October is the time for something we've all been waiting for: the beer festival, Oktoberfest!Although it's one of the most popular German festivals, do you know which ones? were its origins? What kind of beer is drunk at this party? What is the meaning of Bavarian folk costumes?
We're going to tell you about all these things in the coming weeks, there's a lot of information we want to share with you, beersapiens!
To analyze the origins of Oktoberfest we have to go back to year 1810, specifically to October 12 of that year. On this date, Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria got married in Munich, and he decided to celebrate it in style and invite all the inhabitants of the city to festivities that lasted more than five days: horse races, parades, dances…. and lots of beer.
The Boyfriends
But as good wedding guests (albeit several centuries later), we are going to learn a little more about the bride and groom.
The spouses were Louis, future king of Bavaria, and a Bavarian duchess. Her name was Teresa Carlota Luisa Federica Amalia de Sajonia-Hildburghausen (Teresa de Saxony to friends) and she was born on July 8, 1792 into the extended family of Duke Frederick of Saxe-Altenburg and his wife, Duchess Carlota Georgina de Mecklenburg-Sterlitz. Teresa grew up with her ten siblings in Hildburghausen Castle, located in the center of present-day Germany. Teresa was a great match: intelligent, cultured and beautiful. She soon joined the long list of highborn ladies who were to be used to forge alliances between states. She even became a candidate to marry Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. But her parents found the right candidate in the house of Bavaria. However, this celebration was not the prelude to a happy marriage. Teresa of Saxony had nine children with her husband, with which she practically spent her life pregnant with her. And meanwhile hers Luis hers from Bavaria hers collected lovers... Among others, the supposed Spanish dancer (who was neither Spanish nor danced very well) Lola Montez. The story was so notorious, and such was the scandal that occurred when she made her countess, that she cost him the throne. The king had to abdicate on her son and her lover fled from her to Switzerland… where she waited for months for him to come looking for her (which she never did). But of course, no one imagined all this when they met on an esplanade on the outskirts of the city. These lands were renamed Theresienwiese (“Theresian meadow” in German). In fact, Bavarians do not say “Oktoberfest”, but “Wies’n”. The following year, to have a better climate, the party was brought forward to the month of September, and since then it has been celebrated on the first Saturday after September 15. Soon the beer became the star of the party. It was the manufacturers of this drink who, little by little, took center stage in the celebration. The arrival of their carriages at the Theresienwiese However, some anthropologists point out that, as in almost all pagan celebrations, when they are tried to be formalized, an ancient festival is linked to a historical event that legitimizes it. But in reality, a party similar to Oktoberfest was already celebrated on those dates in the area. On the one hand, it coincides with the harvest, traditional at the end of summer On the other, with the traditional pig slaughter, another traditional festival in which the family gets together to prepare the meat and sausages that will be consumed throughout the year. And finally, as we have already told you in this article (link “historical discoveries”), historically in Germany it was not allowed to brew beer between April and September. For this reason, these dates marked the beginning of the consumption of the precious golden liquid. All this invites us to think that in the past there was already some kind of festivity that combined beer, dancing and food at that time, but it was definitively institutionalized at the end of the 19th century. (...to be continued) IMAGES: https://www.mujeresenlahistoria.com/2018/12/teresa-carlota-de-sajonia.html
In the fall, Teresa traveled to Munich to marry the future king. As we have already told you, the celebrations became a historical fact, which gave rise to the Oktoberfest that we know today. Just a wedding reception?