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Paper short abstract:

An upsurge of traditional masqueraded winter rituals has been on its way throughout Europe since the mid 1970s, gaining momentum up to present, with old rituals being revived and new ones created, within significant processes, on both ethnographic and socio-anthropological grounds.

Paper long abstract:

Current paradigms of “change” at the periphery of society tend to focus on the demise of traditional lifestyles as a response to modernization and economic transformation. This paper will follow instead John W. Cole remarks (1996), as to the specific effects of the new economy in the perspective strengthening of the local community, which in many cases happens to overcome the transformations endowed of new tools for survival as a corporate unit. In this perspective, the revival of traditional masquerading, which can be seen as a consistent phenomenon throughout Europe from the mid-1970s, can be envisaged as a specific marker of a revival of local identities. Thus, following Gerald W. Creed (2011) ground-breaking work on the transformation of the Bulgarian traditional masquerades as a specific response to changes in the socio-political sphere, the paper will try to investigate this topic on a European scale, with a specific focus on the masquerades seen and documented in the course of “Carnival King of Europe” research project (2006-).

References:

Gerald W. Creed (2011) Masquerade and Postsocialism: Ritual and Cultural Dispossession in Bulgaria. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Giovanni Kezich (1996) The hidden ecology. Conversating con J.W.Cole in Trento” in SM Annali di San Michele 9-10 /1996-97