Author: Maarten Koning

The City of Murten

The history of Murten dates back to Celtic times. The name is derived from the Celtic language. The word Mori-dûnum means fort at the lake.

The settlement was part of the Burgundian Kingdom until 1032. The Dukes of Zähringen came into control after the dissolution of this kingdom in 1032.

The Dukes granted the town city rights around 1170. The dynasty died out in 1218, and Murten became a free imperial town in the Holy Roman Empire. Freedom was short-lived because Savoy took control shortly afterwards.

As a result of the Burgundian wars, Bern and Fribourg subjected the city in 1475. After the battles of Grandson and Murten in 1476, Fribourg and Bern governed the town until 1798, changing the bailiffs every five years.

The Outer Regiment (Das Äussere Regiment/ le Régiment extérieur) came into being in the 16th century. It was a kind of “youth parliament” avant la lettre. The youths held imaginary council meetings, held court and delegated bailiffs to administer the society’s assets. The society had its own flags, a sceptre, costumes, a lion mask and silver cups. The Outer Regiment organised the 10,000 Knights Day to commemorate the Battle of Murten (1476). Collection: Museum Murten

Collection: Museum Murten

The famous panorama of the battle of Murten (22 June 1476) is more than 100 meters long, but is not on display. However, it can still be admired in the history museum through a video installation. Napoleon assigned the Protestant city to the Catholic canton of Fribourg in 1803. The Catholic Church was subsequently reintroduced after 1803.

Murten was a German-speaking town and still has a vast majority of German speakers, but French also holds a formal status.

The city’s multicultural, multilingual, and multireligious character is omnipresent: the German and French Church, the two languages, the Savoyard, German, French, Bernese, Neuchâtelois, and Fribourgois buildings and their styles from various periods (Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and nineteenth-century architecture and decoration).

The old port, also known as the Ryf district, was once a significant transportation hub. Artisans plied their trade; there were town mills, inns, custom posts, warehouses, dock facilities and houses with storage facilities.

The drainage of the flood areas in the region by the Juragewässerkorrektionen (1868-1891) of the three lakes (Neuenburgersee/lac du Neuchâtel, Bielersee/lac du Bienne and Murtensee/lac du Morat) sunk the lakes’ levels.

The construction of the present-day port and the quays in 1893-1895 changed the face of the Ryf. The port has only a recreational purpose nowadays.

(Source and further information: M.F. Rubli, The historical buildings of Murten, Murten, 1992)

The Astronomical Clock of Zug

The castle of Zug still dominates the skyline. The castle is the former residence of the Counts of Lenzburg, Kyburg and Habsburg.

The first foundations of the castle date back to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, specifically a motte. The castle was destroyed in 1352 by the Swiss Confederates, but it was soon rebuilt and renovated afterwards. The historical museum is now housed in the castle.

The central tower of the town is the Zytturm. The construction began around 1300 and was completed with the construction of the astronomical clock in 1574.

The tower displays the exact time (zyt means time), as well as the weekdays, months, and the position of the moon.

Great Britain and Switzerland, a European Friendship

Great Britain and Switzerland have been closely linked since Roman times. Emperor Claudius built the road over the Great St. Bernard in preparation for the Roman invasion of England in 43 A.D.

The road is equivalent to today’s Gotthard tunnel and the NEAT project. Even then, Switzerland was an essential European crossroads.

The Via per Alpes Poeninas near Martigny (Forum Claudii Vallensium), Britannia-Londinium, reminds us of this invasion.

Since the end of the eighteenth century, traders, writers, and mountaineers have visited the country in large numbers.

British engineers were also closely involved in building railways and improving the road network.

The development of tourist resorts, wellness centres, grand hotels, and summer and winter sports in Switzerland after 1850 was essentially a British affair.

Good relations between the two countries remain fully intact to this day. Trade, innovation, the world’s best universities and research centres, and a cosmopolitan mentality have created bonds between them over the centuries.

House of Peace Geneva

Geneva is next to New York the most important center for International organizations. The city houses the European headquarters of the United Nations and around 250 international NGOs.

A remarkable new appearance is the House of Peace, Maison de la Paix. The building houses the Graduate Institute of International Development and Studies, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, the International Centre for Humanitarian demining and the Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces.

The architecture is striking and symbolic. The complex consists of six glass towers in the shape of a leaf, but they share a common pedestal.

Salmon, Habitat and the Rhine

One hundred years ago, the Rhine was the largest salmon river in Europe. Every year, millions of salmon swam from the estuary in the Netherlands to the most minor tributaries in Germany, France and Switzerland.

The fish was present in all larger rivers and waters on the northern side of the Alps, including the Rhine, Aare, Limmat and Thur. For centuries, fish have been a vital part of diverse ecosystems.

Since the 1950s, the Atlantic salmon in the Rhine has been extinct. Due to pollution, overfishing and barriers in the rivers.

Salmons swim up to 5,000 kilometres to lay their eggs in Greenland, where they were once born.

However, the end station is the hydroelectric power plants near Strasbourg nowadays. In the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, fish ladders already make the long journey possible. The last French mile has yet to be bridged.

WWF and other (Swiss) organisations are organising the ‘Salmon-Comeback’ project. The project symbolises the entire habitat of the Rhine. If salmon are doing well, the river, other waters and all animals are doing well.

(Source and further information: www.lachscomeback.ch and www.wwf.ch).

Festival of correspondence

It still exists, but in the mountain village of Mase in Val d’Hérens (Canton Wallis). The festival of correspondence (Festival de la correspondance) with pen and paper takes place every year. This almost forgotten way of communicating offers several good perspectives in this era of social media. Thinking first, making a concept and formulating sentences and then writing is perhaps the most important.

In the autumn the festival offers several more projects and events. The exhibition L’amour en boîte in St. Maurice is on the list of Swiss-Spectator (Agenda). The workshop Les coins d’écriture offers the opportunity to write letters with pen and paper to everyone.

The organisation makes pen and paper available, pays for the postage and sends the letters. In the Palp-en-soie project, residents of Mase and nearby Bruson write each other handwritten notes about everyday life in this time of sanitary crisis, quarantine and other social restrictions. Lettres d’exile is an exhibition about a Palestinian cartoonist. The captions accompanying his cartoons have been translated into French and English. (More information:www.lettresdesoie.com).

The Comeback Fish ?

The most beautiful photos of the series “Lachs-Comeback” by photographer Michel Roggo are exhibited in the town hall of Basel. The ground floor has been converted into an ‘aquarium’ for this purpose.

The photographs show the Rhine, which could again be a reality in Basel. The exhibition has been created in cooperation with WWF Switzerland and the city of Basel. (More information about the Swiss Salmon project: www.lachscomeback.ch).

One hundred years ago, the Rhine was the most important salmon river in Europe. Salmon fishing has always been important to Basel. However, salmon have disappeared from the Rhine since the 1950s.

Power stations, locks and other installations prevent salmon from returning from Greenland to their original spawning grounds in Switzerland, the Black Forest or Alsace. Poor water quality and the destruction of the habitat have also contributed to the Rhine without Salmon.

The Conference of Rhine Ministers 2020 (Rheinministerkonferenz 2020) took place in Amsterdam on 13 February 2020. Barriers in the Rhine still make resettlement difficult, although (binding) agreements have been made long ago.

Almost all power plants and locks in Switzerland have fish ladders Only in EU-countries, e.g. France; hardly anything has happened. The conference has now set “Rhine 2040” as its objective.

The exhibition in the Town Hall is open from Monday to Saturday. (Source and further information: https://bgbasel.ch).

The Federal Palace in Bern

The Federal Palace (Bundeshaus), the seat of the Swiss Parliament and government, is one of the most important monuments in Switzerland.

The building consists of three parts: the West Wing, the Central Building and the East Wing. Work on the West Wing began in 1852 (after the foundation of the Confederation in 1848).

The parliament (Bundesversammlung ) has two chambers: the National Council (Nationalrat) with 200 members (representing the population) and the Council of States (Ständerat) with 46 members representing the 26 cantons.

The official inauguration of the building took place on 5 June 1857. The East Wing was completed in 1884. The central part of the palace was built between 1894 and 1902.

The building is called a palace because it has all the features of a palace, including a ‘royal’ balcony. Only the monarchs and aristocrats are lacking.

(Source and further information: The Swiss Federation 2018. A Brief Guide, Bern, 2018).

The Beginning of Federal Financial Support

July 25, 1867, is an essential but almost forgotten date in Switzerland’s modern history. On this day, the parliament in Bern decided, for the first time, to allocate federal funding for projects in the cantons.

These federal subsidies covered the high costs of the Jura Water Correction Project (La Correction des eaux du Jura/Juragewässerkorrektion) in the cantons of Fribourg, Bern, Neuchâtel, Vaud, and Solothurn from 1868 to 1891.

By today’s standards, the Federal Government contributed about two billion CHF. The Rubicon (in this case, the Aare) was crossed.