'A Winter´s Tale 2016' (Exposé)

Exposé A Winter´s Tale 2016

'A Winter´s Tale 2016' is a protest song that calls for resistance to populist and authoritarian movements in Europe and especially in Germany.

An important source of inspiration was 'Germany. A Winter´s Tale' (Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen) by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). Heine´s poem is set in the 'Vormärz Period' in Europe (1830-1848), a time of political oppression during which liberal intellectuals had to go underground. Heine, who was in exile in France for a long time, was affected because his works were banned or censored in Germany.

The title of the poem alludes to Shakespeare´s A Winter´s Tale (1610) in which a tyrant loses all he values and loves through his despotic rule and only regains a blissful existence after undergoing a long period of intense suffering and repentance. In Heine´s poem this happy ending is echoed in the utopia of a life without hardship in a liberal society which the speaker envisions. Fueled by the freedom movements which were inspired by the July Revolution in France in 1830, the speaker is carried away by his enthusiasm and his optimism in the last stanzas of the first chapter.

In contrast to its sources, 'A Winter´s Tale 2016' describes the current political situation in Germany and Europe. In the manner of the medieval genre of the 'complaint' the speaker laments that the established liberal society founded on the rule of law is called into question and threatened by populist movements. He identifies a pertinent sense of anxiety – about immigration, globalization and potential impoverishment - as the cause of the popularity of these movements. Fueled by agitators, it has spread like a pandemic among sections of the population. For the speaker this in turn is the cause of great concern and fear for the future.

In analogy with the dream vision in Dante´s Divine Comedy (1307-1321) an adviser figure appears. It is meant to embody the Heinrich Heine of the first chapter of 'Germany. A Winter´s Tale'. He calls on the speaker to think for himself and thus refers to the maxim of the Enlightenment proclaimed by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. ¹ His advice to defend democracy and the rule of law ('defend the rule of law passionately, it´s the guardian spirit of freedom'), because only this system of government guarantees civil rights and human rights, springs from his own experience, but is also the lesson Europeans should have learned from the dictatorships of the 20^th century, in particular in Germany, but also in Austria, Nazi-occupied France, Italy, Poland and others. As a child of his times the Heine persona is not expected to analyse the situation in its complexity, but rather to act as the vehicle of the vision and to draw attention to the essential by means of his moral authority.

Newly alert, the speaker remembers that freedom is the basis for a peaceful well-functioning society. Thus, consulting one´s own mind with its store of experience and with its ability to take one step back and to perceive a situation from various points of view proves to be an essential first move.² Letting oneself be carried away by a deceptive sense of community, on the other hand, is tantamount to giving up one´s self-determination.

The tribute of 'A Winter´s Tale 2016' to great authors who stand for Christian humanist values implies a complete rejection of the appropriation of occidental culture by right-wing movements in Europe.

 

1 He propounded it in his famous essay 'Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?' from 1784, which

became the foundation of a great European philosophical traditon.

2In his article on research about group identity and perception Martin Kolmar underlines that universal human rights cannot take effect without people distancing themselves from their emotions (Martin Kolmar, 'Wider das Bauchgefühl.', Die Zeit, 21/12/2016)