp, a scientist lucernois, puts his scholarship at the service of its “restored” government. It tries in a very detailed work to blame the veracity of all legends. Guillaume Tell finds a role with her measurement in 1848 with the advent of the Constitution and the Federal state where is felt the need to harden the national identity.

Authenticity of the hero questioned

Long was the argument of the historians around Such, of the authenticity of the gestures which the tradition allots to him and of the sources, but these polemics little touched however only the popular conscience. In spite of their scholarship, the historians do not have either escaped with the ideological, political and cultural prejudices of their time.

The doubt had been born at the 18th century, initially in the circles of critical rationalism inspired by Voltaire. Itself had remainder considered to be suspect the history of Guillaume Tell. In Switzerland, Pasteur Freidenberg denounces the “Danish fable publicly” (1760), whereas Lucernois Balthasar publishes a Défense of Guillaume Tell who ensures the success of her career and the thanks of the government uranais.

The argument reappears at the 19th century starting from the same arguments. They are the catholic conservatives who attack the hero; the liberal and radical historians take his defense. Meanwhile, historical science progressed also much. Influenced by the Positivisme, it rejects all that the documents cannot check materially and calls with the verdict of the Archives. It is with a great critical rigor which Kopp for example tries to show that nothing makes it possible to confirm the historical authenticity of Guillaume Tell. For many historians of this period, they are only fables and legends.

The people remain nevertheless not very sensitive to the arguments of the scientists. He continues to regale stories such as the son of Such , a history for youth (1846). Some historians preach nevertheless a more intuitive history, more imaginative and which announces already the nearest evolutions of historical science, where the absence of documents inevitably does not mean the historical absence of authenticity. The large historian bâlois Jacob Burckhardt in fact part. The argument continues during all the 19th century and at the 20th century. Guillaume Tell becomes thus a solar myth, then more recently it is attached to a remote Celtic tradition.

In any case, Guillaume Tell did not cease exciting the spirits like yesterday today. It constitutes a kind of implicit reference, always present and to which the Swiss ones can or want constantly refer, encouraged in this by the popularity of the character abroad. As long as the authenticity of the hero was not questioned, the myth kept a built, maintained and functional character. Such was guaranteeing independence, the defender of freedoms, the rassemblor of the people and the spokesperson of values whose Swiss ones were proud.

Character of legend

At the 19th century, the myth changes. The historical character is reduced to a character of legend. Guillaume Tell is désacralisé, but popular enthusiasm remains. In 1848, the new Confederation tests a need for legitimacy and identity. Such then becomes the symbol of an ancestral national identity. The myth remains indéracinable still today and the Swiss ones continue to show an attentive and passion sensitivity towards their hero, in spite of the hesitations of the historians and the irony of certain intellectuals. That seems to confirm the remarks of the Swiss historian Louis Vuillemin: “Such legend, accommodated by the nation and become part of its existence, has more moral value, and acquired more importance than many materially noted facts. ”

There is no company which does not carry out of time other a self-criticism, even when it is disillusioned and negative, to propose other ambitions and another ideal. As the myths are the privileged expression of the old ideal, they become inevitably targets. Guillaume Tell does not escape from it of course and especially since the end of the year 1960. The myth appearing nevertheless indestructible, it is not by its negation, but by its inversion which self-criticism was made in the national conscience. The perhaps most completed version reversed myth and also most subversive is the Guillaume Tell for the schools of max Frisch.

Rossini and Guillaume Tell

Friedrich von Schiller inspired the opera Guillaume Tell of Gioacchino Rossini, composed on a booklet of Victor-Joseph-Etienne de Jouy.

This opera, created with the royal Academy of music of Paris, is the last opera composed by Rossini. The opening that the Compositeur writes for work lasts approximately 12 minutes, but the melody of the last minutes is universally known and used in publicities, the episodes of the Looney Toones, in films of Disney like in the film Clockwork orange of Stanley Kubrick. It is inter alia the code of the Carrefour emission of Odéon, on France inter.

Guillaume Tell to date remains the longest opera in a part never made up, since it lasts nearly seven hours when it is played completely (the Tetralogy of Wagner can, it, to reach the seventeen hours, but it is made several operas). If it constitutes the masterpiece of Rossini indisputably, its world famous is assured mainly by its opening like its second act and its ballets, in particular very famous “the step of six”.

The only opening of the type-setter who competes with that of Guillaume Tell is that of his most popular opera, the Barber of Seville .

Other novels inspired of Guillaume Tell

The drama of Schiller was used as inspiration with many posterior authors with this one.

In Spain, it was used as inspiration with the historical drama of Antonio Gil there Zárate Guillermo Such . Later, Eugeni d' Ors will also publish in 1926 its work Guillermo Such .

Guillaume Tell in Cartoon

The 9 volumes of the Aventures of Guillaume Tell are appeared between 1984 and 1994. The scenario writer is always the same one, Rene Wuillemin, but two draftsmen follow one another: Carlo Trinco, for the first two episodes, then Gilbert Macé. The 9 episodes are: One stole the pact (1984), the mercenary council of Roy (1985), Polar in Gothard (1986), the extraordinary mystery " c" (1987), Rocvache (1988), Shock-Born (1990), Rotten files (1991), Euroka (1993) and In the thousand (1994). While taking again legendary characters of the Swiss history, the albums take as a starting point Swiss or international facts political contemporary.

Guillaume Tell with the Theater

Guillaume Tell of Friedrich Schiller (1804)
the Death of the Baillif Gessler of Alexis Ragougneau (2006)

Guillaume Tell with the Cinema

Wilhelm Such of Karl Hartl (CH, 1960), adapted Guillaume Tell of Friedrich Schiller

Numismatics

Guillaume Tell is represented on the parts of 5 Swiss francs. image

See too

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