5 Introduction: Feast as a Mirror of Social and Cultural Changes exclusively as the present, while the present is the transformed, the updated old, and the emerging future. ([1936] 1956: 121) These changes pertain to names and outward forms, but the core—the soul—stays the same, because without it there is no civilization (Le Bon [1895] 1905: 52). The Canadian-Israeli anthropologist Don Handelman prefers to concentrate on “a technology of events,” “logics of their meta-design,” which he finds “constituted and empowered culturally and historically,” than on enactment (1990: 7). Events have formalized space, time, and behavior of actors participating in them. They are organized and structured “in accordance with some guidelines” (1990: 11), although in the course of time they may be modified. On the one hand, public events reflect social orders, on the other, they may both affect and effect social orders; therefore their design is of a great importance and very informative. Feasts are perceived as an ideological regulation of the life of a nation, a society, a group, or a class, because depending on the changes in the system on which functioning of a society is based, traditional feasts undergo re-evaluation. They might be adjusted to the new circumstances or even disappear and be replaced by completely new ones. Hence, an event commemorated by a feast does not have to be religious (cf. Caillois [1939] 1972; Eliade [1957] 1959, 1963) or even legendary, it can be purely secular—just historical. Both religious or secular feasts might be celebrated with joy (cf. Huizinga [1938] 1980; Bakhtin [1965] 1984) and playfulness, which very often does not have any other aim—in accordance with the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s words that “[t]rue play knows no propaganda” ([1938] 1980: 211)—but playfulness (cf. Heers [1983] 1995: 6). Feasts can be devoid of these elements and instead take the form of a solemn ceremony infused with immersion in deep thoughts (meditation) and grief. However, it has to be noted that in some cultures grief is expressed loudly (cf., e.g., Canetti [1960] 2001); the feast takes the form of a lively and boisterous concourse that favors collective effervescence (cf. Caillois [1939] 1972: 123). Uncontrolled collective effervescence, intensified by alcohol, can lead to numerous threats (cf. Heers [1983] 1995: 16–17). Ideological regulations mean that the feast is used, even might be misused, to restrain and to control smaller or bigger groups of people. It might be used for carrying a social or political action that is needed to maintain the status quo. The feast is a scene for the presentation of the social life of the feasting community, its political and social problems, and unresolved issues. It is expressed in various artistic and non-artistic ways—civilized,
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