Swiss culture
In terms of cultural studies, the cultures of Switzerland - with the exception of the Rhaeto-Romanic culture - can be assigned to the supranational German, French and Italian cultural and linguistic areas . There are also a large number of cultural peculiarities that are typical for Switzerland alone or that are viewed from outside as typically Swiss. These include, for example, the Swiss Calvinist work ethic , which not only promoted the precision of Swiss watches and machines, but also places high demands on cheese and chocolate .
Many artists, scientists, engineers and architects, hoteliers and confectioners as well as members of other professions who emigrated from Switzerland in their need, such as during the famine in 1816/17, became known. On the other hand, Switzerland's political neutrality also attracted artists and especially writers from other countries such as Georg Büchner , Hermann Hesse , Thomas Mann , Erich Maria Remarque , Paul Klee , Meret Oppenheim and the painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner .
media
The newspapers in Switzerland are mostly regional and appear in the respective national language. Tages-Anzeiger from Zurich and Le Temps from Geneva are newspapers with supraregional distribution. There are also weekly newspapers such as the right-wing conservative Weltwoche or the left WoZ and the art magazine Du . The only German-language Swiss daily newspaper with an international reputation is the liberal-conservative Neue Zürcher Zeitung .
National television comprises six channels, two each for the three largest language regions. Channels from the neighboring country with the same language are also popular there. The government subsidizes programs in Romansh . American films and television series are influential to varying degrees in the language areas of Switzerland. In cinemas in German-speaking Switzerland, a large part of the program consists of American productions.
Customs, folk festivals and federal festivals
Regional customs are upheld by associations throughout Switzerland. Customs primarily include music, dance, theater, poetry, carving, and embroidery. Numerous customs and folk festivals are related to the seasons.
The yodel is often regarded as typical for Switzerland, was originally to bridge a kind, signals over greater distances. The alphorn , a natural wooden trumpet , has been known since at least the 16th century. The Schwyzerörgeli is a variant of the hand organ and is used in Swiss folk music or country music, which is characterized regionally by different instrumentations such as the Appenzell dulcimer . Many folk songs glorify rural Switzerland and were created during the period of industrialization .
Hornussen , Schwingen , flag waving and shooting , which are cultivated at numerous federal festivals , are located between tradition and sport .
Carvings are mostly used to decorate everyday objects. Examples are decorated milking stools, bells, wooden spoons or walking sticks as well as wooden and especially nativity figures. In the Protestant Bernese Oberland in particular , the facades of the farmhouses are decorated with carvings; such decorations are much less common in Catholic areas. The carving profession can still be learned today at the school for wood carving in Brienz .
Embroidery has a long tradition in Switzerland , which is used, for example, to decorate traditional costumes , which differ depending on the region. In the past, embroidery was an important branch of the home industry and today only a few companies still produce the world-famous St. Gallen embroidery , which is popular, for example, in haute couture and which made St. Gallen one of the richest cities in Switzerland in its heyday had. In addition, Switzerland has been known for its lace since the 19th century , which was already used in the Victorian fashion world in women's Sunday costumes for hats and gloves.
Folk festivals throughout Switzerland are rare. In 1999 the Fête des Vignerons, which only takes place every 25 years, was celebrated in Vevey , while the last Unspunnen festival took place in Interlaken in 2011 . There are federal costume, shooting, singing and other festivals that are celebrated at regular intervals, usually always in a different location. Approx. Every 25 years a national exhibition takes place, for example in 1914 in Bern , 1939 in Zurich , 1964 in Lausanne and the Expo02 in 2002 in the area of the Jura lakes .
Each region has its own folk festivals. The biggest annual festivals are the Lucerne and Basel Carnival , the Albanifest in Winterthur , the Bern Zibelemärit , the Fête des Vendanges in Neuchâtel and the Sechseläuten in Zurich, as well as various shooting festivals .
A list of living traditions in Switzerland is from since 2011 Federal Office of Culture as part of the UNESCO - Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage conducted.
kitchen
There is no uniform Swiss cuisine, but there are numerous regional dishes, some of which are known throughout Switzerland.
Watchmaking
Switzerland is known for valuable watches of high quality.
architecture
Switzerland has a rich architectural heritage. You can get to know the rural architecture, which has produced a farmhouse style typical for each region, in the Ballenberg open-air museum between Brienz and Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland .
The Romanesque style of the 12th century can be seen in the cathedrals of Basel , Sion , Chur , Geneva and Lausanne as well as in many palaces and fortresses. The cathedrals of Bern , Schaffhausen , Zug and Zurich are built in the Gothic style , those of Einsiedeln , Solothurn and St. Gallen in the Baroque style.
During the Renaissance there were many architects, especially from the canton of Ticino , who created numerous well-known buildings in Italy and Russia, among others. The prisons at the Doge's Palace and the Rialto Bridge , both in Venice , were built by Antonio da Ponte , Antonio Contino created the Bridge of Sighs , Domenico Fontana was involved in the renovations of the Lateran Palace in Rome and on the facade of the Palazzo Reale in Naples .
In Rome, his nephew Carlo Maderno was the chief architect on St. Peter and designed the facade of St. Peter's Basilica . The church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane , the gallery of the Palazzo Spada and the Filippini monastery were planned by Francesco Borromini , Carlo Fontana was responsible for the facade of San Marcello al Corso and the Montecitorio palace .
Baldassare Longhena designed the church of Santa Maria della Salute and the Scuola Grande dei Carmini in Venice.
Later GB Gilardi helped rebuild some buildings in the Moscow Kremlin , and his son Domenico Gilardi was commissioned to rebuild the Moscow State University . Domenico Trezzini planned some palaces in Saint Petersburg on behalf of Peter I.
The most famous Swiss architect is Le Corbusier . In addition to the Swiss architecture offices Atelier 5 (Bern), Mario Botta , Diener & Diener , which are well-known beyond Switzerland's borders, Swiss architecture has two Pritzker Prize winners in Herzog & de Meuron and Peter Zumthor .
Painting and sculpture
In the 16th century, the Reformation and the Renaissance strongly influenced the visual arts in Switzerland. Hans Holbein the Elder J. was from Basel and Niklaus Manuel worked in Bern during the Reformation
Angelika Kauffmann was a well-known classicist painter from Chur in the 18th century . The poet Salomon Gessner was also a painter, Jean-Étienne Liotard from Geneva was a well-known pastel and enamel painter and Johann Heinrich Füssli became famous in England in the later 18th century.
Arnold Böcklin from Basel is considered one of the most important visual artists of the 19th century. Albert Anker , Giovanni Segantini and Ferdinand Hodler were great painters of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 20th century Alberto Giacometti , Meret Oppenheim , Jean Tinguely and Max Bill became internationally known.
Internationally known contemporary artists include Peter Fischli / David Weiss , Sylvie Fleury , Franz Gertsch , HR Giger , Bernhard Luginbühl and Pipilotti Rist .
In Switzerland there are some state and private well-known museums and collections in smaller towns and cities. See also: List of Swiss painters and graphic artists and Category: Art museum in Switzerland
Movie
Filmmaking began relatively late in Switzerland. The most important figure for the creation of a Swiss film scene from the 1930s onwards was Lazar Wechsler, born in Galicia , with his successful Praesens Film , for which he received numerous awards. From the 1950s onwards, Gloria Film became a competitor.
The official cultural policy of Switzerland, which has been in the service of national cohesion since 1937, which was described as "intellectual national defense", brought Swiss film a heyday between 1938 and 1943, as film also benefited from large cultural subsidies.
The homeland film Heidi from 1952 was a worldwide success, the sequel Heidi and Peter from 1955, the first Swiss color film, was an even greater success. The magnificent mountain scenery with blooming alpine meadows, represented as the "ideal world", was in great demand internationally.
Today there is no actual film industry in Switzerland , but there is state film funding from the Film Section of the Federal Office of Culture. As a rule, filmmakers are also dependent on private support. Few Swiss films are known around the world, and most Swiss cinemas show American productions.
In the second half of the 20th century, the so-called “Young Swiss Film” was created under changed conditions. This does not include the most famous Swiss film director, the Franco-Swiss founder of the Nouvelle Vague , Jean-Luc Godard , who shot his famous films in France. Since the 1960s, directors from French-speaking Switzerland such as Claude Goretta , Michel Soutter and Alain Tanner have made Swiss films famous. Other Swiss directors include Rolf Lyssy , Fredi M. Murer , Daniel Schmid and Michael Steiner .
One of the most successful films was Die Schweizermacher by Rolf Lyssy, which shows in a humorous way the difficulties involved in obtaining Swiss citizenship . The film Höhenfeuer by Fredi M. Murer is set in the Swiss mountains and deals with the subject of incest in remote mountain regions. Also in the countryside of the film takes place Small escapes from Yves Yersin , who by the Swiss Sunday newspaper was declared in 2001 the best Swiss film of all time.
An Oscar in 1991 won the journey of hope of Xavier Koller . The film Mein Name ist Eugen , based on the book of the same name by Klaus Schädelin , was successful in 2005 .
Today's most successful Swiss in the international film business is probably the producer Arthur Cohn , who won several Oscars and numerous other awards with the films he produced. The German-Swiss director Marc Forster has also been successful in Hollywood for several years .
The Swiss Film Prize is awarded at the Solothurn Film Festival at the end of January. Every year in August the Locarno International Film Festival takes place, one of the most important international film festivals in the world. The most recent festival is the Zurich Film Festival , which took place for the first time in 2005.
literature
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Swiss literature is divided into German, French, Italian and Romansh literature according to the four national languages. In German-speaking Switzerland there is also dialect literature in addition to German .
The best-known literary representation of the old Confederation comes from Friedrich Schiller , who wrote the play Wilhelm Tell from 1803-1804 , which premiered on March 17, 1804 at the Weimar Court Theater.
The world's most famous book from Switzerland is Heidi by Johanna Spyri from 1881. It is one of the best-known children's books of all and one of the most translated books in the world. Johanna Spyri created a romantic and ideal image of Switzerland that is still widespread today.
theatre
All major cities in Switzerland have a city theater. The best known is the Schauspielhaus Zürich , which became one of the most important German-speaking theaters, not least thanks to the emigration of numerous artists from Germany during the Nazi dictatorship . In addition to the large theaters, there are also smaller theaters in most cities.
The folk drama is popular and is practically always performed in dialect in German-speaking Switzerland. Popular folk actors like Walter Roderer , Walo Lüönd , Zarli Carigiet , Schaggi Streuli or Jörg Schneider often owe their popularity less to film and television than to their participation in popular theaters.
In Switzerland there is a long tradition in amateur theater, every hundredth Swiss is a member of one of the 600 theater associations. The Central Association of Swiss People's Theaters forms the umbrella organization for the regionally active theater groups and associations. In addition to local theater groups that enliven the culture in rural areas, there are numerous supraregional open-air performances in summer, for example the Tellspiele in Interlaken or Altdorf and numerous others, which are often at a semi-professional level.
Dialect pieces for amateur theater have often been written by well-known authors such as Hansjörg Schneider or Thomas Hürlimann in recent decades .
musical
The Swiss musical scene has a long tradition. In addition to performances of international musicals, there are successful Swiss musicals, from the Schwarzen Hecht (1939) and the Kleiner Niederdorfoper (1951) to the successes of the last few years Space Dream (1994) and Ewigi Liebi (2004) and the world premieres of Heidi - Das Musical (2005 and 2007), Dällebach Kari (2010) and Gotthelf - Das Musical (2011). With the exception of the black pike, all successful Swiss musicals are played in Swiss German .
circus
There is a rich circus scene in Switzerland, some of which has a long tradition, first and foremost the Circus Knie with a 200-year tradition. In addition, there are and have been many other companies with a high level of awareness, e. B. Circus Monti and the former Circus Nock . There are also several circus schools.
music
In traditional Swiss culture, Swiss folk music, which is part of Alpine folk music , has a high priority. Specifically Swiss instruments are the alphorn and the Schwyzerörgeli , but violin, bass violin and clarinet are also common. The different styles of folk music are generally referred to collectively as Ländlermusik , also known as Hudigäggeler . In contrast to the rest of the German-speaking region, LÄNDER does not only refer to 3/4 bar Ländler melodies, but also dance and entertainment music that emerged from folk music of the 19th century at the beginning of the 20th century.
Instrumental Swiss folk music is cultivated in numerous local groups with changing compositions. Most of the players have amateur status, some are known throughout Switzerland, such as the string music Alder , Carlo Brunner or the Swiss Länders Gamblers . The music is mainly dance music such as Länders or Scottish , but is often played without the opportunity to dance. Brass music formations are also widespread and the Federal Music Festival is the largest brass music festival in the world. When it comes to traditional singing, there are countless local yodelling groups. The federal yodelling association has 25,000 members and the last Federal Yodelling Festival (2008) in Lucerne attracted 360,000 visitors.
Since the second half of the 20th century, the dialect has asserted itself alongside English in modern light music in German-speaking Switzerland. Early representatives were the Bernese troubadours and Mani Matter , later Stephan Eicher and Polo Hofer . Well-known pop and rock musicians and bands are: Patent Ochsner , Züri West , Florian Ast , Rumpelstilz , Yello , Krokus , DJ Bobo , Gotthard , John Brack , Plüsch , Sina , or the Lovebugs .
Switzerland produced a number of well-known composers of serious music in the 20th century such as Arthur Honegger , Othmar Schoeck and Frank Martin .
Andreas Vollenweider was the only Swiss composer and musician to receive a Grammy Award in 1987 . Two further nominations followed, the last time in 2007 . His records have been sold over 15 million times worldwide.
The larger and medium-sized cities have one or more orchestras, some of which are of high quality. The bigger cities have an opera house. The most important opera in Switzerland is the Zurich Opera House , which is one of the most important opera houses in the world.
In Lucerne place with the Lucerne Festival one of the most prestigious international music festival held annually. There are also similar events in other places, albeit smaller ones.
In the field of pop and rock music, there are numerous open-air festivals every year . One of the older ones is the one on the Gurten near Bern, the best known is the Open Air St. Gallen . The Montreux Jazz Festival , which has been taking place on Lake Geneva since 1967, is probably the best-known international jazz festival.
Costumes
There are over 700 different traditional costumes in Switzerland. These differ not only from canton to canton, but also within the cantons, especially the women's costumes, often differ from region to region. In practically all regions, a distinction is made between holiday and weekday costumes.
Traditional costumes are no longer to be found in everyday streets in Switzerland . They are worn exclusively for festivals such as the federal festivals , the national holiday or, in some regions, for Corpus Christi processions and for cultural events such as presentations by traditional costume groups and choral societies.
science
Several cantons in Switzerland have a university, such as Basel, Bern, Friborg, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, Geneva, St. Gallen and Vaud (Lausanne). There is also a Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and one in Zurich (ETH, formerly Poly). The oldest university in Switzerland is the one in Basel , which was founded in 1460.
In some cases, women and members of minorities were admitted to Swiss universities earlier than to universities in other European countries, which brought a large number of foreign students and lecturers to Swiss universities, such as Albert Einstein , Ricarda Huch , Rosa Luxemburg .
Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), who was born near Einsiedeln in 1493, studied in Basel and was the city doctor of Basel with the right to teach at the medical faculty. In 1527/28 he held medical lectures in Basel - contrary to the customs of the time, exclusively in German, because “the truth only has to be taught in German”. This circumstance and the violent criticism of the doctors and pharmacists brought forward during his apprenticeship resulted in diatribes against him and open threats against life and limb. In February 1528 Paracelsus fled to Alsace .
The humanist Erasmus von Rotterdam lived in Basel from 1524 to 1529 and 1535 until his death in 1536. Parts of his estate are exhibited in the Basel Historical Museum . The high esteem the humanist enjoyed during his lifetime is shown by the fact that he was buried as a Catholic priest in the Protestant Basel Minster at the time of the most violent confessional conflicts .
The Bernoulli family, who came from the Netherlands, settled in Basel around 1620 and acquired citizenship there. As a mathematician and physicist became famous above all Jacob Bernoulli ( Bernoulli number ), Johann I Bernoulli and Daniel Bernoulli . In the centuries that followed, many natural scientists and, in modern times, some artists emerged from the family. The architect Hans Bernoulli is also related to the ancient mathematicians.
A large part of today's mathematical symbolism goes back to the mathematician Leonhard Euler , who was born in Basel in 1707 (e.g. e, π, i, summation symbols ∑, f (x) as a representation for a function). The Euler number e = 2.718281828459 ... that plays in calculus (calculus) an important role, is named after him.
The Bernese Albrecht von Haller was not only a scientist and physician, but also a poet. He was one of the most famous scholars of the 18th century and was considered a universal scholar . His publications on anatomy are of great importance in the history of medicine ; his eight-volume standard work Elementa physiologiae corporis humani (1757–66) was reissued into the 20th century. With his animal experiments to determine the sensitivity and irritability of individual body parts, he founded modern experimental physiology and sparked a Europe-wide controversy.
With his poem The Alps , Haller drew the first positive picture of the Swiss mountain landscape, which had been perceived as frightening up until then, and thus inadvertently created an essential prerequisite for today's mountain tourism.
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure from Geneva , a nephew of Haller, is considered the father of modern alpine research and one of the founders of geology and plant geography . On him z. B. back the name of the Dolomites . He named the rock , which he recognized as an independent mineral , after the French geologist Déodat de Dolomieu .
Ferdinand de Saussure , great-grandson of Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, has been the founder of modern linguistics and structuralism since the posthumous publication of his linguistic lectures at the University of Geneva from 1906 to 1911 under the title Cours de linguistique générale .
The ETH Zurich and other Swiss universities produced a large number of Nobel Prize winners .
The most famous Nobel Prize laureate is probably Albert Einstein , who came to Switzerland as a student from the German Empire in 1896 and received Swiss citizenship in 1901, which, in contrast to various other citizenships he had held in the course of his life, he retained when he did later became an American citizen. Einstein's main work, the theory of relativity , was published in 1905, the annus mirabilis , when Einstein was living in Bern and working at the patent office.
Cultural behavior
A study by the Federal Statistical Office on the cultural behavior of the Swiss resident population in 2008 showed, among other things, the following:
- 93% of the resident population attended at least one cultural institution in 2008: 66% concerts, monuments and historical sites, museums and exhibitions or cinemas; 44% libraries and media libraries; 42% theater and 35% festivals.
- 62% engage in their own cultural activities: 20 to 23% do amateur photography or visual arts, 19% play an instrument and 16% sing.
- Almost all people use newspapers and television (97% each) and the radio (92%). 86% listen to music, 81% read books privately or professionally and 79% use the Internet .
- The extent of participation in cultural life is heavily dependent on the level of education. Participation rates for most cultural activities are highest in German-speaking Switzerland , but arts and crafts and dance are more popular in Ticino , while in French -speaking Switzerland , festivals, comics and listening to private music are more popular .
literature
- Thomas Küng, Peter Schneider: Instructions for use for Switzerland , Piper 7566, Munich / Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-492-27566-8 .
Web links
- The living traditions of Switzerland
- Swiss folk music
- Museums in Switzerland
- Various reports on Swiss culture on swissinfo.ch
- Culture from Switzerland: The cultural calendar for Germany
Individual evidence
- ^ German-speaking Switzerland and French-speaking Switzerland: That certain something in Neue Zürcher Zeitung from July 14, 2016
- ↑ Max Peter Baumann / Dieter Ringli: Yodel. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- ↑ ( ZSV )
- ↑ Federal Statistical Office, Cultural Behavior in Switzerland: An In-Depth Analysis - Survey 2008 ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Neuchâtel, April 11, 2011, ISBN 978-3-303-16087-9 , pp. 5/9/19/28
