Festival
Festival is a genre literary term that arose in the 18th century for a play that was written for a special occasion. Dramatic occasional poems of this kind have existed since antiquity , but it was not until the early 19th century that the term festival became established. It was first used by Goethe as a subtitle for his drama Palaeophron und Neoterpe . Goethe also used this subtitle in a few other occasional poems ( Des Epimenides Awakening ). Thus, although the term was coined by Goethe, festivals as such existed much earlier.
The first festivals designated as such come from the courtly sphere. The bourgeois festival did not develop until the second half of the 19th century and was initially performed at private celebrations or club events.
history
In principle, the beginnings of the festival could be traced back to ancient drama . Here, too, the performance was tied to a specific socio-religious occasion and was at the same time a divine service ( Dionysus cult ) and a community experience. In German poetry, the festival, in the sense of a play written for a certain festive occasion, already appeared in the Renaissance period. An example of such an allegorical Renaissance festival is Conrad Celtis' Ludus Dianae (1501). Historical festivals (although not yet with this name) first appeared in 1617 (for the 100th anniversary of Luther's posting of the theses in Wittenberg ) and 1630 (for the 100th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession ). At this time, historical festivals are a way of representing the Reformed Church. There are no parallels to this on the Catholic side. It is important here that theological content is not primarily conveyed (as is the case with passion plays or Christmas plays, for example ), but that an important person from the history of the church is thematized and, above all, the display of one's own faith was in the foreground. Luther festivals are still being produced well into the 20th century.
In the further course, festivals were also designed for other occasions. In the near future mainly about the end of the Thirty Years War (1618–1648).
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Klopstock's Hermanns Schlacht (what is meant is the Varus Battle , the so-called battle in the Teutoburg Forest , 1769), but also Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, were the starting point for many national festivals (the examples mentioned, however, still belong to the genre historical Drama, as they were not written for a specific reason). The liberation period in general and the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig in particular also provided a popular subject. Here are Ernst Moritz Arndt and Theodor Körner ( Joseph Heyde Rich , Drama after the Battle of Montebello) to name. The greatest drama of the liberation period is certainly Kleist's Die Hermannsschlacht (1808–1810).
Following the example of the Oberammergau Passion Play , the idea was born to hold national outdoor festivals across the country. Even Richard Wagner drew inspiration from Oberammergau for his Bayreuth Festspielhaus . In contrast to courtly representation, the people should present themselves as sovereigns in such mass staging. At the same time, a lasting community experience was promised to strengthen the sense of togetherness . Therefore, at the end of a performance, actors and audience sang a patriotic song together (usually the national anthem). From the middle of the 19th century, dramatic occasional poems that were written for private occasions, such as weddings and birthdays, also became popular in middle-class circles, with the generic term festival now also being used in the title.
Towards the end of the 19th century, large-scale historical festivals became particularly popular in Switzerland , after Gottfried Keller had already propagated national festivals in his study Am Mythenstein in 1861 . The historical festivals organized by widely supported committees, mostly subsidized by the state, became an integral part of large federal and cantonal festivals and anniversaries and were mostly performed outdoors on a specially built festival stage. The actors were almost exclusively laypeople , with an army of hundreds of extras and choir singers taking part in addition to the soloists . More than 2000 performers were involved in individual festivals, such as the one for the Basel National Celebration in 1901.
In 1913, Gerhart Hauptmann's Festival in German Rhymes was performed in Breslau on the centenary of the wars of liberation against Napoleon Bonaparte . After eleven of fifteen planned performances, it was removed from the program because of its supposedly unpatriotic attitude.
Such events lost their importance around 1914, but flourished again in Switzerland in the 1930s and early 1940s. The festivals of this period were usually based on historical events, but these were mostly translated into allegorical acts. At the same time, in National Socialist Germany, Thingspiele, a special form of the festival, was particularly promoted by the regime. However, this second wave of the festival largely came to a standstill in the 1950s.
Around 2000 there were efforts in various places in Switzerland to revive this type of theater. In 1998, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the canton of Aargau and four years later on the occasion of the Swiss National Exhibition, festivals were presented. However, these no longer had the same response as the historical festival from around 1900.
literature
- P. Budry (Ed.), E. Combe: Festival. In: Switzerland that sings. [1932], pp. 197-235.
- Balz Engler, Georg Kreis (ed.): The festival. Forms, functions, perspectives. Willisau 1988.
- A. Fankhauser: The Dornach battle celebrations and battle anniversaries. In: Commemorative publication 500 years of the Battle of Dornach 1499–1999. 1999, pp. 339-392.
- Stefan Hess : Basel clubs and festivals - with united forces. In: MIMOS. Journal of the Swiss Society for Theater Culture. No. 4, vol. 49, 1997, pp. 27-31.
- Philipp Sarasin : The bourgeois dream story of the city of Basel. Imagined history, national mythology and social reality in the “Basler Festspiel” of 1892. In: Images and models in social change. 1991, pp. 147-193.
- Klaus Sauer, German Werth: Laurel and palm. Patriotism in German festivals. Munich 1971, ISBN 978-3-423-00795-5 .
- Peter Sprengel : The staged nation. German Festival 1813–1913. Tübingen 1991.
- Gion-Duri Vincenz (Ed.): From history to theater. Staging history. Aarau 1998.
- Hannelore Wolff: referendum on the stage. Mass theater as a means of political agitation. Frankfurt a. M./Bern 1985.
