analysis of the principles guiding the Swiss legislation that served as a model shows that the
lawyers responsible for this innovation in the 1950’s had already propagated and tried to
implement such legislation under the Nazi regime using basically the same line of
argumentation. The pretended innovation thus turns out to be the consistent conclusion of their
legislative efforts in those days.
Walter Gobel
Drawing and Erasing Borderlines in Walter Scott’s Waverley
The difficulties the 18th century had in defining the Scottish border are visible in the term
border ballads, as these originated in Aberdonia rather than the border country, where Scott
found them and (mis-) named them. Such difficulties also colour Scott’s ambivalent attitude
towards the formation of a British vs. a Scottish identity. In Waverley the affirmation of a
political and economic Britishness - and thus the erasing of traditional borderlines - is paired
with a deep nostalgia for the waning of heroic times and highland culture, implying an
affirmation of cultural differences in the course of the highlandization of Scottish culture. The
multiple border-lines between English and Scottish, between iowlanders and highlanders,
between Whigs, Tories and Jacobites are frequently transgressed by the hero Waverley and
questioned by Scott himself, who as master of ceremonies welcomed George IV as King of
Scotland while supporting the Celtic Highland Society and the revival of highland customs at
the same time. The splitting of politics and ecomomy from general culture, from folklore and
institutions allows the easy coexistence of Britishness and Scottishness which anticipates the
coexistence of the Scottish and the European spirit today. As an explorer of such dualities Scott
helped with the formation of a non-combative, civic national spirit.
Wolfgang Haubrichs
The Library Catalogue of a Metz Nobleman as an Indication of Double
Cultural Competence
Since the late Roman period Metz has been a Romance, later French-speaking city, and in the
High and late Middle ages it was even a centre of Eastern French culture in its own right.
Nevertheless, this important and large merchant city, situated within the Empire near the
language border, was also populated by German-speaking and bilingual inhabitants. In the late
15lh and early 16^ centuries printers published books in Latin, French, and German. In the
nobility that dominated the city there were also cases of double linguistic and cultural
competence. Examples to demonstrate this are a miscellany of the nobleman Jacques d’Esch and
the libraries of ma'itre-échevin Michiel Chaversson and his father-in-law François de Goumay
that were united around 1524 and contained German books (Trojan War, chancellery manual).
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