Culture ministry completes new holiday list

NEW MERCY – On 1 September, the Duchess of Bellevue, Minister for Culture, approved the addition of 34 holidays and observances to Überstadt’s official holiday list. 16 cultural holidays were recognized, some new and some already widely practiced in the Kingdom, while 18 public observances joined the national calendar.

Recognized cultural holidays include significant days in Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism, reflecting the diversity of citizens’ religious practice. Five secular holidays were listed as having national cultural significance, including the Winter Solstice, LGBTQ+ Pride Day, and two new holidays created based on citizen suggestions: Day of Rest and Knowledge Day. Raspberry Day was listed as significant in Rosewood, where raspberries are the dominant crop and an important aspect of local culture.

Some of the18 codified public observances are internationally-recognized days, like Indigenous Peoples Day and World Water Day. Others are specific to Überstadt, including Victory over Fire Day, which dates to the country’s oldest holiday laws as a commemoration of the 2009 fire that devastated Edmount Island, the first land Überstadt claimed.

After April 2021’s Renewal Act repealed all existing Überstadti legislation, the Kingdom had no legal holidays until Parliament passed the Holidays and Observances Act this March. The act listed six state holidays and authorized the culture minister to publish official lists of cultural holidays, defined as those “culturally significant to Überstadt as a whole or to specific cultural groups within Überstadti society,” and public observances, “designated for general remembrance…but not classified as state or cultural holidays.”

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New royal residence annexed and made capital by name of New Mercy

NEW MERCY – King Adam has signed a decree annexing into Überstadt the apartment he shares with Queen Laurel, naming it New Mercy and designating it as the Kingdom’s capital.

King Adam sits in New Mercy in naval uniform and signs the decree.

New Mercy, surrounded by Boston, USA, is Überstadt’s first territory outside the Seattle metropolitan area and its first territory annexed since 2014. The last change in national capital occurred in 2013, when Rosewood joined Überstadt and assumed the status.

The new capital is the first exercise of a theory being developed by the King and other Überstadti leaders that allows for sovereign claims over portions of buildings without necessarily claiming the underlying land, a departure from traditional Westphalian sovereignty that sometimes occurs de facto in urban small nations. Anticipating the Kingdom’s further urbanization, Parliament allowed this type of claim in an act passed earlier this year.

New Mercy is named for Mercy House of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Seattle, where Queen Laurel lived during a service year and where Their Majesties conducted much of their courtship.

The King’s decree makes New Mercy, formally a barony, part of the newly-formed Sophia County and Duchy of Massachusetts. The county is named for the classical personification of wisdom in a nod to the royal couple’s academic pursuits, while the duchy is named for the surrounding U.S. state of Massachusetts and the region’s indigenous Massachusett people.