Bavaria & Frankonia

Being here has made me realize how well-grounded a person is in the history and stories of their region...and how little one knows of other histories. Of course, we all memorize each other’s great {or horrible} accomplishments. The Germans I’ve talked to are familiar with the basic outline of wars in the United States; we Americans have about the same level of knowledge when it comes to European history.

But there’s more than that. For us, there are the Salem Witch Trials, Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride, the Trail of Tears, the Oregon Trail, the Gold Rush, Custer’s Last Stand, Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad, the Women’s Suffrage movement, the Great Depression, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech. You’ve heard of all of these; you know what these people and events meant to our country. But all of these great stories are lost in the overarching theme of America--Revolutionary War, Civil War--when Europeans learn about our country. And it’s the same when we learn about theirs. History and culture are boiled down to a very nice but very abridged overview, and all the great parts--all the most interesting parts--are lost.

As I’ve come to this realization and had the opportunity to learn more and more “stories” from the people I meet, I’ve wanted to keep and share them. So here are a few snippets of German history and culture that they don’t tell you in school. Unless noted otherwise, I have not looked any of this up for the purpose of this blog post. All of this is common knowledge and conversation amongst my labmates.

BAVARIA

Germany is made up of states. Würzburg is located in the state of Bayern {English: Bavaria}, which takes up the southeastern quarter of Germany. Bavaria is where you find what I call “old Germany,” that is, the lederhosen, the festivals, the liters of beer, the dancing on tables. It is common knowledge that the Bavarian accent is a little bit atrocious {the longer I’m here and the more German I hear, the more I think this has a great deal to do with my inability to understand spoken German at lunch}. I have also been informed multiple times that “Bavaria is very Catholic.” In other words, Bavaria is to Germany what the uncouth and unhurried Bible Belt South is to America. I have fallen in love with it. I have a Bavarian flag on my wall.

FRANKONIA

Now that I’ve given you some background on this lovely piece of Germany, it’s time to narrow down on this stretch of western Bavaria known as Frankonia. Frankonia...is a kingdom. Indeed, München {English: Munich} was once the very capital of the kingdom of Frankonia. Every time I informed my labmates that I was going to Berlin, they shook their heads and said, “There’s nothing in Berlin. It’s just a city. You should go to Munich.” You see, Frankonians...are still Frankonians. And who cares about the capital of Germany when one can visit the capital of Frankonia?

So what is the background on this kingdom? Well, once upon a time, it was its own thing. Its own kingdom. And then it was conquered by Napoleon, who promptly squashed it with other regions/tribes/kingdoms to make one giant region: Bavaria. The Frankonians were not happy about this. Not happy at all. They are still upset, actually. At some point in the last 150 years, Bavaria talked about seceding from Germany. When this got ‘round to Frankonia, they said if Bavaria left Germany, they would leave Bavaria. Well, if Frankonia leaves Bavaria, there is very little left of Bavaria--not enough to make a country--and so Bavaria is stuck with Germany because of Frankonia’s threat of secession.

Würzburg is in Frankonia, and I’ve been informed that the accent is even worse than that of Bavaria. But I’m so happy to be here. One of my favorite parts about being here and visiting all these historical places is the realization that this culture has been existing for centuries upon centuries. Just because the political boundaries changed and I’m in a part of Europe known as Germany doesn’t mean that the original tribes and kingdoms ever really stopped existing. The festivals and fairs and dialects and cathedrals and castles--these aren’t modern renditions of something old, the way we would have our reenactments or themed parties or old-style churches. No--these exist because they have always existed. It is so cool to step into a culture that has been around for thousands of years. It is impossible to do this in the States {our European culture only arrived a few hundred years ago, and we have made little attempt to remember the culture that existed in our land in the time before}.