Significance
Similar to William Tell, the figure of Winkelried was an important symbol during the formation of the Swiss federal state, and an icon of Swiss independence during World War II. Napoleon referred to Winkelried as “the Swiss Decius immortalized” at Sempach. The Sempacherlied of ca. 1836, one of the expressions of Swiss patriotism during the period of Restoration, is dedicated to the heroism of Winkelried. The euro-Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges uses his name, among many other known Swiss, as a paradigm of the Swiss spirit in one of his late poems: "Los Conjurados" (The Conspirators), which also gives its name to the book.
There is a philosophy called "Winkelriedism", which name is taken from the hero's name. It is based on an individual giving himself up idealistically and sacrificially to the enemy for the betterment of others. Juliusz Słowacki created this way of thinking in his dramatic poem "Kordian", where the titular character decides to kill the Tsar of Russia to take Poland's suffering on himself, easing a breakthrough to freedom for his nation. Słowacki considered Poland the "Winkelried of Nations", a bitter and fatalistic sentiment.
Read more about this topic: Arnold Von Winkelried
Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)
“The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)