ABOUT MAKING FUN OF THE AUTHORITIES

MAY 25:


It is an old tradition all over the world to make fun of the authorities. In particular when they consider themselves to be very important and unnecessarily serious. Often it is true that dictators and other authoritarian rulers have a very limited sense of humour. My firm belief is that the more dictatorial and narcistic they are the less they understand or accept humour making them a sort of laughing stock. You have lots of cases throughout history – also today.  Just try to reflect on typical cases today!


Back in time authors like French Molière ( 1622-73 ) and the Danish-Norwegian poet Ludvig Holberg ( 1684-1754 ) were very good at it.  They made fun of rich people – all full of themselves. But they never attacked the ruling monarchs.  That is probably why they got away with it. Others who criticized the ruler were less lucky.  

A Danish author, P.A. Heiberg ( 1758-1841 ), was forced to leave Denmark due to his criticism of the king.  He left in 1799 for Paris, where he lived for the rest of his life.   Another Dane, Dr. Dampe ( 1790-1867 ), a medical doctor was so outspoken in his criticism of the king’s dictatorship that he was sentenced to death in 1820.  The ruling was soon change to prison on a remote Danish island in the Baltics.  And he was only made a free man again, when democracy was introduced almost 30 years later.


In Germany – like in many other countries – the citizens were also dissatisfied with the rulers, in this case the Emperors, the Kaisers.  I will mention the situation during the reign of Emperor Wilhelm II  ( emperor from 1888-1918 ). He was through his English mother a grandchild of Queen Victoria.  And he became very irritated each time she wrote to him – also when he was an adult – and started her letter:  My dear little boy!


It was probably meant positively. But it was not the way the Kaiser saw himself!


During his reign a rather critical weekly called Simplicissimus became popular. Read more about it here:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicissimus?wprov=sfla1  


A special case was the so-called KÖPENICK AFFAIR in 1906. It made fun of the Prussian military traditions and obedience, also among ordinary people:


This expression comes from an event in 1906.  A shoemaker in Berlin, Wilhelm Voigt (1849-1922) – former prisoner and a poor guy to look at – took in the German town of Köpenick outside Berlin the uniform of a military officer and behaved like a captain in the imperial guard. He commanded a group of soldiers to follow him to the City Hall, where they arrested the authorities and took the city’s money box with 4000 Mark. After that he disappeared. But he was caught quite quickly afterwards.


After two years he was pardoned by emperor Wilhelm and was freed from prison. He became a popular hero in Germany. Now he wrote a book about the event. It was later also made into a film. The event was used by Voigt and many others to make the Prussian authorities look like fools with their obedience to military uniforms.


When the expression a Köpenick event or affair is used now and then today it means that somebody makes fun of the authorities.