Rütli oath, speeches, fireworks What does Switzerland celebrate on August 1? 7 questions and 1 bonus

What exactly does Switzerland celebrate on August 1? And why on this day of all days? What do the bonfires mean and why is there a special reason to celebrate this year? Questions and answers about the Swiss national holiday.

On Swiss National Day, the country celebrates the founding of Switzerland. However, August 1 as a traditional national holiday is much younger than the Swiss Confederation. The date was once decided by the Federal Council. In 1891, the government had the idea of celebrating Helvetia's 600th birthday with a federal holiday.

In the 19th century, Switzerland was one of the last countries without a national holiday. The Federal Council set the date for a "worthy national 600th anniversary celebration" as August 1. However, the national holiday was not officially introduced until 1899 after it was first held and has been celebrated annually ever since.

The Federal Charter of 1291, which is generally regarded as Switzerland's oldest constitutional document, has been officially considered a kind of founding document of the Swiss Confederation since the 19th century. The Federal Charter is dated "early August 1291".

The treaty, which mentions the valleys of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, is anything but a modern constitution. It is a patchwork of texts. It contains elements from public law, criminal and civil law as well as international law, fraud prosecution and legal assistance. It emphasizes the autonomy of the judiciary: the Waldstätten did not want foreign judges.

The Federal Council's idea of celebrating Helvetia's 600th birthday in 1891 initially caused confusion and controversy. At the time, the popular date for the founding of the Swiss Confederation was not August 1, 1291, but November 7, 1307. This date - according to tradition on the "Wednesday before Martini" - was used in the 16th century by the humanist scholar Aegidius Tschudi to mark the so-called Rütli Oath.

The people of Uri proved to be stubbornly stubborn on this issue: four years after the first federal celebration in 1891, they chiseled "1307" as the founding date on the Altdorf Tell monument and celebrated a second 600-year anniversary in 1907.

From the ancient Romans to MTVAugust 1 - a date in a class of its own, and not just for Switzerland

The Rütli Oath is considered the founding legend of Switzerland. Men from the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden sealed an eternal covenant in which they vowed to help and support each other. The secret meeting place of the conspirators was the Rütli, a meadow above Lake Lucerne.

The alliance was primarily directed against the Habsburgs, who at the time were seeking to strengthen their influence over the areas at the entrance to the Gotthard. The Comrades' oath of mutual support is regarded as the foundation of the Old Swiss Confederacy.

Today, research no longer assumes a single founding date, but rather the gradual formation of the Swiss state. The Federal Charter of 1291 is seen as the sealing of an alliance, as there were many similar ones at the time.

According to historian Urs Altermatt, there were political reasons why August 1 came to the fore as the new "birthday" in the 1880s: Half a century after the founding of the federal state, Switzerland needed an ideology that reconciled conservative and liberal Switzerland. Historian Georg Kreis argued that it was better to assume that the Confederation was founded as a legally established state than as a revolutionary conspiracy.

August 1st is traditionally celebrated throughout Switzerland with festivities, speeches, music, bonfires and fireworks. Federal Councillors give speeches, as do celebrities from the worlds of politics, business and culture. The bonfires commemorate the expulsion of the foreign bailiffs in the 14th century, which is said to have been signaled in this way.

Public and private buildings are decorated with Swiss, cantonal and communal flags. From 1899, the Federal Council called on the cantons to ring their bells on the evening of August 1st.

Initially, August 1 was a normal working day. The national holiday has only been a non-working day since 1994. The year before, 83.8 percent had backed an initiative by the Swiss Democrats (SD) in a referendum.

On September 26, 1993, a good 1.5 million citizens voted in favour of the August 1st initiative, with only a good 300,000 preferring to keep the federal holiday as a normal working day.

Incidentally, the old Swiss Confederation became a federal state on September 12, 1848, making it the first democracy in Europe since antiquity.

SDA