11 Introduction: Feast as a Mirror of Social and Cultural Changes in the normal course of life; “[e]verything must continue today the same as yesterday, and tomorrow as today”7 ([1939] 1972: 161). The proposed volume meets the growing interest in intercultural comparison of social changes, especially in festivities. It enriches the empirical basis of accounts on festivities in general because it contains detailed case studies—mostly based on the Authors’ own field research—from European, Asian, and African countries. It was difficult to categorize the texts contained in this book because the subjects discussed in them very often overlap. Still, it was possible to recognize several accentuated aspects that served as the basis for the division of the book into three sections, i.e. (1) Culture and Identity, (2) Ritual and Cultural Values, and (3) Culture and Policy. The first section contains four chapters. In the first one, as a mirror of social and cultural changes, Ewa Nowicka presents three Buryat ethnofestivals that are used by the Buryat elite “to build a modern, culturally unified Buryat nation” in order to oppose Russian infiltration and Western globalization. It is a process of reconstruction of Buryat ethnicity in which rediscovered fragments of old tradition are adopted to the Buryat’s “contemporary living conditions” taking a new form. The role of rediscovered tradition in strengthening identity is also the subject of the third chapter, in which László Mód traces the process of constructing local identities in agricultural communities in Hungary. Here, the social and political changes are mirrored in grape harvest feasts. In the second chapter, on the examples of the Swiss carnivals of Payerne and Lausanne, Monika Salzbrunn demonstrates how social structure and political issues, in these cases related to foreign residents, are mirrored in the feasts. She builds her analysis around performing self or the other(s). In the last chapter, Alīna Romanovska tackles the problem of cultural identity of young people in the multicultural cross-border environment of the city of Daugavpils (Latvia) in the context of diaspora festivals. Despite the endeavors of diasporas to preserve their own cultural traditions, the influence of globalization and the interests of consumer society have led to the creolization and hybridization of cultures. Young people prefer to participate in public rather than in diaspora events. Cultural purity is not important for them. As members of the future society, they welcome elements of other traditions in their lives. It is not hard to detect in such an attitude the influence of Latvia’s political past. 7 English translation after Roger Caillois (2001) Man and the Sacred. Trans. Meyer Barash. United States: University of Illinois Press.
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