Carnival: Inverting the established order

General Franco's old mate Benito Mussolini was the first to realise that carnival might not just be an ideal celebration for the fascist state with authoritarian or totalitarian tendencies. For Benito there was a problem with the masks. They could be used to hide possible criminal or subversive elements. They were a matter of national security. Mussolini, therefore, banned the Venice Carnival, and once Franco had taken control of Spain, he took a leaf out of Mussolini's book and banned the carnival in Cadíz. In fact he didn't stop there. He banned it everywhere. Like Mussolini, he sensed possible subversiveness because of the wearing of masks, while the church weighed in and suggested that carnivals were all a bit of an excuse for licentious behaviour.

The Cadíz Carnival was the original carnival in Spain and its inspiration was the carnival tradition in Italy, notably that of Venice. It was Italian merchants, especially those from Genoa, who helped to create the Cadíz Carnival, and despite various attempts over the centuries by the church to ban it, it continued and grew until Franco stepped in.

The banning orders weren't that well observed. Even in Cadíz they managed to have a carnival in secret - quite how, I'm not entirely sure - while in more remote parts of Spain, the islands for instance, they could get away with more than was the case in the main urban centres on the mainland. The carnival in Santa Cruz in Tenerife more or less carried on uninterrupted but under a different name, the Winter Festival.

Majorca doesn't have the same tradition of carnival as, say, Tenerife, but carnival there most definitely is and its popularity has arguably never been stronger than it is today. Every town has its carnival, and in some towns there are more than the one, depending on the parts of a town - Santa Margalida, just as an example, has three separate carnival parades.

Yet, and it is a familiar lament with the winter fiestas and celebrations, little attempt is made to turn carnival in Majorca into something with which to attract the tourism punter. There may not be parades on a similar scale to those of Cadíz or Santa Cruz, but there is often much to be said for events that are less grand; it can be easier to enjoy them.

Observed through British eyes - the eyes of the British tourist, that is - carnival may not carry a great deal of weight because it isn't a British tradition. But then, the British have their own way of celebrating the days preceding the start of Lent, and they are as peculiar as some aspects of carnival. Pancake Day is (or certainly was) as mad as the burying of the sardine. Housewives with headscarves and curlers dashing along streets with frying-pans? Things don't get much madder than that. And there are nationalities which do know all about carnival. The Germans, for instance, and their celebrations are plain bonkers.

Mad, bonkers, whichever adjective you prefer, this is the essence of carnival. Masks, fancy dress, colour and even more colour; they will all be in evidence over various days from Thursday onwards. Maybe there is something to be said for Majorca inventing itself as a sort of carnival island, staging grander parades and seeking to upstage Tenerife. But one supposes that would be beyond the wit of someone to organise it and, as importantly, promote it.

Current-day carnival is not how it used to be or how it used to be perceived. The foremost scholarly authority on carnival in Majorca is Caterina Valriu. She has written two books about carnival which draw on the research that went into her dissertation. This was based on oral history, i.e. people's personal recollections. And she considered how carnival was - pre-tourism - with how it now is. It is the very use of the term pre-tourism which indicates that current-day carnival has, like many other celebrations on the island, been moulded to suit a potential tourism market. Pre-tourism, carnival was an occasion to "invert the established order" and for satire, excess, food, drink and sex. While some of this does still exist, Caterina Valriu's point is that sophistication and originality have taken precedence over simpler and baser instincts that prevailed pre-tourism.

And it was those baser instincts which of course didn't appeal to Franco. He wasn't one for people having fun, as fun was not compatible with another F-word.

* Some carnival parades happening in Majorca:
Sunday, 15 February from 17.00 in Palma from the Rambla and then down Avenida Jaume III. The "Rueta" (kids' parade) is on the Saturday from 17.00 starting out from Jaume III.
Inca: Rueta on 12 February from 16.00 starting from the Plaça de la Quartera. Sa Rua (the carnival parade) is on Saturday, 14 February. It starts at 17.00 in the Plaça del Bestiar.
Felanitx: Sa Rua also on 14 February from 15.00 in the Plaça d'Espanya.
Pollensa: Parades in Puerto Pollensa (16.30 on Thursday, 12 February) and the town at 17.00 on Saturday, 14 February.
Alcúdia: Parade on Sunday, 15 February at 16.30 from Sant Jaume church.
Most of these festivities also include late-night masked balls and other parties.

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