Switzerland in the Eighteenth Century: Myth and Reality

Uwe Hentschel. Mythos Schweiz. Zum deutschen literarischen Philhelvetismus zwischen 1700 und 1850 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2002). Pp. 242.

Brian Norman. The Influence of Switzerland on the life and writings of Edward Gibbon (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002). SVEC 2002:3. Pp 76.

Although different in purpose and scope, these two studies can be seen as complementing each other. Both describe how Swiss life was viewed from outside. As the subtitle of his study indicates, Uwe Hentschel deals with the well known phenomenon of German enthusiasm for Switzerland. On the basis of more than 500 travel reports and journal articles, he reconstructs the emergence and development of the idea that republican Switzerland, which was sometimes compared to the "Elysium" or the "golden age," had preserved a morally superior way of life amidst the European monarchies. Impressed by the sublime Alps, the idyllic life of the inhabitants and the heroic deeds of the old Swiss who had fought for their liberty, German travelers constructed the image of a refuge, onto which they frequently projected their own expectations and hopes. Hentschel argues that the "Swiss myth" became the mechanism through which the Germans intellectually came to terms with the process of social and political modernization, which, he claims, oscillated between romantic conservatism and a belief in progress.

The book is divided into four main sections. The first one covers the period from 1700 to 1770 and deals mostly with Swiss writers, like Haller, Gessner, and Rousseau. Hentschel claims that the Swiss themselves initiated and promoted this idealized image of Swiss life as a means of providing contrast with the growing corruption of the ruling elites in their own republics. The intriguing aspect of the story consists in the fact that Germans saw these idealizations as realistic accounts of actual Swiss life. How the various elements of the image drawn by Swiss writers were used to compose a complex myth is discussed in the second main section of the book, which extends from 1770 to 1798. It first deals with travel reports of various German visitors (Goethe among them). It then takes into account how the writings of Haller, Gessner, and Rousseau were used as travel guides and in this way prefigured the perceptions of the visitors. In the third place Hentschel analyses the elements of the myth: the sublime of nature, natural simplicity and patriarchal life, the idyll of country life, and liberty. He also observes, however, that in the 1780s German travelers became more sensitive to the political tensions within Swiss society. Closer to the French Revolution the "Swiss myth" came for the first time under attack. Foreign observers commented on what was long known to the Swiss: that in aristocratic republics such as Berne and Zurich the democratic rights of the citizens, which were guaranteed by their old constitutions, were no longer respected. Critical accounts of aristocratic rule initiated a far-reaching debate about forms of government. While conservatives defended the aristocratic elites of Zurich and Berne, sympathizers of the French Revolution praised the democratic constitution of Appenzell. Both sides invoked elements of the myth to support their case.

In the third section of the book, which covers the period between the Helvetic Revolution (1798) and the Congress of Vienna (1815), Hentschel describes how the "Swiss myth" was re-interpreted in view of contemporary political events. Those who had already become skeptical about the image of a free, idyllic Switzerland saw themselves confirmed in their convictions by the liberation of subject territories such as the Pays de Vaud and the establishment of a central constitution (which was imposed by Napoleon). Those who continued to believe in the force of the myth praised the cantons of primitive Switzerland for their resistance against the new constitution. Many Germans perceived them as saviors of the "Swiss myth." However, when the Swiss accepted the so called act of mediation and promised their loyalty to the French in 1803, they were no longer...