Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the emotional power of ritual through the case of the eastern German Jugendweihe ceremony. It explores the skilful employment of visual, audio, and somatosensory elements to appeal to ritual participants across three generations.

Paper long abstract:

Ritual is not only an essential part of political life, it also frequently speaks to multiple senses to be efficacious. This paper takes the secular coming-of-age ritual Jugendweihe ("youth consecration") as a case study to explore the emotional power of ritual. From 1954 onward the East German state (German Democratic Republic/GDR) employed Jugendweihe as a secularisation tool and as an additional means for crafting 'socialist personalities'. Girls and boys in their eighth school year (13 and 14-year-olds) were prepared in ten extra-curricular 'youth lessons' for their future role as socialist citizens. Between 1955 and 1989 more than 7 million adolescents pledged allegiance to the socialist state during the public ceremony. When in 1990 the socialist state disappeared, its ritual did not vanish, but was transformed - now celebrated without the requirement of preparatory lessons and without any oath or other apparent state symbolisms, such as flag and anthem. But if the ritual's continuation after the socio-political rupture of 1989/90 exemplifies a state's power of creating a particular sense of belonging beyond its grave, then how was this sense achieved? This paper explores particular elements of the public ceremony that speak to three senses: vision, audition, and somatosensation. It argues that these elements are so skilfully employed - in both socialist and contemporary ceremonies - that they evoke emotions across three generations, rendering the ritual a powerful tool for creating social solidarity.