Reineke Fuchs

»Liberty, Equality, Fraternity« – The demands for political co-determination by the people and social justice, all enshrined in a constitution, could no longer be ignored by the rulers of European states in the age of revolutions. However, the violent events of the French Revolution from 1789 onwards also brought critics onto the scene. These included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who, as a reporter of the 1793 siege of Mainz by the Jacobins in the First War of the Coalition, experienced the horrors and threats of the terrorist flipside of the revolution at first hand. With the animal fable »Reineke Fuchs«, he attempted to deal with the effects of the French Revolution through poetry. The sly fox Reineke unabashedly holds up a mirror to the society of lions (the king), wolves (the princely aristocracy), monkeys and sheep (the church), pets and farm animals (the people) for their mendacity, corruption and decadence.