Oll 'May
Oll'Mai - "the old May" - is an event organized by the East Frisian landscape around May 10th every year. The term "Oll" indicates that this date must be a very old one. However, a distinction should be made between the terms Oll'Mai and the date mentioned.
history
On July 6th, 1620 it was decided at the Northern State Parliament that the administrative college - we can compare this committee with today's landscape college - should submit an annual report to the parliament of the East Frisian landscape on May 10th at the "regional accounting meeting". This estate parliament originally consisted of representatives of the cities, the knighthood and the peasants.
May 10th for the annual convention is likely to be more of a random date. Until now it has been assumed in the literature that this day should actually be May 1st because of the calendar reform . However, this line of thought is not logical. The transition from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar - and thus a time jump of 10 days - did not take place in East Frisia until 1700. Previously, both times were used in fractions only in national correspondence: the new date in the denominator, the old one in the numerator. The Julian calendar was used throughout the region.
From 1620, with a few exceptions, the date lasted for more than 380 years. In 1806 it was again expressly affirmed that it should also be adhered to if it fell on a Sunday. This regulation was weakened in 1846 when the East Frisian landscape got a new constitution after tough negotiations with the King of Hanover. It was determined that a state accounts meeting should generally take place on May 10th each year, but that this could be held on the following Monday, provided that it was on a Sunday. In the constitution of the East Frisian landscape of 1949, reference was made to the tradition of May 10th: "In the spirit of worthy tradition, this conference should give expression to all Frisian cultural endeavors."
today
In the meantime, the East Frisian landscape no longer has a comprehensive political function, but is considered the cultural parliament of the region. Its representatives meet twice a year in so-called landscape meetings. The accountability report will be submitted for approval at a regular landscape meeting - the first in the new year.
The gathering around May 10th is celebrated as a festive landscape gathering or Oll'Mai gathering. On this occasion, honors take place and deserving non-East Frisians for the region receive honorary citizenship, the so-called " indigenous ". In addition, the culture prize is awarded to excellent projects or people and there is a congress that deals with an important topic that is current for the region.
Although the date “10. Mai "as mentioned above has a long tradition, this is not the case with the term" Oll'Mai ". "Ollen Mai", later called "Oll'Mai", only appeared in newspaper reports from 1953, at first sporadically. In the minutes of the College of the East Frisian Landscape, the term did not establish itself until the 1960s.
Bibliography
- Warner Mimke Berghaus: The constitutional history of the East Frisian landscape , Göttingen 1955 ( typewritten copied)
- Gerfried Engelberg: Estates law in the constitutional state, illustrated using the example of the dispute over the rights of the landscape representatives of East Friesland with the Kingdom of Hanover (= writings on constitutional history 29), Berlin 1979
- Michael Hermann: An “impossible” letter to Princess Christine Charlotte. Dating differences between Münster and Ostfriesland, in: Unser Ostfriesland 9 (2007), pp. 35–36
- Heinz Ramm: The "East Frisian Landscape" , Essen 1975 (special print from: Günther Möhlmann: Ostfriesland - wide land on the North Sea coast , Essen 1961)