3 Introduction: Feast as a Mirror of Social and Cultural Changes them stress one of the most important functions of the feast, which is the strengthening and manifestation of bonds, solidarity, relations between people, very often in collective effervescence, regardless of the place, culture, or time (cf. Durkheim [1912] 2010; Caillois [1939] 1972, [1958] 2001; Turner [1969] 2017: Chs. 3–4; [1974] 1975: Ch. 1; 1982a; Żygulski 1981). In the French sociologist Jean Duvignaud’s ([1977] 2011) terms, the time of feasting is le don du rien (the gift of nothing). It is a time when joy overcomes the people feasting together, who forget about their ranks, statuses, identities; when “astructural” symptoms of social life, which tend to escape every form of institutionalization (Duvignaud [1977] 2011: 33), occur. The structure of the society is suspended (Turner [1969] 2017), everybody is equal, the same; the oneness can be felt, experienced. On the other hand, during the feast, special social roles played on ordinary days are highlighted, manifested, and confirmed (cf. Heers [1983] 1995: 12–14, 184–188) by assigning distinguished places to their actors. Sometimes some roles in the social structure can be changed temporarily (van der Leeuw [1933] 1997: 345). It has to be mentioned that an important role in the festival is assigned to masks, which, according to the French sociologist Roger Caillois ([1958] 2001: 89), are “the true social bond.” Duvignaud ([1977] 2011: 208–210) believed that “we are born and die in the world in which there is no feast,” because the feast means that everything can happen, and in the world we live in, feasts are organized and controlled by ideologies that ensure “compactness of the structures in the capitalist and socialist systems.” However, as noted by Caillois ([1939] 1972: 123–124), we can still discern vestiges of the old festivals in our present reality. A feast is always organized around a special value that is important or even venerated by a group or groups of people, often manifested symbolically (cf. Turner 1982b). Thus, the institution of the feast protects and renews that cultural value, and feasting on a certain day becomes a tradition in which ethnologist Halina Mielicka (2006), in which the author presents the multi-dimensionality and multi-functionalism of the multi-layered feast and feasting, reaching out to well known international scholars, but also to Polish scholars whose works might not be popularized internationally. Another example of a book in Polish is Rytuały, obrzędy, święta [= Rituals, Ceremonies, Feasts] by the Polish ethnologist Leonard Pełka (1989), which is devoted to Polish feast and ceremonies—their origins and transformations influenced by political systems. The main part is preceded by the presentation of the general classification of the ceremonies and feasts, as well as their social functions. Examples of publications in other native languages are given in this book by the Authors of the chapters.
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