Historical Dictionary of Switzerland

The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (German: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, HLS; French: Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse, DHS; Italian: Dizionario storico della Svizzera, DSS) is a scholarly, freely accessible online encyclopedia covering the history of Switzerland from prehistory to the present. ^[1:1] It is published simultaneously in three of Switzerland's national languages — German, French, and Italian — with a separate partial edition in Romansh, making it the only encyclopedia in the world produced concurrently in four languages. ^[2:1] The print edition, completed in 2014, comprised thirteen volumes and around 36,000 articles; since the conclusion of the print run, the encyclopedia has been maintained and expanded exclusively as an online resource. ^[2:2]

The project is governed by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (Schweizerische Akademie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, SAGW/ASSH) and the Swiss Historical Society (Schweizerische Geschichtforschende Gesellschaft, SGG-SHH), and is financed through national research grants. ^[3:1] All article text produced for the HDS is published under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. ^[1:2]

Background

The tradition of Swiss historical lexicography stretches back to the Enlightenment. ^[2:3] The first well-known comprehensive Swiss lexicon was the Allgemeines Helvetisches, Eydgenössisches, oder Schweitzerisches Lexicon, published in twenty volumes between 1747 and 1765 by Johann Jacob Leu (1689–1768), mayor of Zurich, at his own expense. ^[2:3] It was followed, after the First World War, by the seven-volume Historisch-Biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HBLS, Historical-Biographical Dictionary of Switzerland), published in German and French by Victor Attinger of Neuchâtel between 1921 and 1934. ^[2:4] The HBLS served for decades as the main Swiss historical reference work, but by the 1950s its age had made a successor necessary. ^[2:5]

Renewing the project proved difficult. From the 1950s onward, several initiatives called for a new or updated dictionary, but all stalled due to fears of high costs and the sheer scale of the undertaking. ^[2:6] It was not until 1982 that the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences formally agreed to draw up a project proposal, marking the effective start of what would become the HDS. ^[2:6]

History

The SAGW constituted a working group of three scholars: Carl Pfaff (Professor of medieval studies at the University of Fribourg), Alain Dubois (Professor of Swiss history at the University of Lausanne), and Fritz Glarner (Head of the State Archives of Lucerne). They commissioned the historian Marco Jorio to draft a feasibility study, which he completed between 1985 and 1987. Even before receiving the final report, the SAGW submitted a funding request to the Federal Government in March 1987. Both chambers of the Federal Parliament approved the proposal without opposition that same year. ^[2:7]

The Foundation Historical Dictionary of Switzerland was established in 1988 with a dual mandate: to produce a multi-volume scholarly dictionary accessible to a wide audience, and to publish it simultaneously as an electronic database. ^[3:1] Work on building the keyword list began that year, a task that occupied the editorial board until 1995, and the computer infrastructure was built up from 1989 onward. The first articles were assigned to authors in 1991. ^[2:8]

In 1997, the Board of Trustees decided to give priority to the online publication over the print edition. Two of the original three publishing houses had withdrawn their commitment following a strategic reorientation driven by the spread of digital technology, making the original sequence unworkable. The online edition launched in 1998; printing preparations began in 2000, once the HDS database had been converted into typeset format. ^[2:8] The first print volume was officially presented on October 31, 2002, simultaneously in German (published by Schwabe), French (Gilles Attinger, Hauterive), and Italian (Armando Dadò, Locarno), at a ceremony at the Swiss National Library; subsequent volumes appeared at a rate of approximately one per year until the thirteenth and final volume was completed in 2014. ^[2:9]

On January 1, 2017, the Foundation Historical Dictionary of Switzerland formally concluded its work and transferred responsibility for the encyclopedia to the ASSH. ^[1:1]

Scope and content

The HDS covers the history of what is now Switzerland from the Palaeolithic period to the present; non-Swiss events are included only where they had a direct and significant impact on Swiss history. ^[2:10] Articles vary in length by subject importance and the current state of research — a principle the HDS calls "relative completeness" — with lesser-known persons and themes receiving proportionally more space than major historical figures. ^[2:11] Articles are organized into four categories: ^[2:1]

The editorial philosophy is oriented toward histoire totale — an integrative approach to history that brings together political, economic, social, cultural, and transnational dimensions rather than treating them in isolation. The HDS reflects methodological developments in historiography over the past decades, including greater emphasis on social, cultural, and economic history, and introduces subjects rarely found in earlier Swiss dictionaries. ^[2:11]

Languages and editions

The main dictionary is published simultaneously in three of Switzerland's national languages. The German edition (Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, HLS) was published by Schwabe in Basel; the French edition (Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse, DHS) by Gilles Attinger in Hauterive; and the Italian edition (Dizionario storico della Svizzera, DSS) by Armando Dadò in Locarno. ^[2:1] About 70% of articles were originally drafted in German, with roughly 25% of the German edition translated from French originals and 5% from Italian. Translating historical texts across languages proved difficult — qualified translators were scarce even in multilingual Switzerland, and new terminology sometimes had to be invented. ^[2:12]

A separate, reduced edition in Romansh — the Lexicon istoric retic (LIR) — was published in parallel, constituting the first specialist historical dictionary in Rhaeto-Romance Switzerland. ^[1:1] It covers selected content from the main dictionary alongside original entries focused on Graubünden's regional history and culture, available both in print (two volumes) and online as e-LIR since 2004, with supplementary indexes in German and Italian. ^[2:13] With its four parallel editions, the HDS is unique among national encyclopedias. ^[2:1]

Organization

During the production phase, the HDS was organized into four language departments (German and French teams based in Berne, Italian in Bellinzona, Romansh in Chur), plus departments for iconography, information technology, and administration. ^[2:14] The central editorial staff comprised approximately 30 people, supported by around 100 scientific advisors attached to Swiss and foreign universities and archives, more than 2,500 historians who wrote the articles, and over 100 translators. The total cost of the project reached approximately 100 million Swiss francs. ^[2:14] Marco Jorio, who had led the feasibility study, served as editor-in-chief from the foundation's establishment in 1988 until 2014. ^[2:7]

The Foundation Board, which governed the organization, held a maximum of thirteen members appointed by the Swiss Historical Society, the ASSH, the Swiss Confederation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Association of Swiss Archivists. Its presidents were Georges-André Chevallaz (1988–1992), Ernst Rüesch (1993–1996), Jean Guinand (1997–2004), Peter Schmid (2005–2010), and Martine Brunschwig Graf (2011–2016). ^[3:1]

Online platform

The HDS has been freely accessible online since its 1998 launch, without registration or paywalls. ^[1:1] The original website launched with approximately 8,000 articles and was updated every four weeks; it was, by design, text-focused and without illustrations. ^[2:8]

In 2017, the HDS chose XWiki — an open-source wiki platform — as the basis for a rebuilt editorial and publishing system, replacing a proprietary platform that had been in use for approximately 15 years. The new production platform went live in 2018 and the redesigned public website in 2019. ^[4:1] The platform supports multilingual content management, role-based editorial access, article versioning, and integration with Jira for workflow tracking. ^[4:2] The migration was framed explicitly as a strategic commitment to open-source infrastructure, reducing dependence on proprietary vendors and aligning with the publicly funded nature of the project. ^[4:1]

Articles in the online edition continue to be updated and expanded in line with new research, beyond the fixed content of the 2014 print edition. ^[1:1]