Switzerland lies at the crossroads of several major European cultures. Three of the continent's major languages, German, French and Italian, are national languages of Switzerland, along with Romansh, spoken by a small minority. Therefore, Swiss culture is characterized by diversity, which is reflected in a wide range of traditional customs. The 26 cantons also account for the large cultural diversity.[1]
Not withstanding the regional disparities, the Alps have played an essential role in shaping the history and culture of Switzerland.[2][3] The region of the Gotthard Pass became the nucleus of the Swiss Confederacy in the early 14th century. Nowadays, all mountain areas of Switzerland have a strong skiing and mountaineering culture and are associated with folk arts such as the alphorn and yodeling. Other Swiss cultural icons include Swiss chocolate, Swiss cheese, watches, cowbells, banking, and the Swiss Army knives.
Although there is reasonable doubt whether William Tell ever lived at all, the legend itself had a great impact on the history and culture of Switzerland (statue in Altdorf)
Some of the traditional symbols of Switzerland: the Swiss flag, the alphorn and the snow-capped Alps
Folk art is kept alive in organizations all over the country. In Switzerland, it is mostly expressed in music, dance, poetry, wood carving and embroidery. There are also many regional and local rites demarcating times of the year. Yodeling, despite being stereotypical for Switzerland, is not widespread and is limited to only some mountain areas. The same is true for the accordion, which is sometimes called by the name Schwiizerörgeli, implying that it was a Swiss musical instrument, rather than the German Handorgel.
The alphorn, or the alpenhorn, is a trumpet-like musical instrument made of wood. The use of the alphorn is seen mainly in mountainous regions, can be very popular in some areas, and like yodeling or the accordion, it has become an emblem of traditional Swiss music.
The melodies of folk music vary between regions. Generally those in pastoral areas are floating and wide-ranging. In the inner and southern Alps, however, the melodies are more songlike, and of more limited range. Common and popular themes are about love and the homeland, but patriotic and pastoral themes, as well as hunting themes, are also commonplace.
The Alpine folk culture is characterized by very expressive dances. Small musical ensembles can be found in the more mountainous areas, particularly in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.
The most common form of woodcarving is chip carving. Such carving is normally for the decoration of everyday objects, such as milk stools, neckbands for bells, wooden spoons, or walking sticks. Figure carving is also common, particularly of Nativity figures. In some areas, the façades of houses are richly decorated using woodcarving. This is widespread in the Bernese Oberland region where Protestant Christianity predominates. In Roman Catholic regions, this is far less common.
Embroidery is common on traditional clothing, particularly women's clothing. Embroidery is often limited to prominent points, such as cuffs, hats and scarves. Embroidery is also used for the decoration of fabric. In the past, embroidery was a home industry in the northeast and the east of Switzerland. Nowadays, embroidery is confined to tourism, as traditional clothes are no longer in use.
On certain autumn nights, children's processions with lanterns are common in Alemannic Switzerland. Lanterns (called Rääbeliechtli "turnip light") are hand-carved from root vegetables, generally turnips, by removing the interior and putting a candle inside. The Rääbeliechtli is carved with designs such as the traditional sun, moon and stars. The lantern is then suspended by three chains. The children walk through the streets of their town with the lanterns and sing traditional songs. The custom originates with thanksgiving traditions at the end of harvest in November.[5] This tradition is very similar to the tradition of carving turnip lanterns for halloween in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man (where they call halloween Hop-tu-Naa, and have traditional songs), and parts of England and Wales. There the celebration is on 31 October to celebrate the eve of the Celtic New Year.
There is a strong architectural tradition in Switzerland. The Romanesque style of the 12th century can be found in the cathedrals of Basel, Sion, Chur, Geneva, Zürich and Schaffhausen. This style, which is rich in expression, can also be found on many castles and fortresses around the country, many of which preserved in a good condition. The cathedrals of Lausanne and Bern are in the Gothic style, and the churches of Einsiedeln and St. Gallen are in the Baroque style.
During the Renaissance, a large number of architectural masters gave their talents to Italy. Most of these came from the southern canton of Ticino. The Prisons near the Doge's Palace in Venice and the Rialto Bridge in Venice were built by Antonio da Ponte. The Bridge of Sighs in Venice was built by Antonio Contino, and Domenico Fontana (1543–1607) designed the entire Lateran Palace in Naples as well as the façade of the St. John Lateran Church and the Royal Palace in the same city. Fontana's nephew Carlo Maderno was an architect to Pope Paul V. San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, the gallery of the Palazzo Spada and the Filippini monastery were built by Francesco Borromini, and Carlo Fontana was responsible for the façade of San Marcello al Corso and the Montecitorio Palace; Baldassare Longhena, from Maroggia, built the church of Santa Maria della Salute, the Rezzonico and the Widmann palaces; all in Venice.
Early in the 20th century, a new movement, called the Style Sapin, was created by the architect and painter Charles l'Eplattenier in the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds. It was a variation of Art Nouveau, and it became popularly known as the Style Sapin, or pine tree style, since l'Eplatennier insisted that the best model for art and architecture in the region was the pine tree, along with the other native plants and trees of the Jura mountains. Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret), was a student of l'Eplattenier, and at the age of eighteen built his first house, a chalet with a pine tree decorative design, in La Chaux-de-Fonds. He became a major force in western modern architecture in the 20th century.
In the 16th century Protestantism had a strong influence on visual arts in Switzerland. Samuel Hieronymus Grimm was a well-known 18th-century watercolourist and ink wash artist, although he created much of his notable work while in England. There was almost no influence from Italian or French Renaissance. Chiefly in modern times did Swiss artists begin to emerge internationally. Alberto Giacometti is said to have derived much of his inspiration from the Etruscans, but became internationally known. Jean Tinguely fascinated people from all over the world with complex moving sculptures constructed entirely from scrap materials. Paul Klee is sometimes regarded as Switzerland's most original and impressive painter.
Despite the relatively small number of internationally famous artists such as Alberto Giacometti and HR Giger, there are considerable art collections in renowned museums around Switzerland. These are not only found in the cities of Zürich, Basel and Geneva but also in smaller towns such as Schaffhausen, Martigny and Winterthur. The museums in the smaller towns pride themselves for their contribution to the arts, which exceed what is commonly found in provincial areas.
Graphic arts flourish in Switzerland, as does creative photography. Examples of this can be found on calendars, magazines and outdoor billboard advertisements.
In the 20th century the plays of Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Max Frisch impressed readers beyond the borders of Switzerland. There are a great number of regional dialects, especially in the German language. Even though standard German is commonly used for writing, there is a living dialect literature in many areas.
For children's culture there is the cartoon character Globi.
Switzerland is not commonly considered a leading musical nation. However, in the 20th century it produced a number of notable composers, such as Arthur Honegger, Othmar Schoeck and Frank Martin, who have all gained international renown. Lucerne and Verbier both feature prestigious international classical music festivals in the summer: the Lucerne Festival[9] and the Verbier Festival.[10] Other places have similar festivals, ranging from country and western to pop and jazz. The Montreux Jazz Festival is particularly well known. Nowadays, one could include Eluveitie, a Swiss folk metal band, which is slowly reaching the mainstream culture, effectively being the first folk metal band to do so. Eluveitie notably reached No. 4 on the Swiss Hit Parade for its 2012 album Helvetios.
Swiss composer and musician Andreas Vollenweider gained worldwide recognition with his harp music and has received a Grammy Award, followed by two Grammy nominations, one as recent as 2007. His 17 instrumental albums have sold over 15 million copies.
Newspapers have a strong regional character, but some are renowned for their thorough coverage of international issues, such as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of Zürich and Le Temps of Geneva. As elsewhere, television plays a great role in modern cultural life in Switzerland. The national public broadcaster, SRG SSR idée suisse, offers three networks, one each for the German, French and Italian-speaking parts of Switzerland. In the German-speaking part, television from Germany is popular, as is television from France in the French-speaking part and television from Italy in the Italian-speaking part. American movies and television series are influential in all areas.
In film, American productions constitute most of the programme, although several Swiss movies have enjoyed commercial successes in recent years. Maybe due to the multilingual culture, almost all movie theatres play movies in their original language with subtitles, and films on television are often broadcast in original and synchronized versions.
Switzerland has been associated with banking and other related banking services. Since the early 18th century, Switzerland has a long, kindred history of banking secrecy and client confidentiality. Started as a way to protect wealthy European banking interests, Swiss banking secrecy was codified with the 1934 Federal Act on Banks and Savings Banks. Considered the "grandfather of bank secrecy", has been one of the largest offshore financial centers and tax havens in the world since the mid-20th century. Following an international push to roll back banking secrecy laws, Switzerland has seen fluctuating levels of banking regulation.
Releasing client information has been considered a serious social and criminal offence since the early 1900s. Employees working in Switzerland and abroad at Swiss banks "have long adhered to an unwritten code similar to that observed by doctors or priests".[11] Banking in Switzerland has historically played, and still continues to play, a dominant role in the Swiss economy and society. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in 2015, total banking assets amount to 467% of total gross domestic product.[12] Banking in Switzerland has been portrayed, to varying degrees of accuracy, in overall popular culture, books, movies, and television shows.
There has been a long tradition of Swiss scientists ever since Paracelsus (real name Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim) in the 16th century. Paracelsus introduced the field of chemistry into medicine in the 16th century. The Bernoulli family from Basel is known for their significant contributions to mathematics over a time span of three generations. Leonhard Euler is another innovative mathematician. Horace-Bénédict de Saussure was a naturalist and pioneer in Alpine studies. The Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich has produced a great number of Nobel Prize winners, while the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Ferdinand de Saussure was an important contributor to the field of linguistics. Physicist Albert Einstein, born in Germany, moved to Switzerland in 1895 at the age of 16 and became a Swiss citizen in 1901.
The close proximity to the mountains in all areas in Switzerland has greatly influenced the leisure of Swiss people. The growth of ski and mountaineering resorts in the Swiss mountains have caused the Swiss to become very sports conscious. Apart from skiing and mountaineering, Swiss-style wrestling (Schwingen) is still popular in rural areas. Sunday-morning shooting sessions and Hornussen (a kind of Alpine baseball) are two other traditional Swiss sports. Shooting, tennis, golf, ice hockey, football (soccer), basketball, handball, gliding, paragliding, sailing, swimming, volleyball, floorball, mountain biking, and hiking in the forests and mountains are all popular pastimes. Fishing is commonplace in the many lakes and rivers, but often a licence is necessary. Many mountain lakes freeze over during winter and are used for curling, horse and dog racing, particularly around St. Moritz.
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range that is entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries : Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The alphorn or alpenhorn or alpine horn is a labrophone, consisting of a straight several-meter-long wooden natural horn of conical bore, with a wooden cup-shaped mouthpiece. Traditionally the Alphorn was made of one single piece, or two parts at most, of the wood of a red pine tree. Sometimes the trees would bend from the weight of snow in winter, and this caused them to have the larger and bent mouthpiece at their ends. Modern Alphorns are sometimes made from three distinct parts that can be attached together: this is to make them easier to transport by car, or even to carry them by hand, and today they are more frequently made from the wood of a spruce tree or fir tree. The alphorn is used by mountain dwellers in the Swiss Alps. Similar wooden horns were used for communication in most mountainous regions of Europe, from the Alps to the Carpathians. Alphorns are today used as musical instruments.
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is geographically divided among the Swiss Plateau, the Alps and the Jura; the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, whereas most of the country's population of 9 million are concentrated on the plateau, which hosts the largest cities and economic centres, including Zürich, Geneva and Basel.
Vorarlberg is the westernmost state of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is the state with the second-highest population density. It borders three countries: Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. The only Austrian state that shares a border with Vorarlberg is Tyrol, to the east.
Valais ,,(German; Wallis) more formally the Canton of Valais/Canton of Wallis is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of thirteen districts and its capital and largest city is Sion. The flag of the canton is made of thirteen stars representing the districts, on a white-red background.
Banking in Switzerland dates to the early 18th century through Switzerland's merchant trade and has, over the centuries, grown into a complex, regulated, and international industry. Banking is seen as emblematic of Switzerland. The country has a long history of banking secrecy and client confidentiality reaching back to the early 1700s. Starting as a way to protect wealthy European banking interests, Swiss banking secrecy was codified in 1934 with the passage of a landmark federal law, the Federal Act on Banks and Savings Banks. These laws, which were used to protect assets of persons being persecuted by Nazi authorities, have also been used by people and institutions seeking to illegally evade taxes, hide assets, or generally commit financial crime.
Yodeling is a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch between the low-pitch chest register and the high-pitch head register or falsetto. The English word yodel is derived from the German word jodeln, meaning "to utter the syllable jo". This vocal technique is used in many cultures worldwide. Recent scientific research concerning yodeling and non-Western cultures has shown that music and speech evolved from a common prosodic precursor.
Schwingen, also known as Swiss wrestling and natively as Hosenlupf, is a style of folk wrestling native to Switzerland, more specifically the pre-alpine parts of German-speaking Switzerland. Wrestlers wear Schwingerhosen with belts that are used for taking holds. Throws and trips are common because the first person to pin his or her opponent's shoulders to the ground wins the bout.
Switzerland has long had a distinct cultural identity, despite its diversity of German, French, Italian, Romansh and other ethnicities. Religious and folk music dominated the country until the 17th century, with growth in production of other kinds of music occurring slowly.
The culture of Tajikistan has developed over several thousand years. Tajik culture can be divided into two areas, Metropolitan and Kuhiston (Highland). Modern city centres include Dushanbe, Khudjand, Kulob, and Panjikent.
The early history of Switzerland begins with the earliest settlements up to the beginning of Habsburg rule, which in 1291 gave rise to the independence movement in the central cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden and the growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy during the Late Middle Ages.
The Protestant Reformation in Switzerland was promoted initially by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrate, Mark Reust, and the population of Zürich in the 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matters in Zürich and spread to several other cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Seven cantons remained Catholic, however, which led to intercantonal wars known as the Wars of Kappel. After the victory of the Catholic cantons in 1531, they proceeded to institute Counter-Reformation policies in some regions. The schism and distrust between the Catholic and the Protestant cantons defined their interior politics and paralysed any common foreign policy until well into the 18th century.
Swiss folklore describes a collection of local stories, celebrations, and customs of the alpine and sub-alpine peoples that occupy Switzerland. The country of Switzerland is made up of several distinct cultures including German, French, Italian, as well as the Romansh speaking population of Graubünden. Each group has its own unique folkloric tradition.
Events from 2005 in Switzerland.
A dirndl is a feminine dress which originated in German-speaking areas of the Alps. It is traditionally worn by women and girls in Austria, Bavaria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Alpine regions of Italy. A dirndl consists of a close-fitting bodice with a low neckline, a blouse worn under the bodice, a wide high-waisted skirt and an apron.
Verbier is a village located in south-western Switzerland in the canton of Valais. It is a holiday resort and ski area in the Swiss Alps and is recognised as one of the premier off-piste resorts in the world. Some areas are covered with snow all year. Skiers have settled in the Verbier area in order to take advantage of the steep slopes, varied conditions, and resort culture.
Tourists are drawn to Switzerland's diverse landscape as well as the available activities, which take advantage of the Alpine climate and landscapes, in particular skiing and mountaineering.
The culture of Rajasthan includes many artistic traditions that reflect the ancient Indian way of life. Rajasthan is also called the "Land of Kings". It has many tourist attractions and facilities for tourists. This historical state of India attracts tourists and vacationers with its rich culture, tradition, heritage and monuments. It also has some wildlife sanctuaries and national parks.
The Qinhuai Lantern Fair, also known as Jinling Lantern Fair, Jinling Lantern Festival, and officially named Lantern Fair on Qinhuai River, is a popular folk custom celebration of the Lantern Festival in the Nanjing area.
The architecture of Switzerland was influenced by its location astride major trade routes, along with diverse architectural traditions of the four national languages. Romans and later Italians brought their monumental and vernacular architecture north over the Alps, meeting the Germanic and German styles coming south and French influences coming east. Additionally, Swiss mercenary service brought architectural elements from other lands back to Switzerland. All the major styles including ancient Roman, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Art Nouveau, Modern architecture and Post Modern are well represented throughout the country. The founding of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne in La Sarraz and the work of Swiss-born modern architects such as Le Corbusier helped spread Modern architecture throughout the world.
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