The Cortège (), or The Chalmers Cortège (Swedish: ''Chalmerscortègen'') is an annual

carnival parade Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Carnival typi ...

held on

Walpurgis Night Walpurgis Night (), an abbreviation of Saint Walpurgis Night (from the German language, German ), also known as Saint Walpurga's Eve (alternatively spelled Saint Walburga's Eve) and Walpurgisnacht, is the Vigil#Eves of religious celebrations ...

(30 April) by students of the

Chalmers University of Technology Chalmers University of Technology (, commonly referred to as Chalmers) is a private university, private research university located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Chalmers focuses on engineering and science, but more broadly it also conducts research ...

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

. The Cortège consists of around 1000 students and around 50

truck A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construct ...

carriage A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. In Europe they were a common mode of transport for the wealthy during the Roman Empire, and then again from around 1600 until they were replaced by the motor car around 1 ...

s, each carriage depicting—in a satirical and comic way—significant events that have taken place since the previous parade. The procession makes its way through the city centre, where it is seen by around 350,000 people each year.

History

Before the first Cortège was arranged, students at Chalmers walked the streets with one foot on the pavement and one foot in the

gutter Gutter may refer to: Water discharge structures * Rain gutter, used on roofs and in buildings * Street gutter, for drainage of streets Film * ''The Gutter'' (1938 film), a French film * ''The Gutter'' (2024 film), an American film Design and p ...

each year on 30 April, the day when Chalmers students traditionally exchange their black student caps for white caps. In 1909, the students decided to gather all the horse carriages in the city to travel the distance they usually walked. The next year, the Chalmers Students' Union decided to organize a parade of student culture jokes. In the year 1911 a

committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

, ''Chalmers Cortège Committé'' (CCC), was created to organize the whole procession. The current cortège is organised by the Chalmers Cortège Committee (CCC) and dates back to 1920. On 7 April this year, a group of road and water engineers decided to celebrate their final exams by hiring carriages and taking a trip to Slottsskogen. There, they circled up to a food stall and attracted a lot of attention on the way. In those days there was already a tradition of Valborg - the Chalmerists marched every year on 30 April in a long line along Vasagatan with one foot on the pavement and the other in the gutter in connection with the so-called springtime "mösspåtagning" (i.e. the day they put on - and still put on - the white tophat). This time, horse-drawn carriages were used and the destination was once again Slottsskogen. In 1923, the cortège began to acquire its current features, where various phenomena were guessed, and from 1927 and annually at the same time, the cortège departed regularly. Ever since, except for 1912 due to exam scheduling conflicts, as well as 1940 due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, CCC has arranged The Cortège. Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the 2020 edition was cancelled.

References

* Chalmers Cortège Committé (n.d.)
Chalmers Cortège Committé
Retrieved 29 Apr., 2006.

External links

Cortège history
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cortege Chalmers University of Technology Parades in Sweden Student culture University folklore Walpurgis Night traditions