The Ascension of the Apache Chief : Winnetou's Death and Conversion in Czech and Slovak visual culture
Abstract
The paper will focus on the scene of Winnetou's death and conversion to Christianity, which represents one of the pivotal religious moments of May's four-volume novels and the imaginary culmination of Old Shatterhand's "missionary effort". In addition to the illustrations of older German editions (e.g.
S. Schneider), the paper focuses primarily on the rendering of this scene in Czech and Slovak illustrations (e.g.
J. Ulrich, Z.
Burian), which both emphasized and suppressed the religious aspect. The variable tone of these illustrations is a result of different translations, which during the period of socialism greatly modified or directly omitted Winnetou's conversion, and also of the artistic choices.
Depictions of this scene thus cover the scale from The Descent from the Cross to the banal death of a western character. At the same time, this moment of the protagonist's death represents (for a child reader) a potentially "traumatizing" moment, which is also reflected in Czech visual art.