Unspunnenfest
The Unspunnen Festival is a Swiss alpine pastoral festival that was first held in the early phase of the mediation period in 1805 near Unspunnen Castle near Interlaken . The Unspunnen Festival begins on the last Saturday in August and ends a week later on Sunday. According to irregular dates of the event, around 2000 it was decided to hold the festival every 12 years, but the Unspunnen-Schwinget every 6 years, for example from Saturday 26 August 2017 to Sunday 3 September 2017. On the first two days of the festival the Unspunnen swing takes place.
Unspunnen ruins
The first Unspunnen Festival took place in front of the Alpine panorama of the Eiger , Mönch and Jungfrau on August 17, 1805, not far from the Unspunnen ruins . This castle ruin lies on a hill above the present-day villages of Matten , Wilderswil , Bönigen and the cities of Interlaken and Unterseen on the edge of the Bödeli , the alluvial plain of the Lütschine between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz .
First Unspunnen Festival, 1805
Initiators
The Unspunnen Festival was inspired by four aristocratic Bernburgers , i.e. members of the Bernese patriciate : Schultheiss Niklaus Friedrich von Mülinen (1760–1833), who commanded soldiers from the Bernese Oberland in 1798 in the fight against the advancing Napoleonic troops , Friedrich Ludwig Thormann (1762–1839), who was Bernese chief magistrate in Interlaken between 1803 and 1810 , Franz Sigmund Wagner (1759–1835), a co-founder of the Bern Art Society, who is described in the founding documents of the Unspunnen Festival as an “art lover” and Franz Niklaus König (1765–1832), a supraregional well-known painter, etcher and lithographer.
announcement
The Unspunnen Festival of 1805 was announced in the Moniteur Universel in Paris and in the non-profit Swiss news , where co-initiator Wagner described the festival idea as follows: «After the long years of dictation and humiliation by the French, the Swiss people should once again have the opportunity to enjoy the festivities Swiss fighting games and songs should strengthen self-esteem and national awareness. "
General political weather situation
The pathos was not by chance: in 1805, when the Battle of the Three Emperors raged in Austerlitz , where Swiss and Bernese soldiers lost their lives on all sides, Napoleon's influence waned in the Bernese Oberland, in Bern and in all of Switzerland. The Helvetik (1798–1803), which among other things had installed the Bernese Oberland as its own canton Oberland , was up for grabs. The Unspunnenfest had its socio-political function in it, which not only described Wagner.
The so-called patriots of the Bernese Oberland, the so-called patriots, were just as pathetic as the people of the Bernese Oberland, who were also enthusiastic about a rural festival, were supposed to "water the newly sprouting flower of their conservative aristocracy from their love for the old folk customs." The Bern government closely followed the political machinations of these patriots, who took the position that the city of Bern wanted “basically nothing more than the restoration of the old relations of rule”.
Mediation between town and country
The forces of the Helvetic Republic and its mediation constitution had put the city of Bern and the country on an equal footing and brought, among other things, legal equality, freedom of trade, commerce, conscience, religion and the press. These revolutionary achievements were not entirely preserved: the so-called Ancien Régime , represented by the Bernburgs, sought to strengthen its position; the patriots, often represented by teachers, tried to counter this.
According to the organizers, the Unspunnen Festival should have a mediating function; The dialect writer Rudolf von Tavel , also a Bernese patrician, gave testimony to this in his work Unspunnen : here an educated government that exercises its self-evident political and economic leadership role for the benefit of the entire Bernese region, there a hard-working population that works from the kitchen sent the field to the battlefield and obediently fulfills their role also for the benefit of the entire Bernese country.
The Unspunnen Festival of 1805 was based on the traditional alpine herder festivals, where the cattle owners check the state of affairs in the Alps as part of a midsummer festival. At the Unspunnenfest, however, the roles were postponed: The reinstalled authorities and their mostly aristocratic friends, who flocked to the festival from all over Europe and thus also founded tourism , faced a rural population who showed their craft and artistic skills in the natural arena.
Although Bern feared unrest and took appropriate precautionary measures, the one-day festival with competition and awards went well. It was to take place every year from now on; as a rural Swiss festival, sponsored by “a society from Bern, friends of old patriotic customs and traditions”, as co-initiator Franz Sigmund Wagner stated.
Second Unspunnen Festival, 1808
The planned annual repetition did not take place. It was not until 1808 that a second Unspunnen festival was launched in memory of the legendary Rütli oath of 1307. In the course of the media reports about the first festival and again good advertising, around 5,000 visitors came this time, which triggered another tourist boost.
Unspunnenstein
A stone throwing competition was held at the first Unspunnen Festival in 1805 . A stone weighing 184 pounds was struck. A stone weighing 83.5 kilograms, called the Unspunnen stone, has been used since 1905 .
Break (1808-1905)
The fact that the annual event did not take place was due not least to the continued poor relationship between town and country: “The political and economic conditions in the Oberland remained tense. The police system and the need for the poor continued to mock the lovely unity between government and people ”, write Rudolf Gallati and Christoph Wyss in the standard work Unspunnen , published in 1993 by the Schlaefli publishing house in Interlaken.
The unrest escalated in 1814 when there was open riot against Bern in the Bernese Oberland. Unspunnen festivals were no longer considered for the time being: although both festivals had sparked tourism in the long term, they completely failed to achieve their socio-political goals.
New beginning under the sign of tourism (1905)
When the third edition began to be organized in 1905, the intention was on the one hand to be touristy, as the festival was expressly celebrated 100 years of tourism and set the date to be June 24th to 27th in order to liven up the season. On the other hand, in the course of the 19th century a new, almost in contrast to the class nationalism of the patricians, a bourgeois nationalism had established itself: The Federal Rifle Club, Federal Gymnastics Association, Federal Singers' Association and Federal Wrestling Club were first in line in 1905 when the Unspunnen Festival was under the affiche VI. Swiss Wrestling and Alpine Festival went off successfully.
More festivals
In the 20th century the festival was held six more times: in 1946, 1955, 1968, 1981 and 1993. In 2005, another Unspunnen festival was supposed to take place on the occasion of the 200th anniversary . Due to the major storm damage caused by the Alpine floods in 2005 , the festival was postponed for a year and took place from September 1st to 3rd, 2006. The second Unspunnen Festival in the 21st century was held from August 26th to September 3rd, 2017 [obsolete] .
Unspunnen-Schwinget
The Unspunnenschwingen takes place every six years, in the year after the Swiss Wrestling Festival. It only takes place on one day with the 100 best wrestlers in Switzerland. This is a wrestling festival in which other competitions such as stone throwing with the Unspunnenstein are held. In addition to the Swiss Federal Wrestling Festival , only the Kilchberger Schwingfest , the Unspunnen-Schwinget and the Expo-Schwinget, which is only held at Swiss national exhibitions, are celebrations with a federal character.
In 2011, the Unspunnen-Schwinget took place for the first time from September 1st to 4th on the Höhematte in the center of Interlaken, where the Unspunnenfest also takes place. A grandstand for 15,000 people was set up. In 2017 it took place on the last weekend in August.
| year | Surname | origin |
|---|---|---|
| 1805 | Stahli Hans | Schwanden b. Brienz |
| 1808 | Brog Peter | Oberhasli |
| 1895 | Niklaus Alfred (1st party)
Michel Hans (1st party) Haueter Fritz (2nd party) |
Koeniz
Brienz Erlenbach |
| 1905 | Stucki Hans (1a)
Tailor Albrecht (1b) |
Konolfingen
Turbidity |
| 1946 | Fink Arnold (1a)
Abplanalp Ernst (1b) |
Büetigen
Meiringen |
| 1949 | Kopp Hans | Niederönz |
| 1955 | Münger Hans (1a)
Gasser Hansueli (1b) |
Biel
Ersigen |
| 1962 | Shield Kurt | Biel |
| 1968 | Gasser Peter (1a)
Hunsperger Ruedi (1b) |
Ersigen
Habstetten |
| 1976 | Schläfli Ernest | Posiuex |
| 1981 | Betschard Leo | Sins |
| 1987 | Gasser Niklaus | Belp |
| 1993 | Sutter Thomas | Appenzell |
| 1999 | Abderhalden Jörg | Nesslau |
| 2006 | Grave Martin | Rothenthurm |
| 2011 | Bösch Daniel | Sirnach |
| 2017 | Stucki Christian | Lyss |
logistics
At the festival of 1805, 600 guests had to be accommodated with private individuals due to the lack of inns. In 1805 there were only three accommodation providers for travelers: the town house, the monastery area and the Hirschen.
In 2006, the Interlaken region offered around 4,500 guest beds in around 60 hotels and over 6500 seats in a good 90 restaurants.
literature
- Rudolf Gallati, Christoph Wyss (eds.): Unspunnen 1805-2005. The history of the Alpine Shepherd Festival. New edition, Tourist Museum of the Jungfrau Region, Unterseen-Interlaken 2005, ISBN 3-9521339-1-4 .
- Martin Sebastian: Unspunnenfest 1805 until today. Stone throwing, swinging, traditional costume dance, folklore, tourism, Swiss history. Self-published, Dübendorf 2006, ISBN 3-9523162-0-2 .
- Ernst Schläppi: Unterseen: From the medieval town to today's community. 2 volumes. Schlaefli & Maurer, Interlaken 2008 ( 2 PDF files online ).
Web links
- Unspunnen Festival website
- Unspunnen Schwinget website
- Unspunnen - The History of the Alpine Shepherd Festival, A Brief Outline of the Unspunnen Festival 1805–1993, Tourist Museum of the Jungfrau Region, Unterseen / Interlaken 2009, accessed on September 4, 2011.
- Unspunnen 1805 to 2005 Jungfrauzeitung, Interlaken August 25, 2005, accessed on August 17, 2010.
- Website «Unspunnenbuch» with pictures of the 2006 Unspunnen Festival
Individual evidence
- ↑ Unspunnen Festival every 12 years
- ↑ Unspunnen-Schwinget every 6 years
- ↑ Program of the Unspunnenfest 2017 ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2016 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.
- ↑ Unspunnenschwinget website. Retrieved September 22, 2017 .
- ↑ Swiss wrestling festivals (PDF) ( Memento of the original from August 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Document of the Swiss Wrestling Association of February 6, 2011
- ↑ Ranking lists since 1905 ( Memento of the original from October 17, 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. on the Unspunnen Schwinget website
- ↑ Unspunnen-Schwinget 2011 on the Unspunnen-Schwinget website
