Federal holiday
Federal holiday ( French Fête nationale , Italian Festa nazionale , Rumantsch Grischun Festa naziunala ) is the official name of the national holiday of the Swiss Confederation on August 1st. The terms 1. August and Bundesfeier are more common in standard Swiss German . August 1st was chosen in relation to the Federal Letter from the beginning of August 1291 .
Story of the holiday
The day was celebrated for the first time on August 1, 1891 and was repeated annually throughout Switzerland from 1899 onwards . It is a public holiday in Switzerland , but until 1993 it was either a normal working day, half a day or a full day of public rest, depending on the cantons. August 1st does not refer to the date of the Rütli oath (the historian Aegidius Tschudi set the date of the Rütli oath in his Swiss chronicle from the middle of the 16th century to the "Wednesday before Martini" 1307, i.e. November 8, 1307) , but rather on the federal letter of 1291, which is dated to the beginning of August 1291. It was not until the end of the 19th century that August 1st was declared the “birthday” of Switzerland.
The idea of setting the year 1291 as the founding year of the Swiss Confederation and August 1st as the federal holiday goes back to the Bernese initiative. In 1891, Bern wanted to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the city. The connection with a 600th anniversary celebration of the Swiss Confederation came in very handy. In the report that the Department of the Interior drafted for the attention of the Federal Council on November 21, 1889 , a two-day celebration was actually planned in Bern and not in central Switzerland. With the federal letter of 1291 , which laid down the defense agreement between the three original cantons , a document had been chosen that was not undisputed. As early as the 19th century, historians counted 82 documents for the period from 1251 to 1386, with which similar covenants were sealed. In particular, the Bund zu Brunnen of 1315 was considered by many to be the founding act of the Confederation, if one did not assume that the Confederation would come into being step by step.
Aegidius Tschudi's date of the Rütli oath (November 8, 1307) as the birth of the Swiss Confederation was held well into the 20th century . In 1907, the 600th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation was celebrated in Altdorf UR in the presence of a Federal Council delegation. Since then, the memory of 1307 as the date of the Rütli oath and thus the year the Confederation was founded has been lost. In the new national myth, which was coined during the Second World War - among other things with the Rütli report by General Guisan or with the 650th anniversary celebration in 1941 - the Rütli oath myth was more and more associated with August 1st, the Swiss federal holiday established by the Federal Council in 1889.
The Federal Celebration Committee (now Pro Patria ), founded in 1909, began issuing federal celebration postcards in 1910 to raise funds for charitable purposes, such as for the Swiss Red Cross or Mothers Aid . In 1923 the official August 1st badge was added, and in 1938 the federal celebration stamp with a tax surcharge was added as a third means of collection. The federal celebration cards were discontinued in 1960, while the sale of badges and postage stamps by school children continues to this day. The Pro Patria Foundation has been supporting the preservation and care of cultural landscapes and monuments since 1992.
The Swiss national holiday has been a day off throughout Switzerland since July 1, 1994, after the Swiss electorate accepted the popular initiative “for a federal holiday day off from work” ( August 1st initiative ) on September 26, 1993 (cf. Art. 110 para. 3 of the Federal Constitution). Previously, the day only had this status in a few cantons.
In 1993, the August 1st brunch, which has since become a tradition, took place on individual farms for the first time. In 2007 420 farms received a total of 200,000 guests. This farm breakfast mainly offers milk, muesli , fruit, fresh plaited pancakes , August 1st Weggen , cheese, sausage and homemade hash browns . The brunch is coordinated by the Swiss Farmers' Association .
The drought and heat in Europe in 2018 ensured that in that year no bonfires and fireworks were allowed to be lit in many places because of the risk of forest fires, as an absolute fire ban was in the open air. As a result of the climate emergency , the city of Olten and the municipality of Stein canceled the August 1st fireworks 2019. In the city of Chur , an absolute fire ban was in effect in 2019 due to the persistent drought . The Migros Aare Cooperative has completely stopped selling fireworks since the end of 2018 . The city of Bern has not set off the August 1st fireworks since 2020 . In 2020 and 2021, the official federal celebration was canceled by some municipalities due to the corona pandemic .
Festivities and customs on August 1st
Many people decorate their homes with Swiss, cantonal and municipal flags. The flagging of public buildings, streets and squares is required by law in most places.
In the communities there are celebrations in the afternoon or in the evening, with each village cultivating its own traditions . Prayers for the people and fatherland, singing the national anthem ( Swiss psalm) and ringing bells are usually part of it. In some places traditional costumes are worn. Often a public figure gives a speech and the local music club plays.
When it gets dark, children light their lanterns and in many places private or public fireworks are set off. Meter- high bonfires burn on many mountain peaks and hills .
In some municipalities (e.g. Biel / Bienne ) the official national celebration takes place the evening before. In Basel , the unofficial "Federal Celebration on the Rhine" has been celebrated on July 31st since 1993; it is based on the tradition of the earlier "Rhine Night Festival". The local music associations are an integral part of the festival program. There are numerous concerts on the festival site on the Rhine. This extends on the Kleinbasel bank of the Rhine from the Johanniter Bridge to the Wettstein Bridge and in Grossbasel from the Johanniter Bridge to the Middle Bridge and from the Schifflände to the market square. An average of 100,000 visitors from the city and the surrounding area take part in the national celebration. On the Rhine itself, both a rubber dinghy race and the starlight, a charity light campaign for developing countries, are held. The subsequent large fireworks display will be set off on two Rhine ships above and below the Middle Bridge . The official Basel national celebration will take place on August 1st on the Bruderholz .
A national celebration has not become established. Only on the Rütli , traditionally the “cradle of the Confederation”, has the Swiss Charitable Society (SGG) held a national celebration since 1942, which is aimed at all residents of Switzerland. In addition, a celebratory radio and television address by the Federal President will be broadcast. In the evenings, the public SRG television programs used to broadcast a federal celebration program from one municipality for the four language regions. For some years now, this program has been called Lueget vo Berg und Tal in Swiss German and consists of editorial contributions, through which moderators from the four language regions lead.
In all of Switzerland, all church bells ring for a quarter of an hour at 8 p.m. The Swiss National Day is also celebrated at Swiss embassies around the world.
Cross-border national celebration
The Swiss National Day has been celebrated in the divided city of Laufenburg on the border between Switzerland and Germany for many years . At the Old Rhine Bridge, which connects the two parts of the city, the music and dance groups from both countries perform around the border line. Laufenburg was divided into two halves by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801 along the Rhine, the southern part belongs to Switzerland ( Canton Aargau ) and the northern part to Germany ( State of Baden-Württemberg ).
Web links
- Georg Kreis : Federal celebration. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . March 16, 2011 .
- Referendum of September 26th, 1993: Federal popular initiative for a federal holiday without work (August 1st initiative). In: admin.ch . 3rd July 2018.
- August 1st and the environment - information from the Federal Office for the Environment
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b 1891: August 1st is declared a national holiday. Pro Patria , accessed July 5, 2018 .
- ↑ Erich Aschwanden: Switzerland's 600th birthday: August 1st is November 8th. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . November 7, 2016, accessed July 5, 2018 .
- ^ Ordinance on the federal holiday. In: Portal of the Swiss Government. May 30, 1994, Retrieved May 7, 2018 .
- ^ Franziska Scheven, Manuel Frick: Fire ban in Switzerland: An overview. In: nzz.ch . August 1, 2018, accessed June 24, 2019 .
- ↑ Urs Huber: City council cancels the fireworks on August 1st due to climate protection - national celebration starts earlier now. In: oltnertagblatt.ch . June 14, 2019, accessed July 28, 2019 .
- ↑ For the climate: Olten and Stein do without August 1st fireworks. In: aargauerzeitung.ch . July 27, 2019, accessed July 28, 2019 .
- ↑ No August 1st fireworks in Chur. In: suedostschweiz.ch . July 23, 2019, accessed July 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Hans Ulrich Schaad: The Migros Aare no longer lets it crash. In: bernerzeitung.ch . December 29, 2018, accessed June 24, 2018 .
- ↑ There will also be fireworks in the climate year 2019. In: thunertagblatt.ch . June 19, 2019, accessed April 2, 2020 .
- ↑ Municipal council waives August 1st fireworks. City Council of Bern, April 2, 2020, accessed on April 2, 2020 .
- ↑ There will be no August 1st celebration in the city of Solothurn in 2021 either. In: solothurnerzeitung.ch. July 9, 2021, accessed July 13, 2021 .
- ↑ Sara Stojcic: Marquee , Sparks and Fireworks: Where in the region the 1st of August is celebrated - and where not. In: tagblatt.ch. July 13, 2021, accessed July 13, 2021 .
- ↑ Sad but true: The August 1st celebration in 2021 has been canceled. In: bern.ch. Retrieved July 13, 2021 .
- ↑ Federal celebration 2021 canceled. In: bundesfeier-luzern.ch. Retrieved July 13, 2021 .