Reading society Stäfa
The Stäfa Reading Society is a reading society in the Swiss municipality of Stäfa and today has over 800 members. At the end of the 18th century and in the first half of the 19th century it was part of the Enlightenment movement among the rural population of Zurich. With the liberal constitution of 1831, the victory of the liberals in 1845 after the conservative turnaround of 1839 ( Züriputsch ), the victory of the liberals in the Sonderbund War in 1847 and the enactment of the federal constitution in 1848, the central political goals were achieved. In the decades that followed, the reading society, which still exists today, transformed into a cultural organization that organizes concerts and theater performances by professional ensembles and runs the “Museum of Color” and the Stäfa library.
history
In 1793, the Stäfner country doctor and champion for equal rights in the Zurich countryside, Johann Caspar Pfenninger, founded the “Reading Society for the Lake” together with ten friends from Wädenswil , Horgen , Meilen , Männedorf and Stäfa . This association without statutes and a permanent seat spread enlightening ideas, campaigned for the education of the people and defended itself against the privileges of the citizens of the city of Zurich over the rural population. In 1794, reading partners summarized their demands on the Zurich authorities in the "Stäfner Memorial". The government reacted sharply to the petition, arrested the leaders of the movement and the author of the memorial, Heinrich Nehracher, and sentenced them to years of banishment or high fines. The conflict culminated in 1795 with the military occupation of Stäfa and went down in history as the “ Stäfner Handel ”. The first reading society Stäfa dissolved as a result.
At the time of the Restoration, in 1819, the same groups re-founded the Stäfa Reading Society as an association. Its first president was Johann Caspar Pfenninger, who had served as Zurich governor during the Helvetic Republic and was now a member of the Zurich government council as a representative of the Liberals. Equal rights for the rural population of Zurich and the city of Zurich remained an important concern of the reading society. Exponents of the association were therefore significantly involved in the preparation of the Ustertag . On November 22, 1830, around ten thousand men from the Zurich countryside gathered in Zurich and demanded equality for the rural population on the basis of a new cantonal constitution, which was then worked out in their spirit and approved by the people with an overwhelming majority in 1831. As a result, the reading society focused more on promoting the education of the rural people, preserving the cultural heritage of the community and on cultural events.
In the middle of the 20th century, the reading society formed the three pillars that still exist today: the Museum of Color was opened in 1947, the Stäfa library in 1961 and in 1966 the reading society started an annual concert and theater program. In the 1970s, the association also changed from a club of influential and bourgeois stewards to a politically independent public association that had more than 1,000 members at the turn of the millennium.
present
The reading society is now a politically and denominationally neutral association. It is open to anyone interested and in 2019 had more than 800 members from Stäfa and the surrounding area. The general assembly elects the honorary members of the board for a term of office of three years each.
Concerts and theater
The reading society organizes concerts and theater performances with professional ensembles in Stäfa and in the neighboring municipality of Hombrechtikon. In music, classical and jazz are preferred genres. The Theater Kanton Zürich is a regular guest in the programs, which usually last from September to May or June of the following year .
Museum of color
The Museum of Color is located in a historic residential building from the 15th century. In 1944, the reading society acquired the Haus zur Farb in the Stäfner district of Dorf; today it is also the seat of the association. In addition to the permanent exhibition about the “Stäfner Handel”, the late medieval building and a Fatschenkind collection, the museum regularly holds special exhibitions.
Library of Stäfa
On behalf of the municipality, the reading society operates the public library in the secondary school building in Obstgarten (Tränkebachstrasse 41). The library presents around 18,000 media from the fields of fiction, non-fiction and non-books on over 220 m². Children's books, magazines, maps as well as CDs and videos are also part of the range. The Stäfa library, which lends around 70,000 media a year, also organizes regular author readings.
literature
- Hans Frei, Stäfa, Volume 2, Reading Society Stäfa 1969.
- Christoph Mörgeli (ed.), Memorial and Stäfner Handel 1794/1795 , Community and Reading Society Stäfa 1995.
- Emil Stauber, 125 years of the Stäfa Reading Society (1819 - 1944) , separate print from the Zürichsee-Zeitung 1944.
- Peter Ziegler (Red.), Verena Bodmer-Gessner, Paul Kläui, Hans Frey, Albert Bodmer, Stäfa Volume 1, Stäfa Reading Society 1968.
Web links
- Homepage
- The revolutionaries from Lake Zurich , Zürichsee-Zeitung, March 2, 2019
Individual evidence
- ^ Reading society Stäfa | About us. Retrieved September 26, 2019 .
- ↑ Paul Kläui in: Peter Ziegler, Stäfa, Volume 1, pp. 237–274, Reading Society Stäfa 1968.
- ↑ Hans Frei, Stäfa, Volume 2, pp. 436-439
- ^ Reading society Stäfa | Mission statement and strategy 2015–2020 of the association. Retrieved September 26, 2019 .