National personification
Fictional character representing a country From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A national personification is an anthropomorphic personification of a state or the people(s) it inhabits. It may appear in political cartoons and propaganda. In the first personifications in the Western World, warrior deities or figures symbolizing wisdom were used (for example the goddess Athena in ancient Greece), to indicate the strength and power of the nation. Some personifications in the Western world often took the Latin name of the ancient Roman province. Examples of this type include Britannia, Germania, Hibernia, Hispania, Helvetia and Polonia.
Examples of personifications of the Goddess of Liberty include Marianne, the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World), and many examples of United States coinage. Another ancient model was Roma, a female deity who personified the city of Rome and her dominion over the territories of the Roman Empire.[1] Roma was probably favoured by Rome's high-status Imperial representatives abroad, rather than the Roman populace at large. In Rome, the Emperor Hadrian built and dedicated a gigantic temple to her as Roma Aeterna ("Eternal Rome"), and to Venus Felix, ("Venus the Bringer of Good Fortune"), emphasising the sacred, universal and eternal nature of the empire.[2] Examples of representations of the everyman or citizenry in addition to the nation itself are Deutscher Michel, John Bull and Uncle Sam.[3]
Italia turrita (lit. 'Turreted Italy'), the allegorical personification of Italy, appears as of a young woman with her head surrounded by a mural crown completed by towers (hence turrita or "with towers" in Italian). It is often accompanied by the Stella d'Italia ('Star of Italy'), which is the oldest national symbol of Italy, since it dates back to the Graeco-Roman tradition,[4] from which the so-called Italia turrita e stellata ('turreted and starry Italy'), and by other additional attributes, the most common of which is the cornucopia. The allegorical representation with the towers, which draws its origins from ancient Rome, is typical of Italian civic heraldry, so much so that the mural crown is also the symbol of the cities of Italy. The origin of the turreted woman is linked to the figure of Cybele, a deity of fertility of Anatolian origin, in whose representations she wears a wall crown.[5] Its most classic aspect derives from the primordial myth of the Great Mediterranean Mother.
Gallery
Iudaea Capta, "Judaea Taken", commemorative coin issued by the Roman emperor Vespasian (left) after the Jewish War
Britannia arm-in-arm with Uncle Sam symbolizes the British-American alliance in World War I. The two animals, the Bald eagle and the Barbary lion, are also national personifications of the two countries.
In this Allegory depicting the 1576 Pacification of Ghent by Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne, the seated women represent a short-lived unity among the embattled provinces of what would become the present-day Belgium and Netherlands.
1909 cartoon in Puck shows (clockwise) US, Germany, Britain, France and Japan engaged in naval race in a "no limit" game.
Columbia depicted in an American Committee for Relief in the Near East poster defending an Armenian woman beneath her flag
The Liberty of Oudiné in memory of the Argentine centenary of the May Revolution (1810-1910)
Tomb of the Italian Unknown Soldier, under the statue of goddess Roma, at Altare della Patria, Rome. Above it can be seen the equestrian statue of Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, the first king of a unified Italy
The winged Lion of Saint Mark at the Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice. The open book holds the legend PAX TIBI MARCE EVANGELISTA MEVS (lit. 'Peace unto you, Mark, my Evangelist')
The Capitoline Wolf is a bronze sculpture depicting a scene from the legend of the founding of Rome. The sculpture shows a she-wolf suckling the mythical twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus.
Saint Michael at right, gesturing to, from left: an unspecified figure, Brittania, Italia, Austria, Mother Russia, Germania, and Marianne of France
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Personifications by country or territory
Summarize
Perspective
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See also
- Afghanis-tan, a manga originally published as a webcomic about Central Asia with personified countries.
- Polandball, a contemporary form of national personification in which countries are drawn by Internet users as stereotypic balls and shared as comics on online communities.
- Hetalia, a manga and anime about personified countries interacting.
- Mural crown
- National animal, often personifies a nation in cartoons.
- National emblem, for other metaphors for nations.
- National god, a deity that embodies a nation.
- National patron saint, a Saint that is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation.
References
Further reading
External links
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