This past Monday, 6 June, Sweden celebrated its National Day. Last year the royal attendance at the celebrations were scaled down to a minimum as the event occurred in the middle of the countdown to Crown Princess Victoria’s and (the then being) Daniel Westling’s wedding and preparations were taking place at full speed. This year the couple had been married almost a year when the National Day came along, but even so it was uncertain until the last minute if the Royal Family would come out in full force for the first time in a very long time.
Princess Madeleine did not come home for the day last year and only a few days before Monday the Royal Court said she would not be coming home this year either, and might not come home at all in the foreseeable future. The calendar of the royal website kept changing the names of the attendees at the events listed several times and staff at Skansen gave conflicting information to curious reporters who asked. Even devout royal watchers like myself wondered about the mess and very shoddy handling of it all, and thought that surely they all realize that what the family and the monarchy needs now more than ever is a more visible family and a united front – or don’t they? In any case, it took until the day before the National Day for Princess Madeleine’s attendance to be officially announced and confirmed.
As the National Day came along on Monday, with warm and sunny weather, the Royal and Crown Princess Couples were the only royals who had activities scheduled during the day. But only one municipality were honoured with royal attendance at their local celebrations, which is better than none though.
The King and Queen paid their traditional municipal visit to southern Sweden and Eslöv Municipality in Skåne County, a visit coinciding with the municipality’s centennial jubilee. Their Majesties were taken on a tour of the citizen’s hall before attending an outdoors celebration together with several thousand people where the King also gave a speech. Before heading back to Stockholm to prepare for the evening’s festivities, the King and Queen met with seniors at a residential home and had lunch and coffee on their sun terrace.
After no royals were on hand to do it last year, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel started their day by opening the annual “Open Palace” at the Royal Palace of Stockholm in the forenoon. As usual I was up crazy early and hopped on the train into Stockholm before standing on the most uncomfortable cobble stones outside the South Gate for around an hour in order to secure a good spot. The sun was shining right on us and it was quite hot and humid so if the Navy Music Corps had not been there, providing something to focus on, it could’ve been a difficult wait.
After a speech by the Marshal of the Realm, Svante Lindqvist, Crown Princess Victoria held a short speech, saying that she wanted the Swedes to reflect on the great country of Sweden where peace, freedom and democracy rules, before welcoming the crowd into the Inner Courtyard and into the Royal Palace with free entrance for the day.
Well inside the gates it got a little scary on the Inner Courtyard as the Crown Princess Couple was quickly surrounded by curious people and their security guards couldn’t do much to keep people at a safe distance because there was so little breathing space. I was quick to move in with the group of photographers and snapped some photos when they visited the first exhibitor’s tent and listened to the Stockholm Boys Choir but backed off and went out of the hysteric crowds after that. People literally rubbed skins with the Crown Princess and it simply felt like too much.
In the afternoon, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel attended a citizenship ceremony for new Swedish citizens in the City Hall of Stockholm. Around 600 new citizens attended the ceremony that serves at the city’s official welcoming and offers song a music, presentation of commemorative diplomas and some food and drink.
A few minutes before 6 PM a horse-drawn mounted cortège left the Royal Palace for the Skansen Open Air Museum and the traditional televised celebrations there. King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia were in the first carriage and Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Daniel, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine in the second. Princess Christina Mrs Magnuson and her husband left a while before the cortège in a chauffeured car. In his particularly good speech this year, the King focused on finding a read thread of Swedishness in today’s modern culture.
- During a thousand year we have received what Vikings and pilgrims brought here, what “mountain men” (bergsmän) from Wallonia and burn-beating farmers from Savolax taught us, what emigrants have written home about and what immigrants have told. We have attracted labour from all corners of Europe and opened the doors for those forced to escape. All of this has shaped what is today Swedish history, traditions and identity. Sweden has been blessed.
When the public televised celebrations were over the Royal Family went back to the Royal Palace to welcome guests for the traditional National Day evening reception.
More coverage: the rest of my photos can be seen in this Flickr album, my royal Swedish blog fellow Johannes (who I was at the palace with on the National Day) has posted his video of Crown Princess Victoria’s speech at the opening of “Open Palace” on YouTube, Aftonbladet has a very nice slideshow from all the events of the day and Getty Images via Zimbio has good photos from the citizenship ceremony. PPE, as usual, has excellent galleries as well. One from “Open Palace”, one from Eslöv and one from Skansen.
The Swedish National Day, 6 June, has been a public flag day since 1916 and a public holiday since 2005. It was officially named National Day in 1983, before that it was called Svenska flaggans dag (Day of the Swedish Flag). The date of 6 June comes from King Gustav Eriksson Vasa’s election as Swedish king on 6 June 1523, when the country became unified under one ruler, and the signing of the Instrument of Government that put an end to the Gustavian absolute rule in 1809.
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Your first photo of Victoria and Daniel is very nice!
Thanks for your company and for your link to my blog on your blog! Next time we'll absolutely go to Skansen to see the family.
Hope to see you soon!
Johannes
My recent post Nationaldagen 2011