Carnevali e maschere di Sardegna. Tradizione, ritradizionalizzazione, invenzione

Abstract

In Sardinia, past and present, continuity and change, tradition and invention, local and global coexist in perfect symbiosis in the numerous carnivals that connote the island’s festive carnival time. And in them also coexist inversion and subversion, mockery and contestation, trial and putting to death of the carnival, that is, some of the constituent features of the carnival phenomena of the Mediterranean area, declining variously and returning, therefore, an articulated and complex context. Carnival, therefore, occupies an important space in Sardinia and comes to the attention of scholars with continuously renewed meanings and functions. In this direction, the con- tribution intends to propose a review, certainly not complete and exhaustive, of Sardinian carnivals, attempting to highlight the complexity and plurality of the carnival phenomenon on the island.