The national hero: a Swiss trauma?8 reading minutes

Switzerland doesn't like heroes, especially its own. That's not a problem in itself. Unless, that is, it removes the individual from history, at the risk of rendering it unintelligible. In this sense, Switzerland would do well to reappropriate its great figures.

Does Switzerland have a problem with outstanding historical figures? When it comes to naming personalities capable of embodying the confederal ideal, two names spring to mind more or less spontaneously. Two soldiers, in this case: General Guillaume-Henri Dufour and his distant successor Henri Guisan. Both from French-speaking Switzerland, which also raises questions. Are German-speaking Swiss by nature more divisive? In the military sphere, where the characters in whom Helvetians might consider projecting their visions of the country are concentrated, there's no room for doubt. An indisputable celebrity in Swiss history, for