| Events & News - 01.07.2008 09:25 |
Hofer conference: the lectures |
Between 5 and 6 September at the Touriseum, 13 contributors will be addressing the topic of Andreas Hofer and the effects of the Tyrolean struggle for freedom on tourism. Here is a brief description of the lectures and contributors. |
1. The sacred country: Andreas Hofer and Castle Tyrol in visitors’ books and travellers’ accounts
After the 1809 uprising (“Anno Neun”), Castle Tyrol, the “second family seat of the Habsburgs”, becomes a patriotic monument. Several of the old warhorses that formed Andreas Hofer’s “old guard” are found employment as “castle officers” or as porters in the castle. At the same time, Meran develops from a rural backwater into a health resort: for any patriotically-minded (or simply curious) visitors to the spa, a visit to the two national shrines of the Sandwirt Inn in the Passeier Valley and Castle Tyrol is a must. The visitors’ books of Castle Tyrol, which officially date back to 1832, reflect the history of the “Pre-March Era”, the blossoming Andreas Hofer myth and of “liberation struggle tourism” with a pertinence that one looks for in vain in other sources. In addition, these visits become a topos in the travel literature of the time, which substantially contributes to the strengthening of the resonance of the Hofer myth.
Speaker: Siegfried de Rachewiltz, Director of the South Tyrolean Museum for Cultural and National History, Castle Tyrol.
2. Andreas Hofer - A historical image for young people and South Tyrol
The Andreas Hofer myth has entered into youth literature - and with good reason: this topic was intended to provide boys with guidance during a period marked by radical social and political disruption (ca. 1860-1960). An analysis of industrialisation and secularisation should also determine what Hofer actually was: a model from the underclass for the underclass?
Speaker: Martin Steidl, SFB HIMAT at the University of Innsbruck.
3. A hero crystallises into an image
Some considerations on the interplay between the figurative representations and the written accounts of Hofer, based on the graphical collection and reference library of the Meran City Museum.
Speaker: Elmar Gobbi, Director of the Meran City Museum.
4. Travels with Friedrich Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell - The genesis of the literary-tourism landscape on the Vierwaldstätter Lake
Friedrich Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell (1804) combines the perfect film plot with wonderful locations. Hardly had this drama been published than it became a travel guide to a landscape that Schiller himself had never seen, with the “original locations” transformed into a destination for emotional literary pilgrimages. This paper describes both the semantic reshaping and the physical modelling of a region renowned for its literary tourism – an outcome that only became possible because a text that has entered the ranks of world literature and a spectacular landscape could literally merge into one another.
Speaker: Barbara Piatti, at present managing the interdisciplinary, international research project “A Literary Atlas of Europe” at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich.
5. The Hofer myth - A never ending story?
The myth of the hero surrounding Andreas Hofer is still going strong, at least in the sort of speeches made on public holidays and in editorials. Challenging this idealisation is not recommended, as the positive image of Andreas Hofer is deeply rooted in many elements of the Tyrolean population, and the myth of the liberation struggle of the year 1809 is very widespread.
At least 80 Hofer-related dramas and innumerable popular ballads, heroic poems, novels and narratives have kept and keep alive the memory of 1809. Throughout the 20th century, Andreas Hofer and the events of 1809 were (and indeed still are) again and again used in the most varied ways as a basis for films, documentaries, and radio and TV reports. Recently, even media campaigns have been run around the figure of Andreas Hofer and the events of 1809.
Speaker: Siegfried Steinlechner, ORF editor, Documentation and Archives Department, Deputy Chairman of MAA (Media Archives Austria).
6. Mander, es isch Zeit… for mail art
The image of Andreas Hofer over the last two centuries has been handed down and popularised by artists. Hofer’s legendary utterance “Mander es isch Zeit” [“Men, the time has come”], intended to rouse his men to battle, is here understood in the extended and transferred sense of a call – a so-called “mail art call” – to contemporary artists from all over the world to approach the figure of Andreas Hofer – an art form known as “mail art” characterised by the fact that it is sent by post.
After 200 years, Andreas Hofer is thus once again the subject of artistic reflection: his person, reflected in an ironic, critical or romanticised form, appears in new contexts. The mail received will be investigated here: it can now be seen at andreas-hofer.blogspot.com.
Speaker: Roland Halbritter, cultural commentator, freelance contributor to various museums and private clients in South Tyrol.
7. Andreas Hofer, the hero of the Sacred Heart - The exploitation and popularisation of the Hofer myth in the First World War
The exploitation of the Hofer myth by the Catholic Church in Austria and Germany in the First World War helped establish the cult of the Sacred Heart as a national cult. Hofer was presented as an aggressive defender of his native land and stylised into the protagonist of a virile form of piety. In him crystallised the nexus between the cult of the Sacred Heart and war, fed to the Catholic public not least by high-circulation periodicals. This not only led the cult of the Sacred Heart developing its bellicose nature, but also substantially contributed to the popularisation of the figure of Andreas Hofer.
Speaker: Claudia Schlager, scientific researcher at the University of Tübingen.
8. 1809 and “battlefield tourism”
100 years ago, the whole of Tyrol was under the spell of the national centenary celebrations for 1809-1909. Numerous events recalled the Tyrolean struggle for freedom. The high point of the activities was the national procession in Innsbruck, attended by Kaiser Franz Josef himself. The numerous commemoration ceremonies led to a form of “battlefield tourism”, with specialist travel guides and maps appearing on the market. The Bergisel hill became a particular focus of public interest.
Speaker: Wolfgang Jochberger, journalist and historian.
9. A case study of the Passeier valley, homeland of the freedom fighter
Andreas Hofer, born at the Sandhof in St. Leonhard, became a well-known personality in the Passeier valley. It will be examined whether and how the figure of Andreas Hofer was and is used in the tourist marketing of the valley over time (from the 19th century to today).
Speaker: Harald Pechlaner, holder of the endowed chair for tourism of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.
Frieda Raich, scientific researcher at the Institute for Regional Economy and Location Management of the European Academy, Bozen/Bolzano.
Monika Mader, teacher and historian.
10. Andreas Hofer in hotel names - Impact and effects
A hotel name has various functions and produces different associations. At hotels in South and North Tyrol with names containing the words “Andreas Hofer”, the speakers use interviews with hotel owners and guests to demonstrate the motives for and effects of this particular name.
Speaker: Harald Pechlaner, holder of the endowed chair for tourism of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.
Frieda Raich, scientific researcher at the Institute for Regional Economy and Location Management of the European Academy, Bozen/Bolzano.
11. (Not) a forgotten hero of tourism - Andreas Hofer as perceived by holidaymakers in South Tyrol in 2008
Does today's tourist in South Tyrol even notice the Andreas Hofer myth? Can he or she comprehend it? What image of the artistic form of Andreas Hofer preponderates? What factors influence this image? These questions will be answered with the assistance of an empirical investigation and presented in the context of the lecture.
Speaker: Brigitte Strauss, currently project worker at the Boltzmann Institute for Research into the Consequences of War, Graz.
Thomas Ohnewein, scientific researcher at the Touriseum.
12. Andreas Hofer: from freedom fighter to advertising figure
The paper will give examples of past and present advertising that refers to Andreas Hofer. Special attention will be paid to the phrase “Mander es isch Zeit”, now heard ever more frequently in everyday linguistic use in South Tyrol, both in advertising and in politics.
A study of the history of advertising prompts the question of whether Andreas Hofer is still an ideal advertising vehicle today. A tour through the old town of Innsbruck shows that the souvenir shops are filled with holiday memorabilia representing the Empress Elisabeth, while Hofer scarcely finds a place. Is there still a market for Hofer or is he now just a regional niche product?
Speaker: Barbara Stocker, scientific researcher at the South Tyrol Museum of Folk Traditions in Dietenheim.
13. Does tourism need heroes? Comments on Andreas Hofer and Tyrol
According to the science of history, nations, regions and social movements of all kinds (including struggles for freedom around the world) all require myths and heroes. Some of these heroes are quickly forgotten, while others, such as the Tyrolean Andreas Hofer, remain in the memory, a memory that was and is constantly reworked in both highbrow and popular culture. Therefore we be consistent (if a little provocative) in affirming that every people gets the heroes it deserves. But does tourism also deserve its heroes? The lecture uses the Tyrolean example to present some observations and considerations, discussing these around the figure of Andreas Hofer.
Speaker: Reinhard Johler, Professor for Empirical Cultural Science at the Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen.
(Autore: ohn)
|
|
