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  • Essay / Carnival: importance in culture and relationships within historical communities

    Historians who study the phenomenon of carnival will recognize its importance in culture and relationships within historical communities, such as 16th century France, l early modern England or postcolonial Trinidad, and furthermore, the structures underlying the cause of Carnival will be of particular interest to social and cultural historians. As a result, work on the subject has helped us understand culture as an independent force that acts separately, even without the influence of politics or socio-economics. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay One thing that can be understood from the study of Carnival is how it is expressed in different cultures. Historian Peter Burke, through non-European carnivals, established that, in certain forms, carnival could act as a moment of unity between classes, as he said: "Carnival can be a time of 'emotional union...and even a truce in the class war'. Social class is often seen as a point of contention within communities. This is why this phenomenon is so important and certainly suggests that there are underlying structures at play beneath the direct economic forces that drive society within communities. Professor Raimund Schäffner supports Burke's ideas when he writes: "carnival emerged from its confinement in the great halls and mansions of the privileged upper classes", suggesting that carnival did not apply exclusively to the class working class but was practiced by all classes. Schäffner also describes carnival as "a constituent part of popular culture", which again indicates that it was practiced by all different classes, because "popular culture" does not discriminate on the basis of class. In this particular case, Schäffner focuses on carnival after the abolition of slavery in Trinidad in 1833, which he sees as a major contributing factor to the development of Trinidadian culture and consequently the Trinidad carnival, Play Mas. Referring to the French settlers who expressed French culture and carnival during the occupation of Trinidad, he writes: “slaves were not allowed to participate in such festivities, and…. . . had separate celebrations in their own neighborhoods", which proves why Trinidad's Carnival can be a celebration of unity rather than rebellion, and how individuals in Trinidad demonstrate that Carnival is not relevant to class , but yet culturally relevant. Burke mentions the Trinidad Carnival in Varieties of Cultural History, but he details the impact of slavery, although he highlights the impact of women's participation in Carnival, for example; "Thus, an English officer in Trinidad in 1826 noted that 'a party of ladies, having transformed themselves into a party of brigands, assailed me in my quarters', which would suggest that the carnival in Trinidad was more inclusive for women as well as for social classes. When compared to European carnivals, which were often not as inclusive, Burke writes, "the carnivals of the Americas contrast with traditional European customs, in which the woman's place was usually on the balcony." This supports the argument that Trinidad's carnival focused more on uniting individuals with a common culture due to the Trinidadian experience of slavery and did not discriminate on the basis of class. Burke, however, refers to the experience ofslavery in El Salvador in the New World: "Salvador's carnival focused on Zumbi, leader of the rebellious slave community of Palmares", which directly supports Schäffner's idea that slavery is a contributing force to a cultural carnival where the classes are rather united. of divided, and shows how the cultures of, in this case, Trinidad and El Salvador translate freedom from slavery into a carnival culture. Social and cultural historians such as Peter Burke are particularly interested in the underlying structures responsible for events such as Carnival within communities, particularly those even under economic and political forces. In the case of Trinidad and El Salvador, the structures are constituted by the cultural heritage and connections developed after slavery that encompass their respective societies, regardless of social class. This means that the work of these historians has helped us understand culture as a force in its own right, not simply a consequence of political or socio-economic changes, making historical events, like Carnival, easier to understand. understand and discover the causes of these changes. While with Burke in Trinidad, where Carnival was adopted as a union between classes, in the works of the historian of the third generation Annales school, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, who instead focused on communities of 16th-century France, Carnival is presented as an expression of class tension instead, with much of its attention focused on the culmination of this tension in the Mardi Gras Carnival. An important concept to understand when studying the works of Ladurie and in particular his book The Carnival in Romans is the idea of ​​microhistory, by which a small, perhaps insignificant, community is analyzed, which in this case is the town of Romans in the province of Dauphiné, France, in which, as Ladurie quotes: "one in seven or eight Roman families belonged to or aspired to the wealthy elite", demonstrating that the town's population contained a significant peasant majority . Ladurie also describes the Roman population as a "divided citizenry", indicating class tension in the city, as the majority of wealth belongs to a minority of the population. Given this information, Romans can be seen as a town with a community divided by class between peasants and the elite, which contrasts with the communities of Trinidad and Salvador discussed previously. Ladurie underlines in Carnival in Romans the translation of this division, through Carnival into violence, for example, describing the “cannibalistic fantasies” of the parading members of the less wealthy community of Saint-Blaise “Flesh of crying Christians, six deniers the book” when they make fun. among the “notables”. While Ladurie makes the distinction that these cries were "half-jokes", he later comments: "Agricultural workers and artisans' pantomimes." . . quickly became political as they continued throughout the week", foreshadowing the violence that was to come, which Ladurie describes as "more intense than simple street fighting in a city of 7,000 inhabitants". Ladurie's description is supported by that of Liewain Scott Van Doren, who describes the carnival and revolts of the late 1570s as "their struggle against the privileged", indicating a form of violence against the Indeed, in reference to the events mentioned above during Saint-Blaise, Van Doren emphasizes that “Saint-Blaise was used by the drapers to assert their presence as a special group within. of the community”.The main production industry in Romans in 1580 was the textile industry. A large proportion of the merchants of Romans would have been drapers, and Ladurie, in Carnaval à Romans, describes Guérin's belief that "God had made the drapers, carders and others who had plotted the festivities of the Saint-Blaise of 1579”. the disconnect between the peasants or "leaguers" and the elite or "gentle people" in the Romans, which would lead to the massacre of 1580. Ladurie mentions that during Carnival, the thinking of the nice people, led by Guérian, was not therefore disconnected from the thinking of the Leaguers, led by Paumier. He writes: "The God of the Croquants was constantly on call in their judicial revolt" and "It was undoubtedly the same with the oral declarations of the discontented peasants and townspeople of Dauphiné", showing that it was religion which bridged the cultures between the two participating masses. Ladurie also notes: "Death made Paumier the Christ of revolt", further cementing this idea, however, this did not prevent the massacre from occurring nor reduce the antagonism between the two groups, and Ladurie states : "The Leaguers were more men of action than of words", suggesting that the Leaguers had less time for religion, leading to a class point. tension. While the Annales school, certainly in the first and second generations, focused more on labor and quantitative structures, the third generation began to focus more on culture with a particular emphasis on microhistory and the attempt to understand the thoughts, emotions and consequent actions of the common individual, particularly with Ladurie. The Mardi Gras Carnival offers a micro-historical insight into the underlying structure of culture in the working-class community of Romans and, as such, would be of interest to social and cultural historians, including the Annals. Furthermore, the study of the microhistory introduced by Laduria with the Carnival of the Romans helps us understand that the cultural structure mentioned previously was a major driving force in the Carnival, translated into violence throughout the community of Romans, and this may be applied to other areas of history, where culture is a driving force for events in its own right. Marxist historian EP Thompson takes yet a third approach to the study of carnival. The concepts of class unity and class tension have already been discussed, but Thompson, who in his works often refers to the carnival in France as "Charivari" and in England as "Rough Music", describes it as hostility of communities towards individuals who are perceived to have transgressed social norms with the aim of ostracizing or punishing them. Thompson focuses exclusively on the English experience of charivari and briefly mentions the concept in his 1963 work, The Making of the English Working Class, when he quotes: "ideas and institutions arose in response to certain common experiences. . . In the simple cellular structure of the friendly society, with its daily philosophy of mutual assistance. Thompson states this in reference to the development of working-class communal culture in England, or the development of plebeian culture. Ultimately, Thompson's Making does not examine his idea of ​​Charivari or Rough Music in depth, but his article "Rough Music Reconsidered" provides a better overview. In this article, Thompson quotes: "Rough music is the term that has generally been used...to denote a crude cacophony, with or without more elaborate ritual, which usually directed mockery or hostility against individuals who offended certain norms of the community”, which establishes the definition.