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Origins of
Switzerland's Cultural Diversity
Switzerland's official name, the "Swiss Confederation" (Latin:
Confoederatio Helvetica, or CH for short), indicates that it is a union
of individual allies and recalls the fact that Switzerland is not a
homogeneous linguistic and cultural community. The Helvetians were among
the Celtic tribes who inhabited the region of present-day Switzerland in
Roman times, and numerous names of mountains, rivers and places are
still reminiscent of the Helvetic and Roman cultures that helped to
shape the country. In later times younger peoples such as the
Burgundians and Alemanni settled in what is now Switzerland.
Ethnographically speaking, there is no Swiss people and no homogeneous
Swiss nation. Nor can one talk about a Swiss culture, because various
cultures came into contact with one another and even today still
overlap. Switzerland has remained a mosaic of world and regional
history, religions, languages and dialects, all confined in a very small
space. The basic principle that holds the country together is a
political will to remain culturally independent, and not just a
collection of peculiarities in the heart of Europe.
Much of 700-year-old Switzerland remains from early times, not just
in museums and restored town centres, but also in the people themselves:
in their reserved attitude towards the outside world, in their sobriety,
and in their industriousness. This industriousness is often
over-estimated because, although in earlier times such diligence was
vital in a country, which possessed hardly any mineral resources,
Switzerland's wealth today depends mainly on international trade
relations. Many Swiss are no longer aware that only one hundred years
ago thousands of people were forced to emigrate in order to find an
income.
Cultural policy
The Federal Constitution of 1874, which is still in force, contains
no article on culture. In spite of this, the Federal Office for Culture,
which has existed since 1975, is active in various areas, such as the
preservation of works of art and national monuments, the protection of
the national heritage and the promotion of literature, the theatre,
museums and the cinemas. The Federal Office for Culture is also
responsible for the national Library, the National Museum and the Swiss
Literary Archives. The state provides money for the promotion of
culture, primarily through the Arts Council of Switzerland Pro Helvetia.
Reflecting the decentralized structure of the nation, on the average,
14% of the budget comes from the state, 35% from the cantons and 51%
from the communes.
In keeping with its educational structure and the income of its
population, Switzerland has a very full and varied cultural life. Every
commune has its own associations for music, theatre, etc., and there are
numerous organizations, which complement the specialized institutions
and support cultural activities. Switzerland has no special institutions
for training cultural promotion specialists, nor has it an academy of
art. On the other hand, it has numerous conservatories and schools of
design. All the cantons provide student grants, prizes and public
commissions, and some of them also finance studio apartments and studies
abroad. The cultural fife of a nation cannot be measured statistically.
Nevertheless, a few significant figures may be mentioned her which throw
some light on Swiss cultural life. There are about 400 publishers in the
country that brings out approximately 9000 new titles each year. The
number of museums is around 700, ranging from large art galleries and
technical museums to small folk museums. Several hundred art and antique
dealers and 1'200 galleries provide contact between artists and the
public. There are about 90 theatres of varying sizes in German-speaking
Switzerland, 50 in French-speaking Switzerland and 10 in
Italian-speaking Switzerland. The 30 large professional orchestras, over
40 professional music ensembles, 15 permanent jazz formation, 22 music
academies and conservatories, 16 music publishers and 15 sound-recording
producers give an idea of the extent of Swiss musical life.
In the area of film production, which is strongly supported by the
state, there is currently a great deal of creative activity. There are
about 55 directors and 440 cinemas and the work of both German-speaking
and French-speaking filmmakers is internationally recognized. The Swiss
Radio and Television Association is a public company- runs three
complete radio and television programs in German (and in part
Romansh), three in French and one in Italian. In addition to numerous
local radio stations which are licensed by the state and allowed to
broadcast a limited number of advertising spots.
Languages
There are four languages spoken in Switzerland: German, French,
Italian and Romansh. In principle, all four languages have equal rights.
In practice, however, things sometimes work out rather differently and
the smaller groups often have to struggle to assert their political and
economic influence, although in purely cultural matter the ideal of
equal rights is never disputed. Switzerland's confessional and
linguistic frontiers do not coincide, and the country also entertains
strong cultural links with neighboring regions. These relationships are
somewhat ambivalent as they vary historically between a strong leaning
towards a neighboring culture and a rejection of it because it appears
to pose a threat to Swiss identity.
The federal Constitution stipulates that German, French, and Italian
is Switzerland's official language. They enjoy equal status in
Parliament, the federal administration and the army. In 1938 Romansh was
declared the fourth "national language", but it is not an official one.
The most recent census produced the following picture of how the
language groups are divided: German 65%, French 18.4%, Italian 9.8%, and
Romansh 0.8%. Schools play a key role in bringing the languages closer
together, for cantonal school regulations require that every child learn
a second national language from his or her seventh school year at the
latest.
The German-speaking region
This is the largest language region, and was for a long time a mosaic
of urban and rural areas with a profusion of very distinct Alemannic
dialects, which still exist today despite an increasing tendency to even
out the differences. The German-speaking Swiss learn their cultivated
official language, High German, at school; they call it "written
German", and it always retains an element of strangeness for them. In
normal speech they use an unwritten everyday language which varies
greatly from region to region. The grammar and vowels of these dialects,
known by the collective term "Schweizerdeutsch", or Swiss-German, can be
traced back to Middle High German. They have produced their own
literature since the nineteenth century. Radio and television allow the
dialects plenty of scope, and they are also used to a certain extent in
churches and schools.
The French-speaking region
The second national language is spoken in the cantons of Geneva, Jura,
Neuchâtel and Vaud, as well as in parts of the cantons of Berne,
Fribourg and Valais. The Romandie (as French-speaking Switzerland is
called) also used to have its dialects, but the church and schools
suppressed them in the rural districts. The French spoken in western
Switzerland has some regional characteristics, but otherwise these
people speak French as it is spoken in France. The Protestant teachings
of the Geneva reformer Jean Calvin played a decisive role in shaping the
cultural identity of these cantons.
The Italian-speaking region
Italian is spoken in the southern valleys up to the St.Gotthard,
Lukmanier and San Bernardino passes. This region comprises the whole of
the canton of Ticino and the valleys of Mesocco, Bergell/Bregaglia and
Poschiavo in the canton of Graubünden (also known as the Grisons). But
although the construction and development of international traffic
routes (St. Gotthard Pass) and tourism from the north brought an
economic upswing to what was previously the somewhat impoverished
southern part of Switzerland, it also resulted in a threat to the
region's cultural identity. The rich local dialects have remained
intact, particularly in rural areas, whereas artists and writers tend to
look towards nearby Milan, the cultural centre of northern Italy.
The Romansh-speaking region
The ramified valleys of Rhaetia (today's Graubünden) were conquered
in 15 B.C. by the Romans, and this resulted in the latinization of the
original inhabitants. The isolation of the numerous valleys led to the
development of at least five distinguishable idioms, a unique linguistic
phenomenon in such a small area. But in recent years the influx of
tourists and migration to the economic centers of German-speaking
Switzerland has constituted a threat to even this linguistic idyll.
Endeavors such as the creation of a single written language known as
"rumantsch grischun" have been made to try to stop the erosion process.
Literature
German-speaking Switzerland- Three
main literary developments in the Early and High Middle Ages are worth
mentioning: the translations carried out by monks, such as Notker at
St-Gall Abbey (approx. 950-1022), which were important for the evolution
of the German language; the Middle High German Minnesänger, including
Hartmann von Aue (approx. 1160-1210); and finally, in the Late Middle
Ages, religious pageantry (Christmas, Carnival and Easter Passion plays,
etc). Humanism, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation led to the
establishment of an extensive and ongoing literary life in
German-speaking Switzerland. The works of the physician Paracelsus
(Theophrastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541), who spent part of life in Bale,
the memoirs of the shepherd turned academic Thomas Platter (1499-1582),
and the writings of the Zurich reformer Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) are
all of more than regional importance. The seventeenth century saw the
emergence of an aristocracy in the small states of the Confederation,
which led to a kind of paralysis in Swiss cultural life. In the final
phase of what became known as the ancient regime. Three Swiss writers
achieved European status: the versatile scholar from Berne, Albrecht von
Haller (1708-1777), Salomon Gessner (1730-1788) from Zurich, and Johann
Caspar Lavater (1741-1801), who was a friend of Goethe's. Besides these
educated patricians there was the early realist writer Ulrich Bräcker
(1735-1798), a mercenary soldier, writer and farmer from Toggenburg, who
wrote an autobiographical work entitled "The Poor Man from Toggenburg".
The collapse of the ancient regime in the Helvetic Revolution and the
industrialization of rural Switzerland were reflected in the literature
of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Particularly worthy of
mention are the educationalist and philosopher Heinrich Pestalozzi
(1746-1827), the Bernese writer and pastor Jeremias Gotthelf (the pen
name of Albert Bitzius, 1797-1854), the critical bourgeois realist
Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (1825-1898), the
historical novelist.
The critic Karl Schmid has described the leitmotiv of twentieth
century German-language Swiss literature as "the malaise of a small
nation" Again and again, Swiss writers have tackled the problem how one
can live in a country often described and experienced as narrow,
provincial, mercantile and egoistic. Leading writers up to the mid
twentieth century include Carl Spitteler (1845-1924), the only Swiss to
win the Nobel Prize for Literature (apart from Hermann Hesse, who was
German but took Swiss nationality), Robert Walser (1878-1856), Jakob
Bührer (182-1975), Meinrad Inglin (1893-1971), Albin Zollinger
(1896-1938), and Ludwig Hohl (1904-1980). The uncontested giants of
contemporary Swiss literature are Max Frisch (1911-1991) and Friedrich
Dürrenmatt (1921-1990). With these two great literary figures in the
forefront, an extremely lively and colorful literary scene has emerged.
French-speaking Switzerland
The start of an independent French literature in French-speaking
Switzerland can be dated from the Reformation. Through his writings, the
Geneva reformer jean Calvin (1509-1564) was perhaps the most influential
theologian of the Reformation. There is an unbroken tradition of
Protestant religious literature in French-speaking Switzerland which is
still alive today and whose most prominent representative was Alexandre
Vinet (1779-1847). Geneva was the birth-place of the philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) and
Henri Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881), author of an "Intimate Diary"
comprising around 20'000 pages; Benjamin Constant de Rebecque
(1767-1830) came from Lausanne. Today, in the age of the mass media,
writers and publishers find themselves confronted more than ever before
by the cultural centralism of Paris. Seen from Paris, French-speaking
Switzerland is just one of many provinces. In the wake of trends towards
regionalization in the 1970s and 1980s, however, western Switzerland has
undoubtedly gained a sharper profile against French claims to cultural
domination. The outstanding figure in modern French Swiss literature is
the Vaudois Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (1878-1947). Writers in the same
tradition with its strong regional roots, include Charles-Albert Cingria
(1883-1954), Maurice Chappaz (born 1916) from the canton of Valais, and
Jacques Chessex (born 1934). Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961) and Yves Velan
(born 1925) are more international in outlook. Finally, there are three
significant essayists of European standing: Gonzague de Reynold
(1880-1970), Denis de Rougemont (1906-1985) and Jean Starobinski (born
1920).
Italian-speaking Switzerland
In this small cultural entity literature is very closely connected
with that of neighboring Italy. Until 1803 Ticino was a subject
territory of German speaking cantons, and a written literature developed
relatively late. The outstanding figure in these early stages is
Francesco Chiesa (1871-1973), whose work, which drew consciously on the
conditions of life in Ticino, was continued by Piero Bianconi
(1899-1984). It was only after the Second World War that new names began
to find recognition, especially Giorgio Orelli, Giovanni Orelli, Alice
Ceresa, Giovanni Bonalumi, Anna Felder, Plinio Martini and Alberto Nessi.
Works in dialect have assumed growing importance.
Romansh-speaking Switzerland
The smallest Swiss linguistic community finds itself in an
extraordinary situation. Today it comprises only about 50'000 people,
divided into five groups, each with its own fully-fledged version of the
language; two-fifths of this community is scattered over other parts of
Switzerland outside the canton of Graubünden. Astonishingly, however, a
rich literary life developed in the nineteenth century, which has
survived up to the present day. Well-known Romansh writers include
Andrea Bezzola (1840-1897), Peider Lansel (1863-1943), Giachen Caspar
Muoth (1844-1906), Maurus Carnot (1846-1935), Giachen Michel Nay
(1860-1920), Gian Fontana (1897-1935), Leza Uffer (1912-1982), Armon
Planta (1917-1986), Cla Biert (1920-1982), and Andri Peer (1921-1985).
Among members of the contemporary Romansh literary scene are such
writers and poets as Jon Semadeni, Tista Murk, Gion Deplazes, Toni
Halter and Theo Candinas.
Every May, writers from all the linguistic regions of Switzerland
meet at the Solothurn Literary Workshop for readings and discussions.
There are two national professional associations, the "Schweizerischer
Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftstellerverband" (Swiss Writer's
Association) and the "Schweizer Autoren Gruppe Olten" (Swiss Authors's
Group Olten).
Music
Until the seventeenth century the only real musical tradition in
Switzerland, apart from folk music, was in church music. In the Middle
Age the abbeys created a liturgical tradition which spread widely and
led to the development of popular Passion and mystery plays. The
Reformation, with its puritanical streak, then imposed strict control on
the influence of music, and since Switzerland possessed neither large
commercial towns with middle class patrons or princely court the social
background for the development of a thriving musical culture was
entirely lacking.
Geneva founded the first conservatoire of music, and a choral
tradition developed through such festivals as the "Fête des Vignerons"
in Vevey and the work of composers like Hans Georg Nägli (1773-1836).
The Swiss Musician's Association was founded in 1900, and a little later
city symphony orchestras were established. The Orchestre de la Suisse
Romande under Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969) soon became the focal point of
modern musical culture in Switzerland.
It was in the twentieth century that composers of international
status began to emerge in Swiss musical life: Othmar Schoeck
(1866-1957), Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), Franck Martin (1890-1974),
Willy Burkhard (1900-1955) and Wladimir Vogel (1896-1984), followed by
Rolf Liebermann and Heinrich Sutermeister (both born in 1910). Younger
musicians who have a direct influence on musical life in Switzerland
today include Eric Gaudibert, Jacques Guyonnet, Francesco Hoch, Heinz
Holliger, Klaus Huber, Rudolf Kelterborn. Thomas Kessler, Hans Ulrich
Lehmann, Pierre Mariétan, Roland Moser, Rolf Urs Ringger, Urs Peter
Schneider, Jacques Wildberger, Hans Wüthrich and Jürg Wyttenbach.
Thanks to the radio studios, conservatoires and various local concert
series, the chances of getting a new piece of music performed have
recently improved. Nevertheless, composers are still dependent on
performances abroad if they are to be able to earn their living as
professional musicians. The national professional organization is the
Swiss Musicians' Association. In addition, Swiss musical life is greatly
enriched by international festivals, for example those in Lucerne,
Gstaad and Ascona.
Jazz and rock
Big international jazz festivals are held each year in Willisau and
Montreux. Swiss musicians on the international jazz scene include Flavio
Ambrosetti, Urs Blöchlinger, Pierre Favre, Georges Gruntz, Irène
Schweizer and Bruno Spörri. Several small rock festivals and larger
concerts take place in Switzerland, on one hand reflecting rock culture
as a phenomenon of the international entertainment industry and on the
other acting as an important form of expression for Swiss youth.
Theatre, Opera and
Ballet
Religious drama was the mainstay of the early Swiss theatrical
tradition. Dating back to the tenth century, it reached its creative
climax in the baroque Lucerne Easter Play. After the suppression of the
theatre during the ancient regime, interest only re-emerged in the
bourgeois society of the nineteenth century. Patriotic festival plays,
which are still performed today, flourished, for example the William
Tell Plays (Tellspiele) at Altdorf and Interlaken. At the same time, the
large municipalities created new possibilities for dramatic art by
constructing theatres.
During the Nazi period in Switzerland, the Zurich Schauspielhaus
gained a reputation as the last bastion of free German-language theatre,
and it was here that well-known actors and directors from Nazi Germany
and Austria found refuge. Zurich remained a theatrical centre of
international standing after the Second World War, and two
internationally successful dramatists, Max Frisch and Friederich
Dürrenmatt, stepped into the limelight with their first plays there.
Younger playwrights include Jürg Laederach, Herbert Meier and Hans-Jörg
Schneider. Today Swiss theatrical life consists not only of large
subsidized playhouses but also of numerous small theatres and dramatic
companies. In French-speaking Switzerland in particular there is a
tradition of "off stage" work: small theatres and amateur groups have
encouraged an open approach involving the public, and especially the
schools. The Théâtre Populaire Romand pioneered this idea. The
development of the municipal theatre in Lausanne owed much to Charles
Apothéloz (1922-1982) and Adolphe Appia, great theoretician of the 20th
century's theatre. The situation in Italian-speaking Switzerland is
conditioned by the fact that it lacks a strong professional theatre, and
stage life in Ticino rests in the hands of a number of individual
independent groups. Romansh-speaking Switzerland is a special case
because the theatre is closely linked with the dominant problem of the
long-term preservation of Romansh language and culture.
It is only the cities that can afford opera houses with a permanent
ensemble and a systematically developed repertoire, and that is why
large professional ballet ensembles, too have become established only in
Zurich, Basle, Geneva and Lausanne (Béjart Ballet). Today, however,
there is also a lively and active free dance scene. Swiss mime artists
have also found international acclaim, among them the "Mummenschanz"
(Mummery) group and the solo artists Dimitri and Kaspar Fischer.
Information taken from
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