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POLITICS AND RITUAL:
THE COMMUNIST FESTA IN ITALY'
DAVID I. KERTZER
Bowdoin College
The social importance of the annual festa cycle has been noted
throughout the northwestern Mediterranean area, as well as throughout
much of Latin America. Often these celebrations are cited as providing
evidence for the central position of the Church in the local community.
In this static model, allegiance to the Church is regularly reaffirmed
through popular participation in the Church-sponsored festa cycle: the
Church comes to symbolize the community. Indeed, the festa of the
community, employing the ritual of the Church, has been portrayed in
some cases as the socially defining characteristic of the community.
Hence Boissevain's remarks on the Maltese situation:
The festa is thus an occasion on which communal values are
reaffirmed and strengthened, as individuals and groups
loyalty to their patron saint and unite to defend and
reputation of their village. At the same time, the cen
which the Church occupies in the social structure is strongly
reinforced, for the parish church is the hub around which this festiv
occasion turns (Boissevain 1969:59).
The importance of ritual to community solidarity, however, transcends
any simple static model.2 While ritual may be conceived as symbolizing
and reinforcing power relations in the local social grouping (Leach
1954:10-17), it may also be seen as a potential means of combatting
the political status quo, of contesting political authority (Balandier
1970:117). This dialectical3 nature of the ritual-political relationship
374
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COMMUNIST FESTA IN ITALY 375
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376 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
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COMMUNIST FESTA IN ITALY 377
For centuries two local parish churches had been the centers of
community life in Albora, a zone lying outside the old walls of Bologna
and until the past fifty years populated almost entirely by farmers,
fishermen and artisans.6 Sunday was the day when the entire com-
munity gathered together at the church; the holidays of the Church
provided the people with their major communal festivities. Indeed, be-
fore the unification of Italy a century ago, the churches had been the
only supra-family social organizations of any importance in Albora.
This position of communal centrality continued until the advent of
World War II, despite challenges first from the Socialist movement and
later from the Fascist Party.7
The importance of the Church to the local community involved
much more than purely theological matters. The church itself housed
the most extensive recreational facilities in the area, from bocce alleys
to theater. Furthermore, the parish priest was not only the local reli-
gious authority, but the primary advisor and broker in a wide variety of
activities. One old Church activist recalled the place of the Church and
the role of the priest in these pre-World War II years:
In such a way, the parish priest was not only in effect the lawyer for
the people of the zone (a hold-over from the days of the Papal state
when the parish priest was the local agent of the government but also
was their major employment and housing broker, certifying them as
being of good moral character. 8
In these decades the high points of the year were provided by the
feste of the church. Virtually the entire population participated in these
celebrations, which were the only occasions on which the entire com-
munity came together to feast and to play. The feste were the subject
of much anticipatory excitement and discussion, and the honor of oc-
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378 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
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COMMUNIST FESTA IN ITALY 379
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380 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
Viviani could not have been more clear in portraying the Party feste
as a direct attack on the popular influence of the Chruch, "The popular
feste have, for the first time, broken the confessional monopoly... In
many localities of the Province of Naples. . . the success of our feste
was such that the religious feste organized by the local parishes for the
same time failed" (Viviani 1950).
In format, the feste sponsored by the Communists are much like the
traditional church feste. The manifest purposes are, of course, quite
different, as are the symbols. While the Church feste are proclaimed as
tributes to the patron saint or to other saints a time of spiritual uplift,
the Communist feste are organized to glorify the Party, politicize the
people, and to raise money for the Party press. While the Church feste
are characterized by crosses, images of the Madonna, etc., the Com-
munist feste are decorated with red flags and anti-capitalist, anti-
imperialist banners. Just as each parish has its own characteristic annual
festa, so each section of the Party has its own festa. However, today it
is the Communist festa and not the Church festa which is the biggest
community celebration in the section's jurisdiction, an event discussed
by the local people all year long. Thousands now participate in the
sectional feste of the PCI in Albora, while no more than 400 participate
in the Church feste.
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COMMUNIST FESTA IN ITALY 381
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382 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
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COMMUNIST FESTA IN ITALY 383
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384 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
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COMMUNIST FESTA IN ITALY 385
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386 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERL Y
NOTES
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COMMUNIST FESTA IN ITALY 387
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388 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
REFERENCES CITED
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EMILIANO
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COMMUNIST FESTA IN ITALY 389
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