Contemporary Reactions to ‘1848’ by Writers and Intellectuals

Abstract

The title of my essay is problematic in two ways, both in relation to the intellectuals and to the year. It is true that 1848 was a key year in Swiss history, but it also marks the end of a long period of intellectual, political and armed confrontation. In this respect, statements about this threshold year also relate to the whole historical process which preceded it. There is some justification in saying that the first half of the century was devoted to preparing what shaped the second half. Nonetheless, what Max Frisch’s character Stiller noted a century later in prison is still appropriate. Stiller, who had left Switzerland because of the pettiness of the country, returned after a few years inspired by a feeling which can only be rendered by the old-fashioned word ‘homesickness’, with a false passport and a false name as Mr White, in disguise, as it were. For him, ‘the last great and genuinely real period’ for Switzerland were ‘die sogenannten achtundvierziger Jahre. Damals hatten sie einen Entwurf. Damals wollten sie, was es zuvor noch nie gegeben hatte, und freuten sich auf das Morgen, das Übermorgen. Damals hatte die Schweiz eine geschichtliche Gegenwart.’¹