Kamenz Forest Festival
The Kamenz Forest Festival is a traditional school and home festival in the small Saxon town of Kamenz , which is celebrated in the week around August 24th ( Bartholomew's Week ) and at the center of which is the in and out of Kamenz students. For the entire duration of the festival, the Kamenzer Forest becomes a widely popular amusement park with rides, shooting ranges and dining facilities, similar to a fair in other places.
Based on the legend described below, the Kamenz schoolchildren in white clothes and with sashes , floral wreaths and flags walk through the center of Kamenz, which is decorated with flowers. This pageant (extract) always takes place twice, on Monday at 1 p.m. and on Thursday at 1.30 p.m. The students are accompanied by flag groups, marching bands and orchestras. On Thursday evening, the Kamenz students and children with lanterns and torches walk in the opposite direction through the streets of Kamenz to the market square. (Indent)
Festive sequence
- Friday: Start of the festivities in the forest and opening concert on the market
- Saturday: table tennis tournament, evening beer tasting in the forest
- Saturday: Meeting of the rifle clubs with a pageant and subsequent eagle shooting
- Monday: pageant of the students through the city, in the afternoon games in the forest and eagle shooting of the 8th grade
- Tuesday: gymnast excerpt, exhibition gymnastics
- Wednesday: Eagle shooting by teachers and guests, fireworks display
- Thursday: Parade of the students, games in the forest, in the evening move into the city and end at the market
There are also various concerts by orchestras from Kamenz and the surrounding area and the twin town of Kolin .
history
The exact origin of the forest festival is unknown. As early as the 14th century, processional parades of Kamenz students took place in honor of the apostle Bartholomäus. Other indications suggest that the forest festival could have originated from “dowsing”. In the summer, the pupils moved into the forest to cut the birch stalks necessary for the maintenance of school breeding. There is also a legend about the origin, but it does not correspond to historical facts.
In 1570 the Rats Latin School moved to the empty monastery rooms. From this year on, the forest parade will move from the cloister courtyard (today's school square) through the cloister gate, across the market, down Bautzner Strasse towards forest. The parades for the forest festival still take this route today.
The town clerk Budäus reports in the middle of the 18th century that the festival begins on Monday at 1 p.m. in Bartholomew's week and lasts for six days. The pupils move from school to the forest every day to have fun with music and games. A bonfire is lit on the last day. In 1838 the council of the town of Kamenz was informed by the Budissin district administration that the forest festival was to be limited to two days. A complaint by the city council remains unsuccessful and Monday and Thursday are set as festive days. Later Tuesday comes back with a gymnast excerpt and Wednesday with fireworks.
In 1845, the then headmaster Wilhelm Leuner gave the move a new shape. Since then, the children have been wearing sashes in different colors. In their hands they hold flags and flower arrangements in the form of flower wreaths and baskets. The pageant has expanded over time, but still essentially follows Leuner's rules. A special feature is the complicated assembly and departure order on the market square, which makes the pageant as a whole appear like a billowing sea of flowers. The fairground in the forest has also experienced an upswing since Leuner's time. Until then it only consisted of a tent and is now developing into a fairground.
The forest festival parade was also maintained during the GDR era. However, pioneer clothing or FDJ shirt was worn, and participation in this parade was mandatory for all students in the city - as long as they had not traveled. The best in each case according to the censorship average carried the class flag. Wreaths carried on poles followed, up to a certain average grade, and at the end the rest of the students left, the boys with a small flag and the girls with flower arrangements. Later on, so-called “social achievements” were also used to a certain extent to determine the order within the class. Of course, in the small town, people were always very careful to see who had to go last. But the order was chosen randomly later, only the best of the class (class flag or honor wreath) ran first, then the girls and finally the boys, but at which point the girls / boys run within their group is determined by them.
Tell about the origin
The legend reports that Kamenz was once threatened by the Hussites . The Hussites besieged the city near the forest and demanded a large ransom from the city fathers. Since the Kamenzers did not have this, however, in their desperation they sent all their children to the Hussite camp with white dresses adorned with flowers. The children asked that the city of Kamenz be spared. Moved by the sight of the children in their white clothes, the Hussites spared the city and moved on, whereupon the children successfully returned to the city.
There are similar stories for many German cities. The story of the origins of the Hussite cherry festival in Naumburg (Saale) is comparable .
Web links
- Homepage of the Kamenz Forest Festival
- Forstfest Kamenz on the homepage of folk festivals in Germany
- Origin of the forest festival on the Kamenz homepage
Individual evidence
- ^ Historical - Kamenz Forest Festival. Retrieved September 7, 2017 .
- ↑ Folk festivals in Germany - Forest Festival in Kamenz 2017. Accessed on September 7, 2017 .
- ↑ Neitzel, Ines u. Frank Nürnberger (Hrsg.): Legends of Upper Lusatia, North Bohemia and neighboring areas . Volume I. Waltersdorf: Oberlausitzer Verlag 1990