Description
This paper aims to investigate a series of unexploited official reports of the celebrations of the birth of the son of Louis XV (September 1729), originating from a dozen of embassies and consulates in the eastern Mediterranean, from Thessaloniki and Istanbul to Saïda and Rameh.
These festivals were ordered by the King and consisted of a twofold series of events: thanksgiving events – essentially a Te Deum - and festivities (bonfires, concerts, dances, theatre, suppers, balls, ritualized toasts, etc…)
A first line of enquiry will consider the extent to which the ritual framework of these festivals, as it has been practised in France and illustrated by dozens of reports in the French press, had to be modified in the Mediterranean context due to
1/ the political and urban context of the embassy, which means that these celebrations were a mixture of the official public festival’s model and the aristocratic « fêtes particulières »
2/ the co-participation of European, Turkish and Greek people according to very diverse roles and social statuses.
While the thanksgiving traditionally remains centred on the singing of the Te Deum with the artillery, the whole of the festivities has been profoundly marked by these two elements. This will be particularly illustrated by the study of the spatial organisation of the festivities and that of the performative modalities of Turkish, Greek and European dances.
A second line of inquiry will focus on discourse. Official reports are traditionally based on a eulogistic discourse. They also aim to perpetuate identity markers and collective values.
I will first analyse the place given to non-European cultural/musical practices in the discourse and the way they are integrated into. This will help us understand how they try to represent the joy and support of the multicultural participants while maintaining the national, religious and ethnic coherence of the French community.
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