![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/files\/2017\/02\/Parade-gro\u00df-Kopie.jpg\")
<\/a>Apropos Urtext: It\u2019s known that there we can\u2019t take a joke. And so today we want to take a look at this event\u2019s history, as always, of course, under strict scholarly criteria.<\/p>\nAll these terms, Carnival<\/strong>, Fastnacht<\/strong>, Fasching<\/strong>, Fastabend<\/strong>, Fastelovend<\/strong>, Fasteleer<\/strong> or Fifth Season, <\/strong>designate the customs in Christendom boisterously celebrating the period before the six-week Lenten fast or the penitential period in preparation for Easter that begins with Ash Wednesday. The Latin term is \u201cQuadragesima\u201d.<\/p>\n There are many different variations to celebrating Carnival, but at its heart are always masked people in disguise parading to music.<\/p>\n \u201cD\u2019r Zoch k\u00fctt\u201d (= \u201cHere comes the parade!\u201d).<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cStrongholds\u201d in the German-speaking world are the Rhineland and the Schwabian-Alemannic Fastnet<\/em> [Carnival]. The Cologne Rosenmontag<\/em> [Shrove Monday] parade is the largest carnival parade in Germany and the high point of the Cologne Carnival.<\/p>\n Staged since 1823, the Cologne parade \u201cZoch\u201d is also the oldest of the great German Rosenmontag<\/em> parades. The term presumably derives from the Middle High German \u201cRasenmontag\u201d, the \u201craging, riotous\u201d Monday, also referred to by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm in the Deutsche W\u00f6rterbuch<\/em> [German Dictionary].<\/p>\n The parade of costumed groups on foot, marching bands, horseman, floats and supporting vehicles is about eight kilometres long and attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators to the approximately seven-and-a-half-kilometre parade route \u2013 and that in (almost) all kinds of weather! \u00a0While viewing the parade in innumerable rows on the streets, persevering revelers try to catch some of the 300 tons of sweets, flowers, rag dolls and other hand-outs called \u201cKamelle<\/em>\u201d [caramels, chocolates and other candies] tossed from the floats.<\/p>\n Carnival in Latin America, for instance, the Oruro Carnival<\/a> or the Rio Carnival<\/a>, developed a distinct vitality of its own.<\/p>\n Oruro Carnival<\/p><\/div>\n Well-known is also the Venice Carnival<\/a>, in Canada, the Qu\u00e9bec Carnival, the Mid-Lent Carnival on Laetare Sunday (the Latin laetare, \u201cRejoice!\u201d is the fourth Lent Sunday named after the beginning of the Introit in the Roman Catholic and Protestant-Lutheran liturgy) in Stavelot and other places in the Belgian eastern cantons, as well as the Santa Cruz de Tenerife and C\u00e1diz<\/a>\/Andalusian Carnivals\u00a0 in Spain.<\/p>\n Venice Carnival<\/p><\/div>\n In the southern states of the USA there is also a pronounced carnival tradition, for instance, the French-termed \u201cMardi Gras\u201d in New Orleans (Shrove Tuesday).<\/p>\n Carnival in Namibia takes place in various parts of that country and no longer has any chronological connection to Lent.<\/p>\n So, we wish all our blog readers in all countries on earth lots of whoopee<\/em>!<\/p>\n Your Henle Carnival Blog Committee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once again it\u2019s time to celebrate Carnival all over the … Continue reading <\/a><\/a>