On vacation: Moors and Christians in La Vila Joiosa |
|
Collection title
Telenoticies migdia
First broadcast date
07/29/1987
Abstract
The Moors and Christians Festival in La Vila Joiosa in Alicante province has been celebrated every year since 1889. A characteristic feature of this festival is that the Moors arrive by sea, not on horseback, as they usually do in other places.
Primary theme
Society and way of life
Secondary themes
- Society and way of life / Festivals and traditions
Credits / Cast
- Gorgues Maria - Journalist
Map locations
- Spain - South - La Vila Joiosa
Original language
Catalan
Context
On vacation: Moors and Christians in La Vila Joiosa
Cyril Isnart
The festival of Moors and Christians of Villajoyosa is celebrated for five days in the end of July and commemorates the memory of the “Moors" occupation and the "Christians” reconquest of this city located on the Catalan coast, with the help of St. Martha who has helped the people of the city to defeat the Muslims enemies. The report emphasizes the uniqueness of the representation which illustrates the Moors attacking the town after landing on the beach, while the other majority of these fights’ representations rather involved horses. The associations of local actors are the main leaders of this ritual pageant, which are part of a religious and entertaining program, linking closely the local identity, the touristic character and the relation with the history altogether.
The historical reconstruction of Villajoyosa is part of a set of similar celebrations in Spain and in some northern cities of the Mediterranean and concretizes, through the festive trend, theater and ritual, the coexistence and conflicts between the Arab-Muslim people and Christians. If Andalusia was the area in which this coexistence was the longest and most spectacular, some cities northern Iberia, France and Italy have also experienced these collective rituals that took various forms but always used to involve a significant local population who participated as individual actors or as segmental associations in the historical revival of the Moors and Christians’ festivals.
It is a multifaceted topic, sometimes dating back to the sixteenth century, through popular or religious theater texts, that found a new life in the modern and contemporary uses of traditions by the United Nations or "small homelands ".
There are many historical evidences of the violent relation between Christians and Muslims, and several researchers have recently highlighted the central role of this form of festivity in the social and political dynamics of communities or in the recycling of cultural elements of a Christian identity that must deal with the historical presence of Muslims.
PUCCIO-DEN, D., 2009, The Theatres of « Moores and Christians ». Political Conflicts and reconciliation tools, (Spain, Sicily. XVI-XXI Century), Turnhout, Brepols Editions, coll. « Library of the School of higher studies, Religious Studies», 311 p.
Albert-Llorca M. 1995, « Moors and chrestians at Villajoyosa : a city, its festival, its saint Marlen » Archives of religion social sciences, 91, pp. 5-19.
Noyes D. 2003, Fire in the Plaça. Catalan Festival Politics After Franco, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.