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culture

historical passes of switzerland

By Evelina Rioukhina

of the Alps, the source of Europe’s great rivers,
the crossroads of Swiss culture, and a symbol of
independence, cohesion and national identity.
It saw the swearing of allegiance between the
country’s three founding communities – Uri,
Schwyz and Unterwalden – agreeing their
Oath on the Rütli meadow in 1291. It was later
the scene of heroic resistance against Austrian
occupiers.

According to the Swiss historian Morerod,
over time the region became an emblem of
independence, then cohesion, as well as the
crossroads of languages and national cultures.
Morerod explains how the Gotthard gained
this mix of reputations: “There was certainly
a connection between the commercial
Last year we importance of the Gotthard in the 13th century
promised an article and the local communities’ rising against the
on historical Swiss Habsburgs. Uri, which had most benefited
mountain passes, and from mercantile trading, was given imperial
as we are near Swiss privileges because it controlled the pass. It was
National Day it seems the first of the Waldstätten [founding cantons]
appropriate to tell to receive these privileges. When the political
you about the most situation which had formerly protected them
significant of these. changed, the Wäldstätten rebelled. They
All the passes in this swore to help each other should anyone try
article are under a to subjugate them, and it was against this
day’s journey from background that the famous Rütli Oath
Geneva. was made. This mythical dimension to the
birth of Switzerland has spread through oral
Between the Alpine and Jura mountain ranges retelling”.
there are more than a hundred mountain
passes. Many are historically significant, but William Tell. The White Book of Sarnen, the
none so much as the most famous of all Alpine first chronicle of the fight for freedom of the
passes, the St Gotthard or San Gottardo Gotthard communities, combines the story
(2108m). of the 1291 Rütli Oath with the 1307 story of
William Tell. The book itself dates from 1470, a
Gothard – the king of all passes, good 150 years afterwards. Thereafter, Tell – of
the Cradle of switzerland apple-shooting fame – was often represented
The Gothard Pass is legendary; with all its with the country’s founding fathers, and the
associations to the nation’s birth it has a myth lives on. The mountain was already a
great historical and mythical importance to source of great fascination to 18th century
the Swiss. It also has a unique aura, rich in travellers such as the German authors Goethe
symbolism - even the Matterhorn does not and Schiller. For the French writer Lamartine
have the same symbolic value as this massif. – like Schiller, the author of a William Tell
It is the cradle of the confederation, the centre story - it was a “sight that crushes and terrifies”,

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