Europeade

The tradition & historical record

Europeade is the largest festival of European folk culture, held in a different European country each year. The last Europeade was held in Turku, Finland in 2017. The year before that it was held in Namur, Belgium in 2016. The first Europeade was held in 1964 at the initiative of Mon de Clopper (1922–1998) from Flanders and Robert Müller-Kox, a German exiled from the Province of Silesia. Mon de Clopper was president of the Europeade until 1997, when he was succeeded by the current president Bruno Peeters (born 1939), also from Flanders. The goal of the Europeade is to foster a united Europe, where everyone contributes and develops his or her own culture, respecting everyone else. This philosophy is practised each year during the five-day festival, when thousands of people from all parts of Europe, dressed in their traditional costumes, meet to sing, to make music, to dance and to celebrate - without formal lecturing. In a typical Europeade there are about five thousand participants, all in costume, in almost two hundred groups, from about twenty-two countries. They all pay their own transport costs, and perform free of charge. Participants arrive during the Wednesday, and are accommodated in large premises wherever possible, typically in large schools, with basic beds supplied in the class-rooms, and using other school amenities. Large-scale catering is provided, usually a simple breakfast, a packed lunch and a hot evening meal in one central location. ¹

2020 and 2021 were cancelled and held virtually due to Covid-19. ¹

For the Europeade 2008 in Martigny (Switzerland) some two hundred groups registered. Their countries of origin were as follows: ¹

27 groups from Germany 26 groups from Spain and Belgium 16 groups from Latvia 15 groups from each Estonia, France and Italy 10 groups from Hungary 9 groups from Lithuania 8 groups from the Czech Republic 7 groups from Portugal 5 groups from Denmark 3 groups from each Ireland, The Netherlands, Romania and Sweden two groups from each Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Greece and the United Kingdom one group from each Armenia, Austria, Georgia, Greenland and Luxembourg also the host country Switzerland was represented by only one group there were no groups from Iceland, Norway, Poland, Slovakia and Former Yugoslavia, despite the strong folk tradition of those countries. For the Europeade 2011 in Tartu (Estonia) over hundred groups registered. Their countries of origin were as follows: ¹

34 groups from Estonia 21 groups from Latvia 13 groups from Finland 12 groups from Germany 8 groups from each Italy and Belgium 5 groups from each Lithuania and Czech Republic 3 groups from each Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden and Turkey 2 groups from each Slovakia, Cyprus and Denmark 1 group from each Austria, Switzerland, France, Greenland, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Slovenia and United Kingdom there were no groups from Iceland, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine and Moldova, despite the strong folk tradition of those countries. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Europeade”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Europeade is folk festival in Finland, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²