Today is the longest day of the year — so why is midsummer celebrated on 23 June?
It’s the biggest celebration of the year here in Estonia.
Today is Sunday 21 June — and the longest day of 2020 for us here in Estonia. For everyone West of us though, the longest day of the year was yesterday. And, yet, midsummer celebrations traditionally aren’t until 23 June, which is Tuesday.
Confused?
I’m not surprised. I saw several articles about midsummer in the international media today that got some of these basic facts wrong.
The longest day of the year is today in Estonia because the summer solstice took place just after midnight Estonian time this morning. That’s the exact moment that the Earth’s axis is most directly tilted towards the sun. So in Sweden, for example, that moment came just before midnight this year, which made 20 June the longest day for them.
Either way, don’t worry if you missed the solstice. Midsummer celebrations traditionally take place on 23 to 24 June.
Why? Well, the exact point of midsummer doesn’t align to our calendar so the date and time varies each year, as well as by time zone.
The solstice was originally celebrated as a Pagan festival across Europe, but it was later merged with the Christian festival of St John’s Day and so fixed to 24 June. Calendars drift out of sync with astronomy though, even with Europe’s switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendars, which shifted the days and added a more accurate system of leap days.
That’s not a big deal though, as long as we roughly get it right and know when to come together at the same time.
After Estonia became independent and could officially fix the date in the calendar as a national celebration, there was yet another holiday to merge it with. Jaanipäev took on an extra significant because 23 June is also now Victory Day. That marks the victory by Estonians and Latvians in a key battle on this day in 1919 during their Wars of Independence, which eventually led to both countries securing their existence as Republics. During the later Soviet occupation, midsummer celebrations continued and therefore it grew in significance as a celebration not just of our own culture, but also our independence that would eventually be restored.
Midsummer is still the biggest celebration of the year in Estonia, although we’ve stuck to calling it jaanipäev (St. John’s Day).
And it’s still commonly celebrated the same way as in ancient times — with family and friends around bonfires in the countryside with plenty of Pagan traditions incorporated. There’s usually a sauna, or course, as well as plenty of singing and dancing, washed down with a few ales.
23 and 24 June are also the only two consecutive flag days (when everyone is required to raise the Estonian flag on their home) and so the only time we leave our flags up overnight — if you can call it that. This is also the middle of white night season, which is that special time of year on our latitude when the sun only briefly dips below the horizon at night.
Fun fact: Sauna and ale are two words in English, one new and one old, that enjoy the rare characteristic of sharing the same root as the Estonian word. Sauna is borrowed from Finnish so has the same Finno-Ugric root as saun in Estonian, while ale is from the old Norse word øl that produces the word for ale or beer in Estonian, õlu, as well as the same word in almost all Nordic and Baltic languages in addition to English. In future midsummers, we hope to get the word leil into English too.
The changing of the seasons is incredibly important for farmers, which is why it’s such an important festival.
However, another key theory proposed by Lennart Meri is that our midsummer celebrations around fire are based on re-enacting a series of meteorite strikes on Saaremaa that was witnessed by early peoples living in the region. That incident formed the basis for a lot of early Finno-Ugric and Baltic mythology. Meri was a historian who specialised in Finno-Ugric culture, although you probably know him best as the first President of Estonia after our independence was restored.
Midsummer night is also when young Estonian couples go searching for the sõnajalaõis (fern blossoming), which Estonians voted to be the most Estonian word. As it happens though, no one has ever actually seen a fern blossom. Sometimes though, the journey is more important than the destination. In fact, ‘searching for the fern blossom’ is often considered to be an ancient version of ‘netflix and chill’, if you know what I mean.
A pan-European celebration
Here’s where things get more interesting though.
Ancient midsummer celebrations across previously pagan parts of Europe are remarkably similar. Yes, people as far as Britain also once enjoyed the occasion with a good sauna and a few good ales.
Still today, people in Britain gather at Stonehenge, the ancient monument built in alignment with the solstice, to celebrate midsummer. Brits also historically used to celebrate on 23 to 24 June according to records as far back as the 14th century, although modern celebrations take place on 21 June as the day now most commonly aligned with the solstice.
And, believe it or not, the oldest sauna ever discovered was built very close to Stonehenge where those celebrations took place, just further along the river at Marden Henge. Archaeologists found a 3,500 year old building that had a large fire pit in the centre and seats around the side, yet the only evidence of burning material was found in a separate firepit along with fragments of stones heated to high temperatures. They concluded that the stones were heated outside then carried inside, similar to the native American sweat lodge tradition.
There are actually about 1,000 ancient circles across Britain and evidence of sauna-style bathing has been found at other sites too.
In case you don’t know, we write this blog about Estonian saunas because we export Estonian sauna design and technology around the world — particularly to the UK where interest in authentic saunas has risen rapidly over recent years. Yet we are always keen to remind Brits that we are merely helping them rediscover their own ancient sauna heritage. Saunas belong to everyone and the archaeological evidence proves it.
As you can see from Estonia’s midsummer celebrations though, people in this part of the world have managed to hold onto a significant part of their prehistoric cultural traditions against the tides of history.
So what makes saunas particularly special in our part of the world in northern Europe isn’t that they were invented here. It’s that the tradition has survived here and is still relevant to our modern lives today. That’s also why we have thousands of years of sauna building expertise to help reintroduce saunas elsewhere where they’ve been forgotten.
Wherever you are in the world, we hope you have a great midsummer night on 23 June. This year’s celebrations will be smaller than usual due to the pandemic with no public events taking place, but we will still meet with family and friends — and enjoy a good sauna.
Thanks for reading
This Estonian Saunas blog is run by Anni and Adam.
We export Estonian sauna design and technology — including HUUM sauna stoves — at EstonianSaunas.com (and into the UK at EstonianSaunas.co.uk).
You can follow our own adventures exploring Estonian sauna culture and helping fill the world with more saunas on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. We also have a Facebook group for Sauna explorers / Sauna avastajad. If you used this guide to make your own vihad then send us a picture!
You can also contact us at tere@estoniansaunas.com.
