Constitution Day (Norway)
The constitution day in Norway is May 17th and has the function of a national holiday. The adoption of " Kongeriket Norges Grunnlov " (Basic Law of the Kingdom of Norway) is celebrated on May 17, 1814 in Eidsvoll .
The beginnings
In the first years after 1814, May 17th was not a particularly celebrated day. Henrik Wergeland played a special role in the development of May 17 into Constitution Day, but the pioneers were different. After a few tentative attempts to turn the tenth anniversary of 1824 into an unofficial feast day, the initiative of journalist Matthias Conrad Peterson succeeded in organizing such a feast day in Trondheim in the following years . But in most cities it was a day like any other. The events were still very local and limited. That also applied to Wergeland. In 1826 he only wrote the poem "Den syttende Mai" in Morgenbladet . In 1829 he wrote “Sang i Studentersamfundet the 17th of May” in the newspaper Patrouillen and Phantasmer in the same year and more. But between 1830 and 1832 he promoted the inspection of this day in Eidsvoll and throughout Romerike , then also in Christiania in 1833 and 1835 to 1837. In 1833 there was his grand celebratory speech on the occasion of the unveiling of a monument to State Councilor Christian Krohg on May 17th. Afterwards he took care of the public organization of the day in the student association. But it was different elites that played the decisive role in establishing the tradition: Jonas Anton Hielm , Henrik Anker Bjerregaard , pastors Georg Prahl Harbitz , Iver Hesselberg , Hans Riddervold , Anton Martin Schweigaard and Frederik Stang . On May 12, 1836, they wrote an appeal in Den Constitutionelle , “to remember the day and place on which the constitution was given.” But the formation of tradition not only requires initiators, but also participants. In the 1930s, Wergeland often complained in articles about how many did not take the trouble to celebrate Constitution Day. In 1836 he was still mocking many places that with unforgivable stupidity failed to celebrate the festival of the nation. The Storting arranged the first May 17th celebration in 1836, and since that day May 17th has been considered Norway's national holiday.
Torvslaget
prehistory
In 1829 May 17 was celebrated extensively in Christiania. In the New Theater the prologue of Bjerregaard's Folk Festival was performed on May 17th . The set showed a phoenix rising from the ashes. All ships in the harbor were flagged over the tops. Cannon shots and shouts of hurray could be heard everywhere. All members of the Storting held a festive lunch in the Storting premises. Because that gave the celebration a public character. This irritated King Karl Johan of Sweden, although the toasts were made to the constitution, the king and the royal family. The student body also held a festive lunch and then continued the celebration in other ways. They moved into the city around 10:00 in the evening. The king saw separatist tendencies in it and banned the May 17th celebrations. Such celebrations are contrary to public order and decency and give rise to public unrest. He was alluding to the authority to restore public order by force. In the decree, public officials were expressly requested to act with the strictest of the law against such public celebrations. In particular, he turned to the Storting and expressly warned against participating in such an event.
May 17, 1829
In 1829 there was an incident involving military action in Christiania, which went down in history as "Torvslag".
A public celebration was not planned, but the students invited to their own closed ceremony with advance notice. The relevant notice was immediately removed by the authorities. The college college warned of the celebration, but the students did not heed the warning. They limited themselves to making the celebration more discreet. They distributed pieces of paper that read “17. Mai ”and wrote that on doors and boundary stones. The ship Constitutionen (Constitution), which was supposed to arrive regularly on May 17th, was supposed to wait in Frederiksvern, today Stavern near Larvik , to avoid demonstrative cheers, and instead the sister ship Prinds Carl was supposed to arrive . The police director personally asked a dealer not to sell his May 17 vests to the public. The police, armed with batons, were supposed to patrol the streets on the night of May 17th.
The following May 17th was a Sunday with good weather. At first nothing unusual happened until the relief of the population at 6:00 a.m. but the Constitutions came into effect. The people gathered at the Tollbodbryggen and sang for an hour with shouts of hurray. The police director, the mayor Valentin Sibbern and the governor were also there, but did not intervene, although this situation was later described as “unrest” and a violation of public order. But there were undercover agents going around making notes of the people whose behavior was considered particularly illegal. A spontaneous procession went along the Tollbodgaten, and some student guides tried in vain to prevent the participants from singing and shouting hurray. The group moved to Øvre Slottsgaten, where the student union building was on the corner. The students went in and celebrated while the crowd moved from Øvre Slottsgate to the market, around 100 people, where some street boys provoked the governor by shouting hurray as soon as he turned his back on them. It was the first actual May 17th parade in the capital. The train first went through the eastern suburbs, from Storgata to Vaterland, from there to today's Lilletorget, then back via today's Karls XIIs gate to Lille Strandgate past the town hall through Kongensgate to Grenden and to the market. It was 10:00 am and the police asked people to go home. When the people stayed, the whole magistrate came to the market, and around 11:00 a.m. the mayor read the royal ban on assembly. Then he, his colleagues and the bailiff left the market. The military operation was evidently already ordered. Around this time there were around 400 people in the market who were waiting and passive. Most of them hadn't even heard the ban on assembly being read out.
A cavalry troop under the command of Lieutenant Morgenstierne rode on the orders of the Chief of Cavalry Major General Ferdinand Wedel-Jarlsberg in a closed row and raised saber at 11:00 in the evening to Kirkegata and from there to the church. Morgenstierne had orders to disperse the crowd on different sides of the market place. The saber should be used in the event of resistance. Some citizens got under the horses, others, women and children, were driven onto piles of stones on the market square, which were there as building material. The riders stopped at the church and their commanding officer ordered the sabers to be held down. The group of riders then rode across the market square and then in the direction of the cairns, further up Møllergata and Grensen. Now a section of hunters came on foot. The use of direct violence was limited, although some demonstrators were injured. But the hunter company had loaded their rifles with live ammunition. But only the rifle butts were used.
Later there were more than 30 complaints from citizens because of the excessive military intervention. They were people who happened to come from a society and, unaware of what was happening, wanted to cross the market on their way home and were now hit by the military operation.
Folk festivals
The political climate after the military deployment in 1829 forced the Constitution Day celebrations into unorganized forms.
In Folkebladet from 1831 there is a description of how the 17th May was celebrated in Eidsvoll: In the afternoon the free Odals farmers gathered, but only when the servants had been released from their hard work. A large boat adorned with a Norwegian flag on the river fired gun salutes in all directions, prompting the Odals farmers from the neighboring town of Nes to come. That was answered on the beach with a choir with six clarinets, gong and drums, who played and sang the national anthem. There were 50 participants when boards and tar bins were ignited. Girls and boys of the place gathered and danced for the May 17th game. Many dignified and beautiful toasts were called out, there was beautiful music, and everyone was congratulated. Everyone felt the community spirit, the sense of the fatherland and the sincerity. A move was forcibly prevented in Christiania.
Gun salvos and gun salutes were still part of such celebrations at that time and were not abolished until 1870. The reports in the newspapers of the time convey less a gathering of the Odels farmers than a bourgeois picnic. It stayed that way through the century. The Odals farmers came, but the town's dignitaries no longer took part after the “Torvslaget” in 1829. After 1832 the festival expanded to other cities and became a public festival. Mainly young people roamed the streets in groups. Mob-like claws have also been reported. There was a tendency towards proletarianization of the festival in the press. The alcohol evidently flowed abundantly. Well-dressed citizens can hardly be seen as participants or even as spectators. Participants were mainly craft boys, maids and young workers, in between Christiania's street boys who only wanted to have fun through provocation. From 1829 to 1832, May 17th was essentially carried by the underprivileged classes, and the student Wergeland played no role in it. In the course of the 1930s there was a certain amount of discipline. The day became more of a private social event with no political tendency, as Wergeland had wanted. A Norwegian rowing regatta was held for the first time at the celebration in 1840, from the harbor to Hovedøya and back. In a letter to the editor in Den Constitutionelle on May 20, 1841, it was mentioned that a couple of teenagers had shouted: "Hurray for May 17th, also for Henrik Wergeland, who introduced the day." This is the earliest tangible mention of Wergeland as the founder of Constitution Day. This regatta remained for a long time.
An orderly move is reported for the first time in 1844. Each corporation marched behind its flag in rows of three. The Handelens Venner association, founded in 1841 , took on the organization. Flags of other nations were also allowed, whose citizens present in Christiania wanted to pay homage to the Norwegian nation. In the report by Den Constitutionelle of May 19, 1844 it is mentioned in particular that the German delegation from the Germania Society marched behind the black, red and gold flag, which was then banned in Germany. Since Wergeland absolutely wanted to see this flag procession, he took part in the Kirkegata as a spectator and suffered damage to his health, which, according to himself, ultimately brought him death. In other cities, too, spontaneous popular amusement was replaced by a more organized celebration. In 1845, the festival became even more official when Prince Oscar , his wife Josephine and their daughter Princess Charlotte Eugenie attended the procession on the balcony of the palace. At the end they also sang a song by Head Teacher Tue about the union with Sweden, and they shouted: “Leve Foreningen! Leve Norge ”. So there was no separatist undertone in this event. This way of celebrating Constitution Day set standards for other cities. Wergeland was deeply disappointed with this depoliticization of the Constitutional Day.
On May 16, 1836, State Councilor Jonas Collett sent King Karl Johan a report that the members of the Storting would hold a celebration on May 17 at the Hotel du Nord in Christiania. It was too late for the king to object. The special thing about this celebration was that it was attended by all members of parliament, while before, for example in 1833, only the civil servants' faction celebrated in the Hotel du Nord, but the peasant opposition was excluded, which was mocked in the press. Three years later everyone went their own way again: the peasant opposition to celebrate May 17th, the civil servants' group to a baptism ceremony at Stortingspräsident Anton Wilhelm Sørensen .
The celebration today
The celebrations of May 17th have become heavily folkloric today. Most of them are hosted by local May 17th committees. Military parades do not take place. In the places children and citizens' parades are carried out, in which music bands also take part. After the train, games are often held for school children and ice cream and sausages are given to them. May 17th is therefore often referred to as "Barnas dag" (Children's Day). Everywhere, including on the parades, the Norwegian flag is shown and people walk in festive clothes and, whoever has them, in Norwegian costume .
The later restriction to the Norwegian flag also led to criticism with regard to the large number of immigrants. Individual municipalities lifted the ban on foreign flags. In 2007 Oslo allowed the Sami flag in the children's parade. There was also a dispute in Oslo in 2008 over the approval of foreign flags. In Sandefjord in 2006 there was a discussion about whether the Indian sari should also be allowed alongside the Norwegian traditional costumes.
literature
- Anne-Lise Seip: Nasjonen bygges 1830-1870. Aschehougs Norges history. Vol. 8. Oslo 1997. ISBN 82-03-22021-5 .
- Odd Arvid Storsveen: En bedre vår. Henrik Wergeland og norsk nasjonalitet . 2. Vol. Oslo 2004.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 668.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 669.
- ↑ Feiringen av 17 May website of the Norwegian royal family (accessed on 17 May 2010)
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 393.
- ↑ a b Storsveen (2004) p. 394.
- ↑ Tollbodbryggen was a quay opposite the current opera house. Tollbukaia Street is a reminder of this.
- ↑ a b Storsveen (2004) p. 395.
- ↑ The number is controversial. The first report named 2000 people. But this number should probably justify military action. There should have been a dense crowd in the small square. Other reports say that people were standing or strolling around in groups and you could see the other side of the market between the people.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 396.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 391 f.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 671.
- ↑ a b Storsveen (2004) p. 672.
- ↑ a b Storsveen (2004) p. 675.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 674.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 676.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 677.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 678.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 680.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 684.
- ↑ Storsveen (2004) p. 685.
- ↑ Seip p. 194 and Nils Petter Thuesen: Norges historie i Årstall. Orion Forlag 2004. p. 224.