The decades before the Great War were a period of exciting cultural creativity and great social upheaval. Both men and women cultivated a great range of interests in ethical, feminist, mystical, spiritualist and sexual ideas and practices. Max Weber referred to this diversity as a ‘department store for worldviews’. Recent historiography has dubbed this period ‘the age of nervousness’ or ‘the quest for purity’. New fascinations held many people in their thrall: the culture of the body and, more specifically, the Life Reform movement. Some felt inspired by their ethical hero Count Leo Tolstoy, the famous Russian writer and pacifist. Tolstoyan colonies based on his philosophy of back-to-nature simplicity were founded in several European countries. One of the places where Tolstoyans experimented with new practices of asceticism was the Monte Verità near Ascona, a village on the Lago Maggiore in the Swiss region of Ticino. This article deals with the transformation of this Tolstoyan colony into a nature cure sanatorium, inspired by ethical and aesthetic values. As a case study it addresses crucial, but ambivalent, aspects of modernity in the ‘natural’ life of nude sunbathing, vegetarian meals, walking barefoot, living in wooden light-and-air cabins and free love marriages. However, this microcosm of Belle Époque Europe has also been the subject of much mythification. The article argues that these forms of myth-making reveal different narratives and models of identification. Deconstruction of Monte Verità myths reveals their popularity as counter-culture narrative (discourse) in the historiography of the 1970s. During the last decade, a comparison between the elitist, artistic lifestyle experiments on Monte Verità and trends in our modern, mass culture (referring to ‘personal authenticity’ or to Foucault’s ‘technologies of the self’) seems to be gaining in influence.
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Birkner-GossenNicoletta, and Othmar, “Zur Baugeschichte von Monte Verità” in:SzeemanHarald (ed.),Monte Verità. Berg der Wahrheit. Lokale Anthropologie als Beitrage zur Wiederentdeckung einer neuzeitlichen sakralen Topograhie (Locarno/Milan:Electa Editrice,1978),121–125.
Bock, Hans Manfred, andTennstedtFlorian,, “Raphael Friedeberg: Arzt und Anarchist in Ascona” in:SzeemannHarald (ed.),Monte Verità. Berg der Wahrheit. Lokale Anthropologie als Beitrage zur Wiederentdeckung einer neuzeitlichen sakralen Topograhie (Locarno/Milan:Electa Editrice,1978),38–53.
FoucaultMichel,, “Technologies of the Self” inMartinL.M.,,GutmanH., andHuttonP.H. (eds),Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (London:Tavistock,1988),16–49.
HankeEdith, “‘Der Mann der Wahrheit.’ Die Ideen Leo N. Tolstois und der Monte Verità,” in: Andreas Schwab and Claudia. Lafranchi (eds),Sinnsuche und Sonnenbad. Experimente und Leben auf dem Monte Verità (Zurich:Limmat,2001),23–42.
LabrieArnold, idem, “Purity and Danger in Fin-de-siècle Culture: a Psychohistorical Interpretation of Wagner, Stoker and Zola,”Psychoanalytische Perspectieven, 20/2 (2002),261–274.
Lafranchi, Claudia and Andreas Schwab (eds),Sinnsuche und Sonnenbad,. Experimente in Kunst und Leben auf dem Monte Verità (Zurich: Limmat Verlag, 2001).
LandmannRobert,Ascona-Monte Verità. Auf der Suche nach dem Paradies (Zurich: Ullstein,1973 [1934]).
LandmannRobert,Ascona-Monte Verità. Auf der Suche nach dem Paradies (Zurich: Ullstein,1973 [1934]).)| false
SchwabAndreas, “Ohne Hintergedanken? Ambivalente Stilisierungen der Nachktheit auf dem Monte Verità,” in: K. Gernig (ed.),Nacktheit. Ästhetische Inszenierungen im Kulturvergleich (Cologne:Böhlau,2002)111–129.
StadlerEdmund,, “Theater und Tanz in Ascona”, in:SzeemanHarald (ed.),Monte Verità. Berg der Wahrheit. Lokale Anthropologie als Beitrage zur Wiederentdeckung einer neuzeitlichen sakralen Topograhie (Locarno/Milan:Electa Editrice,1978),126–135.
SzeemannHarald (ed.),Monte Verità. Berg der Wahrheit. Lokale Anthropologie als Beitrage zur Wiederentdeckung einer neuzeitlichen sakralen Topograhie (Locarno/Milan:Electa Editrice,1978).
SzeemannHarald (ed.),Monte Verità. Berg der Wahrheit. Lokale Anthropologie als Beitrage zur Wiederentdeckung einer neuzeitlichen sakralen Topograhie (Locarno/Milan:Electa Editrice,1978).)| false
See alsoJoachim Radkau,Das Zeitalter der Nervosität: Deutschland zwischen Bismark und Hitler (Munich:Hanser,1998).This study extensively reveals the dominant discourse and treatment of ‘nervous disturbance’ under the Second Reich.
See alsoJoachim Radkau,Das Zeitalter der Nervosität: Deutschland zwischen Bismark und Hitler (Munich:Hanser,1998).This study extensively reveals the dominant discourse and treatment of ‘nervous disturbance’ under the Second Reich.)| false
Peeters,Beyond Pleasure,8-9;M. Foucault, “Technologies of the Self,” in: L.M. Martin, H. Gutman and P.H. Hutton (eds),Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (London: Tavistock, 1988), 16-49. Foucault interprets ‘techniques of the self” as “those reflective and voluntary practices by which men not only set themselves rules of conduct, but seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria”; cf. Clare O’Farrell,Michel Foucault (London: Sage, 2005).
Peeters,Beyond Pleasure,8-9;M. Foucault, “Technologies of the Self,” in: L.M. Martin, H. Gutman and P.H. Hutton (eds),Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (London: Tavistock, 1988), 16-49. Foucault interprets ‘techniques of the self” as “those reflective and voluntary practices by which men not only set themselves rules of conduct, but seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria”; cf. Clare O’Farrell,Michel Foucault (London: Sage, 2005).)| false
Ida Hofmann,Wie gelangen wir Frauen zu harmonischen und gesunden Daseinsbedingungen (Ascona:Selbstverlag,1902); idem,Vegetabilismus! Vegetabilismus! Blätter zur Verbreitung vegetarischer Lebensweise (Ascona: Selbstverlag, 1904); idem,Monte Verità – Wahrheit ohne Dichtung (Lorch-Württemberg: Rohm, 1906); Erich Mühsam,Ascona. Eine Broschüre (Locarno: Ed. Carlson, 1905).
Ida Hofmann,Wie gelangen wir Frauen zu harmonischen und gesunden Daseinsbedingungen (Ascona:Selbstverlag,1902); idem,Vegetabilismus! Vegetabilismus! Blätter zur Verbreitung vegetarischer Lebensweise (Ascona: Selbstverlag, 1904); idem,Monte Verità – Wahrheit ohne Dichtung (Lorch-Württemberg: Rohm, 1906); Erich Mühsam,Ascona. Eine Broschüre (Locarno: Ed. Carlson, 1905).)| false
Arnold Labrie,Zuiverheid en decadentie. Over de grenzen van de burgerlijke cultuur in West-Europa 1870-1914 (Amsterdam:Bert Bakker,2001),149;idem, ‘Purity and Danger in Fin-de-siècle Culture: a Psychohistorical Interpretation of Wagner, Stoker and Zola,Psychoanalytische Perspectieven, 20/2 (2002), 261-274; Mary Douglas,Purity and Danger. An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966).
Arnold Labrie,Zuiverheid en decadentie. Over de grenzen van de burgerlijke cultuur in West-Europa 1870-1914 (Amsterdam:Bert Bakker,2001),149;idem, ‘Purity and Danger in Fin-de-siècle Culture: a Psychohistorical Interpretation of Wagner, Stoker and Zola,Psychoanalytische Perspectieven, 20/2 (2002), 261-274; Mary Douglas,Purity and Danger. An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966).)| false
The decades before the Great War were a period of exciting cultural creativity and great social upheaval. Both men and women cultivated a great range of interests in ethical, feminist, mystical, spiritualist and sexual ideas and practices. Max Weber referred to this diversity as a ‘department store for worldviews’. Recent historiography has dubbed this period ‘the age of nervousness’ or ‘the quest for purity’. New fascinations held many people in their thrall: the culture of the body and, more specifically, the Life Reform movement. Some felt inspired by their ethical hero Count Leo Tolstoy, the famous Russian writer and pacifist. Tolstoyan colonies based on his philosophy of back-to-nature simplicity were founded in several European countries. One of the places where Tolstoyans experimented with new practices of asceticism was the Monte Verità near Ascona, a village on the Lago Maggiore in the Swiss region of Ticino. This article deals with the transformation of this Tolstoyan colony into a nature cure sanatorium, inspired by ethical and aesthetic values. As a case study it addresses crucial, but ambivalent, aspects of modernity in the ‘natural’ life of nude sunbathing, vegetarian meals, walking barefoot, living in wooden light-and-air cabins and free love marriages. However, this microcosm of Belle Époque Europe has also been the subject of much mythification. The article argues that these forms of myth-making reveal different narratives and models of identification. Deconstruction of Monte Verità myths reveals their popularity as counter-culture narrative (discourse) in the historiography of the 1970s. During the last decade, a comparison between the elitist, artistic lifestyle experiments on Monte Verità and trends in our modern, mass culture (referring to ‘personal authenticity’ or to Foucault’s ‘technologies of the self’) seems to be gaining in influence.
Title:
Tolstoyans on a Mountain: From New Practices of Asceticism to the Deconstruction of the Myths of Monte Verità
