L’identité suisse et les catastrophes naturelles : une analyse littéraire

Natural disasters are ingrained in Swiss identity. In his book Culture of the Catastrophe (Zoé, 2017), German literature professor at the University of Lausanne, Peter Utz, has shown how Swiss writers have been inhabited by this theme since the 18th century. He cites, among others, Gottfried Keller, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Maurice Chappaz, Robert Walser, and Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, whose apocalyptic visions belong to the collective imagination today. It is the avalanche that constitutes the Swiss catastrophe par excellence. They have become, writes Peter Utz, “catalysts for national and social cohesion”. Because, as the essayist points out, these disasters have the power to bring people together.