Norwegian Constitution Day

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The Norwegian Constitution Day is the National Day of Norway and is an official national holiday each year. Among Norwegians, the day is referred to simply as syttende mai (meaning May Seventeenth), or Grunnlovsdagen (Constitution Day), although the latter is less frequent.

[edit] Historical background

17th of May 1893 by Norwegian painter Christian Krohg (1852–1925). Note that the flag does not have the Union badge of Norway and Sweden, the so called sildesalaten (Herring salad).

The Constitution of Norway was signed at Eidsvoll on May 17 in the year 1814. The constitution declared Norway to be an independent nation.

The celebration of this day begun spontaneously among students and others from early on, and for some years the king was reluctant to allow the celebrations. For a couple of years in the 1820s, king Carl Johan actually forbade it, as he thought the celebrations a kind of protest and disregard - even revolt. The king's attitude changed slightly after the Battle of the Square in 1829, an incident which resulted in such a commotion that the King had to allow it. It was, however, not until 1833, that anyone ventured to hold a public address on behalf of the day. That year, official celebration was initiated by the monument of the late politician Christian Krogh, known to have stopped the King from gaining too much personal power. The address was held by Henrik Wergeland, thoroughly witnessed and accounted for by a Swedish spy, sent by the King himself.

After 1864, the day became more established, and the first children's promenade was launched in Christiania, in a parade consisting only of boys. The girls had their own promenade by a different route. This initiative was taken by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, although Wergeland made the first known children's promenade at Eidsvoll around 1820.

By historical coincidence, the Second World War ended in Norway just nine days before that year's Constitution Day, on May 8, 1945, when the occupying German forces surrendered. Even if The Liberation Day is an official flag day in Norway, the day is not an official holiday and is not broadly celebrated. Instead a new and broader meaning has been added to the celebration of Norwegian independence on May 17.

The day focused originally on the Norwegian constitution, but after 1905, the focus has been directed towards the royal family.

[edit] Children's parades

The kindergarten part of a Children's parade

All over Norway, children's parades with an abundance of flags form the central elements of the celebration. Each elementary school arranges its own parade^[1], led by the school's own marching band. The parade takes the children through the community, often making stops at homes of senior citizens, war memorials, etc. The longest parade is in Oslo, where some 100,000 people travel to the city centre to participate in the main festivities. This is broadcast on TV every year, with comments on costumes, banners etc, together with local reports from celebrations around the country. The massive Oslo parade includes some 100 schools, marching bands, and passes the royal palace where the royal family greet the people from the main balcony.

Typically a school’s children parade will consist of some senior school children carrying the schools official banner, followed by a handful of other older children carrying full size Norwegian flags, and the school’s marching band. After the band the rest of the school children follow with hand sized flags, often with the junior forms first, and often behind self made banners for each form or even individual class. Nearby kindergartens may also have been invited to join in. As the parade passes, bystanders often join in behind the official parade, and follow the parade back to the school. Depending on the community, the parade may make stops at particular sites along the route, such as a nursing home or war memorial. In Oslo the parade stops at the Storting while Skaugum has been a traditional waypoint for parades in Asker.

During the parade a marching band will play and the children will sing lyrics about the celebration of the National Day. The parade concludes with the stationary singing of the of the national anthem "Ja, vi elsker dette landet" (typically verses 1, 7 and 1), and the royal anthem "Kongesangen".

In addition to flags, people typically wear red, white and blue ribbons. Although a long-standing tradition, it has lately become more popular for men, women, and children to wear traditional outfits, called bunad. The children also make a lot of noise shouting "hoorah!", singing, blowing whistles and shaking rattles.

In addition to children's parades, there are parades for the public, where every citizen is welcome to join in. These are led by marching bands and often local boy scouts and girl guides, local choirs, etc. This takes place in the early morning or in the afternoon, before or after the school's parade.

All parades begin or end with speeches. Both grown-ups and older children are invited to speak. After the parades, there are games for the children, and often a lot of icecream, pop, sweets and pølse (hotdogs) are consumed.

[edit] Russ

The graduating class from the Norwegian equivalent of high school - known as russ - has its own celebration on May 17, staying up all night and making the rounds through the community. The russ also have their own parades, in which they parody various local and political aspects, although recently this has become less frequent.

[edit] Celebration across the country

• In Oslo, children from all the city's schools gather to parade past the Royal Palace, where they and the Royal Family exchange waves and greetings.

• In the municipality of Asker, outside Oslo, the children gather outside the residence of the throne heir at Skaugum Estate in the morning (giving the Prince and his family time to attend the parade in Oslo later in the day).

• Bergen has its own traditions for the parade, including comic troupes, various local organizations, a children's parade, and the buekorps.

In addition to the children's parades the streets are filled with young and old, turning out in festive attire, and vendors selling ice cream, hot dogs, and lately, kebabs.

[edit] Celebration abroad

17 May dinner in the United States.

The National Day is also celebrated in many Norwegian immigrant communities throughout the world, with traditional foods, including lutefisk. In the US, the Sons of Norway organisation plays a central part in organizing the festivities.

[edit] Henrik Wergeland

The poet Henrik Wergeland is credited with making Syttende mai a celebratory day for the children rather than a day of patriotic pride. Actually, the day demonstrates that the children, i.e. the country's future, are the patriotic pride, if we follow Wergeland's thought. Flags and music dominate the day, and there are few military parades. To commemorate his contribution, the russ in Oslo place an oversized hat on his statue near the Norwegian parliament; the Jewish community place a wreath on his grave in the morning as a tribute to his efforts on their behalf.

[edit] Military parades

The only military parade is performed by the Royal Guard on the main street of the capital city, Oslo. During the parade, the Guard display their drill and music skills, rather than showing off military force. An example of an exercise performed by the Guard includes throwing their rifles over their shoulders, with bayonets attached, to another Guardsman who walks behind and catches it. The most impressive aspect about the Guard's parade is that they have learned their skills during the course of nine months, and during that time they also go through normal infantry training.

The marching band of the Royal Guard also attend the children's parade in central Oslo together with the schools' own marching bands.

[edit] An inclusive holiday

The former Norwegian president of parliament Jo Benkow noted that the day has increasingly become a celebration of Norway's growing ethnic diversity.

Several factors have probably contributed to the inclusive nature of the celebration:

• The central position of the children’s parade, including all lower level school children, and therefore also their parents in the celebration.
• The celebration is focused around local schools and their children’s parade.
• The children’s parade reaches outwards, trying to cover as many roads as possible in the local community.
• The low focus on elected government during the celebration. In the capital, for example, the children’s parade passes the left side of the parliament building, and the president of parliament is allowed to wave to the passing parade from a small balcony^[2], but the main focus of the parade is the Royal Castle and the Royal Family. In must also be noted that the office of president of parliament is mainly ceremonial and administrative, often awarded in the later part of a political career. The prime minister and the rest of the ruling government on the other hand have no official duties during the celebrations.
• The virtual lack of any military-centred celebration.

One can add, that the day should be regarded as an expression of thankfulness, on behalf of the old values freedom, equality and brotherhood, the ideological basis for the constitution, and also on behalf of the circumstances that led up to the constitution. The aspect of "thanksgiving" in the national celebrations of Norway, are easily forgotten in the long span of years from 1814.

The fact that children parading and waving Norwegian flags is such a central part of an inclusive celebration has to a certain extent protected the Norwegian flag against being misused by fascist groups.

[edit] See also

• Constitution Day – A list of similar holidays in other countries
• Riksforsamlingen
• Constitution of Norway

[edit] Notes

1. ↑  The Norwegian language has two distinct words for the English term “parade”: “Parade” which refers to a military like parade, and “tog” which refers to people walking in a predefined route just like a train moving along its track. The Norwegian word for "train", "tog", is derived from the old norse word for "rope" - indicating a row of people walking in a long line. The word "tog" was used of people walking in procession before the country ever got trains. In Bergen, the parade is known as a "prosesjon" (procession).
2. ↑  A funny side-note showing the low focus of elected government is the balcony the president of parliament is using: In the earlier days this was a small, temporary balcony added to one of the windows of the parliament building just before the National Day and removed afterwards. Prior to the parade he must have carefully climbed out of the window and onto the balcony, while during the parade itself his mind must have switched between remembering to wave to the children parading and worrying if the balcony would fall down. Today the parliament building has a quite small, but permanent balcony that looks less likely to collapse.