Nationaldagen 2007
Today is Sweden's National Day! Hipp Hipp Hurra! Hurray for Bliw soaps, Husqvarna mopeds, Allemansratten, Arboga milling machines, trattkantareller, Ahlgrens bilar, Alladin chocolates, Barking Dog plaza, clean streets, healthcare for all, lingonben and svenska krusbar, Ingrid Bergman and strandskator, steamboats, locomotives, and people that take care of historical things, or designing new things, great fusion food, nights when the sun doesn't set, and swimming in dark lakes among white waterlilies, huldror and tomtar, log cabins and ski tracks on fresh snow among snowheavy spruces, bubbly thunderclouds in August, Felix gurka, wonderful gardens, mossy forests, fjallvandringar over rosling and lappljung with lemmings in every hole, sidensvansar som sirrar i tradtopparna i januari, gullefjun pa brunbranda barnarmar, wrenches and other Swedish amazing and important inventions, people that think and feel, and so much more.
by LS
13 comments:
also D-Day...how did they pick this day?
This was originally the Swedish Flag day, and then they decided to make it into the National Day a few years ago. I don't know why the Swedish Flag had its own day. Sweden never became independent, we have always been independent :)
I'm sure someone will correct me on this, but as far as I know the 6th of june 1523 (?) was the day when Gustav Vasa (who later became king) entered Stockholm. This ended the union with Denmark, so we were perhaps not truly independent. It wasn't celebrated as a special day until mid 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th century there was a campaign to make the flag more popular, so they called it the swedish flag day.
That campaign was very successful,I remember how PP commented on the vast amount of flags and flagpoles in Sweden.
I never thought about that Sweden had lots of flags. I guess when you are in US, you see so many American flags that what you see in Sweden is less. Here in the US the flag has become so commercialized kind of, at least I think so. I don't see the patriotic in just waving a flag, but that is what people do here.
Our Swedish flag is repaired now and hanging outside our house in NJ, thanks PP!
PS. JH could answer all our history questions! EH, tell him that we need him to explain 6 June 1523.
LS: My initial reaction was the same, but when you think about the actual flags, not stickers, american flag underwear etc, the swedish flag (in sweden) is very common. A little strange as swedes in general are not very patriotic unless there is some kind of sport event going on.
Yep, PP's new pants have little Swedish flags on them!
JH later meddela:
"Jag såg en liten diskussion om den svenska nationaldagens bakgrund på bloggen och tänkte informera dig eftersom ni tänkte på mig. Gustav Vasa VALDES till kung 6 juni 1523, krönt blev han 12 januari 1528. 1809 års regeringsform som gällde fram till 1974 skrevs samma datum."
It is good to have a historian in the family so we get the facts straight. (For the English speaking - Gustav Vasa was elected as King on 6 June 1523, and the contitution from 1809 was written on the same date in 1809 and was valid until 1974.
I know the dates of the constitutions of 1809 and 1974 are usually brought up as a reason to celebrate the national day on the 6th of june, but that is a mystery to me.
First, the swedish constitution cannot be compared to the american, it does not have the same historical importance and ideals in it. I haven't met a single person or heard a speech who said anything about the constitution on this day.
Second, it didn't officially become the national day until mid-80s (1983-1984?) I think, isn't that a little late to start celebrating an already invalid, 170+ years old constitution?
JH, care to elaborate on that?
(I'm not sure if constitution is a correct translation by the way. Is it?)
Wikipedia.se says that it is June 6 because that is when Gustav Vasa was elected, not because of the constituion. I don't think JH Meant it was because of the Constitution, I think he meant that was a coincidence. It has been the Sedish Flag Day since 1916 as part of patriotic Hazelius' efforts (of Skansen fame).
see http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveriges_nationaldag
Oh I wish there was a spell check for comments. And an easy way to add links and images in the comments too!
I've been looking for a good way to let you edit the comments to correct spelling and add links etc. I might have a solution in the works.
You have spell checking built into Firefox, LS. Enable it under "Advanced". There are dictionaries for a lot of languages to be downloaded to expand Firefox if needed as well.
I looked in Firefox, And I can't see any spell checking option. Where did you find that?
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