Carnival refers to the celebrations leading up to the beginning of the Christian lent period between Ash Wednesday and Easter. As a religious custom carnival has been celebrated for centuries from masked balls at courts to small street processions of the poor, always organised within and limited to specific societal levels or occupational groups. Lent requires abstinence from animal products and alcohol, among others, a sumptuous feast and celebration facilitates a farewell from meat, as one carnival etymology suggests (Carne vale). Other German terms for carnival are Fastnacht, Fastelovend and Fasching, which all refer to the last day or practices and food on the last day before lent starts. The economic hardship and political frustration followed the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna in the first two decades of the 1800s. Festive spirit in the middling sorts of the Rhineland was low, which had repercussions in form of aggressive behaviour towards Prussian soldiers, the new occupiers so to say, as well as dwindling financial support from the elites for local poor relief. By 1823 a group of manufacturers, merchants and politicians in Cologne had come together to revive carnival celebrations as a bourgeois, i.e. upper-middle class, organisational endeavour that would provide greater support for poor relief, bring the rising classes of Cologne together and provide carnival with a less shabby and dirty outlook than the lower sorts wandering around the streets wearing grotesque masks and making noise. By the 1840s this ‘reformed carnival’ spread across various regions of south-western Germany. Carnival remains, until today a characteristic part of cultural life in the Rhineland and Franconia. Different variations exist in other parts of Germany and German-speaking regions. This exhibition focusses on the reformed carnival, also called organised or Rhenish carnival, and its variations. Influenced by Enlightenment clubs and associations extant in a few areas in Germany during the French Revolution, associative practices slowly gained momentum in the beginning of the nineteenth century and facilitated the establishment of a so-called public sphere in Germany. The public sphere refers to a space or spaces to discuss, debate and propose, in public, on matters of state, society, economy, science, art, literature among others. However, this necessitated freedom of speech as well as a free and open press. Most of German press was subject to censorship that prohibited outward criticism of government and monarchy, religion, civil rights and politics more generally. The Carlsbad Decree’s of 1819, which provided a catalogue for censorship in the entire German federation, even censored university teaching. With this background, Rhenish carnival had to achieve two things, 1. reinvigorate religious festivities and rituals, 2. provide a space for discussion, criticism and practice of ideas that crossed to Germany especially German middling sorts over from France since the French Revolution. James M. Brophy refers to Rhenish carnival as ‘crypto-political’ ‘cultural formation’ that introduced to and familiarised Rhinelander with political issues, political practice by bridging ideas about ‘civic freedoms’ and ‘Romantic glorification of the past’ (Popular Culture and the Public Sphere in the Rhineland, 1800-1850, p. 213). We can witness two phases of carnival, a romantic bourgeois phase from 1824 to about 1830 and a political middling-sorts phase from 1840 to 1848. Studying this German festival highlights its significant contribution to protest culture and revolutionary practices in the early nineteenth century.

This colourful illustration of costumes of the Paris carnival from 1830 bears French and German descriptions. The characters depicted stem from various European carnival or dramatic characters: The harlequin from the Italian commedia dell'arte, Hanswurst from Germany, Don Quichotte from Spain or Madame Angot from France. It highlights the rich European cultural background Hanswurst, the key character in Rhenish carnival, stems from. Furthermore, it emphasises the deep cultural connections that facilitated political engagement and politicisation through carnival in Germany from the 1820s onwards.

In 1827 the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III demanded that any form of carnival celebration, especially the associational organisation shall be banned and prevented from happening. The Carnival festivities of the Rhinelander were incomprehensible to the King and many of his officials in Berlin, although his sons had taken part in the Cologne and Koblenz festivities a couple of times since 1823. The king’s decree however took some time to be published officially as administrative officials in the Rhineprovince held back, which meant a lot of carnival celebrations went ahead. This misunderstanding also lead to a revision of the decree. Rural carnival was fully prohibited, however those cities that could prove a history of carnival previous to French occupation in 1790s were allowed to continue with their celebrations. Many of the Rhenish cities like Cologne, Düsseldorf, Koblenz were able to provide such proof. Bonn, a newly made university city, was not allowed to continue its carnival festivities due to fear of students’ subversiveness and political instrumentalisation of the assemblies. Pictorial parallels existed between the carnival journal of Cologne and Koblenz, highlighting how carnival practices as well as imagery spread across the Rhineland. The covers depict a Mercury-fool clad in harlequin-like dress greeting the reader. This may also allude to the fool bringing not only news but also the truth in the season where the world was turned upside down. The journals share similarities in content as well, reporting on weekly events and committee decisions but also publishing essays and poems on wine, song and the Rhine, which were typical topics for songs and narratives of masquerade processions and assemblies. This dialogue of illustrations and carnival practices suggests a seemingly united front of Rhinelanders, which must have been perceived as dangerous and subversive behaviour by Prussian officials in Berlin, who had little understanding of Rhenish culture and people and still suspected French influence there.