All Saints Day

All Saints' Day is a very multifaceted holiday whose history is in a way hidden in obscurity. But as a Christian tradition, it has proven to be unusually multifaceted and vibrant. This has made it celebrated in many different ways depending on where you are in the world.

We have looked at All Saints' Day and seen what sets it apart.

A common but misunderstood day

The origin of All Saints' Day is typically considered to be the ecclesiastical ambition to draw the attention of saints and martyrs to their sacrifices. All Saints' Day is a Christian holiday that celebrates the lives of all saints. Exactly when it is celebrated varies between different places in the world, but it typically takes place on November 1 or sometime between October 31 and November 6.

But what exactly is a saint? A saint is a person who has been recognized by the Church as having attained a very high level of holiness and virtue.

Over time, however, All Saints' Day has become more of a general attention of the people who have left earthly life. Whether it's about saints or our own loved ones. Therefore, the contemporary celebration of All Saints' Day is very closely linked to cemetery visits. Lighting candles and visiting graves is considerably more common than actually spending time in church.

In many places, the day is probably more associated with Halloween, even though they are not really connected other than that they occur one after the other. This is typically considered to be the result of a linguistic interconnection.

All Saints' Day continues to be a popular holiday, but is celebrated in many different ways. In our own time, it has probably in many ways faced great competition from Halloween, even though these two phenomena have completely different origins.

May 1

Since the end of the 19th century, May Day has been one of the most important recurring festivals and events of the labor movement. Its history is closely linked to the rise of socialism in Europe and has had a very strong hold, not least in Sweden.

But what is the first of May really about?

The growth of the labor movement

Despite the fact that the USA is now mainly associated with the free market, it is actually from there that the first of May originates. Although the idea of organizing works has a much longer history, most believe that its model is a decision made in 1884 in the United States. The American Labor Movement Federation of Labor (AFL) decided to demand a broad limitation of the working day to eight hours.

The Second International was an organization formed in Paris to mark a kind of symbolic extension of the French Revolution, while striking a blow for the rights of future workers. Their formation in 1889 is also usually seen as a kind of beginning of the first corn position as an official holiday.

The labor movement has since been a decentralized social movement with a focus on improving workers' rights. The concept is broad and encompasses both organized trade unions and the ambitions and expressions of individuals. The labor movement has been active in many countries throughout history, but it has been most successful in Western industrialized countries. The labor movement is often associated with socialist and communist political parties and organizations, but it is not necessarily tied to any particular ideology.

The first May train

A special symbol for the first of May is the first May train that takes place every year in several countries. Not least in Sweden, it has had a very strong position. The song Internationalen is in many places the train's more or less official theme song. Although the train is common, they continue to have a controversial position in many parts of the world where the labor movement is not yet accepted.