The past is a canceled cheque, and the future is not in your hands.
- sylviahatzl
- 5 ago 2022
- 5 Min. de lectura
Hence, you should live in the present moment. – Amma
The Bavarians are in Germany what the Scots are in Great Britain; the Catalans in Spain, the Sicilians in Italy... (very!) peculiar in culture and dialect (language), arch-Catholic, tradition-conscious, in the case of the Bavarians and Sicilians chauvinistic and machoistic, and in the case of the Bavarians and Catalans the money machine of the Republic. Bavaria has been culturally and linguistically close to Austria since time immemorial, we speak different variations of one and the same dialect. The Bavarian Princess Elisabeth was the last Empress of Austria, immortalized in films with Romy Schneider. In Bavaria, in the 70s and 80s, there was a politician, Franz-Josef Strauß, who was known not only throughout Germany, but even as far away as the United States. He fell over a corruption affair, and since then we also speak of "amigos" in Bavaria, as in Mexico… (although in Mexico such relationships are called compadre, but be it as it is here).
The Germans of other regions, especially Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin, traditionally do not like us and never shy away from making fun of Bavaria and its people, I have experienced this myself time and again. This is sometimes just a basically friendly teasing, but all too often not at all clear how it is really meant… At least I often don't understand that at all, but I do understand when others think they are better, and "the northerners" practically always do.
The reasons for this are many and historical, including the fact that Bavaria is a core area of the ancient Celtic cultures of Europe and still sees itself as the descendants of the Celtic tribe of the Boii, and of the later Baiuvarii (an actually new tribal people built from a mixture of other tribal people living in the area at the time, such as descendants of Roman settlers, huns, and Germanic tribal people, who gave the land and the language its name), and is also seen as such by others.
But a real main reason is much more recent, namely because Bavaria was an ally of Napoleon III when he waged war against the Prussians (whose capital is Berlin). In the 19th and 20th centuries, Bavaria was also considered the land of uneducated peasants who lagged behind modernity. Even today, Berlin mothers threaten their disobedient children: "If you don't eat your soup, I'll send you to Bavaria!" As a Berlin friend once told me with a wink. But this dates from the time of the Second World War, when children were actually sent to Bavaria from all over the nation: Munich (with Augsburg) and Regensburg were (and are) the only large cities that had (and have) strategic and political weight. The rest of the country is farmland and was therefore safe from air raids. Besides, farmers always had something to eat, even if only bread and soup. So the so-called “Kinderlandverschickungen" (children's deportation) were started, especially from Pomerania and East Prussia, where the Soviet army was raging. Germany's history books and personal diaries are full of these stories of the expulsion of entire villages.
After the war, Bavaria developed into the economic engine of the Republic, the Bayerische Motorenwerke (Bavarian engine factories – BMW!) and their suppliers "conquered" whole regions and modernized them. Whoever sold his land became a millionaire overnight (so did a cousin of my mother) and half of Lower Bavaria was recruited to work in the factories and offices and stores of the corporation.
To this day, we Bavarians are very tradition-conscious and connected to our homeland, especially the more rural and further into the mountains. But Bavarians also like to travel, and many have also emigrated, especially to the US, of course. I once researched my surname, and right after Tyrol (both today's Austrian Tyrol, and today's Italian South Tyrol, where the name originally comes from, the oldest and most mentions and records of the name are found there), Vienna and Bavaria, most representatives were to be found in the US, and more recently also in Australia.
Of course, many Bavarians also emigrated to Latin America, and especially Mexico was very popular for a long time, together with Argentina and other South American countries. Mexico had and has a not small German community, and recently I understood something very interesting: in Germany we still speak of "Montezuma's revenge" when someone suffers severe diarrhea from eating too spicy food. But why?
Well, in 1910 there was an accident that actually went through all the Mexican newspapers at the time: some German families in Toluca had suffered lead poisoning at a picnic. Most of them became ill - with vomiting and diarrhea. But some people even died. Of course, this was also made known to the relatives who lived in Germany, and someone probably came up with this neologism!
https://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/el-picnic-macabro-de-1910-evento-que-termino-mal-para-34-alemanes-en-mexico.html
Of course, Bavarians still like to travel just as much today, and many also emigrate, both within the republic and across Europe and the world.
But I have to say that Bavarian folk festival music, of all things, would travel around the world and become so popular with the indigenous people of central Mexico, i.e. Oaxaca, that they would make it completely their own - that really gets me quite emotional! Of course, it also makes me proud - the cultural pride, the sense of tradition, this certain defiance against the "arrogant northerners who think they are better"... I can understand that very well!! And it thrills me to see how the people have adapted and also changed and enriched "our" music, how they dance and party to it!
Of course, "our" music is historically not "our" music. It comes from Bohemia and Hungary and has already experienced countless adaptations and changes here (that is, in Austria and Bavaria). It was made really famous and popular in waltzes and polkas by father and son Johann Strauss, and was probably brought to Mexico by Maximilian of Habsburg, whom the above-mentioned Napoleon III had lured into the country as Emperor of Mexico. The story of Maximilian of Habsburg and his reign of only three years in Mexico is most interesting. Not only in my eyes he was far ahead of his time: he designed lots of projects for the indigenous people of Mexico to bring them out of poverty through schools and educational programs, and not only the indigenous people. He was passionate about the ancient cultures of Mexico and learned Nahuatl.
But as a European prince of the high nobility and "Emperor of Mexico," he naturally represented everything against which the Revolution had been waging bitter war for years. Benito Juarez had him executed by firing squad, and Maximilian is said to have shouted to him in his last moments, "I would have wanted to serve your people!"
Romantic fairy tale that touches the heart of us Bavarians and Austrians? Or truth? I do not know.
What I do know is that waltzes and polkas and the music of military bands (!!) are having a wonderful and enthusiastic revival in the hands and legs of the Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Mixe, Triquis, Chatinos, Chinantecs, Mazatecs, Nahua, Chocholtecs and many more, getting everyone off their chairs with song and dance.
Just as it should be.
The first thing that the Spanish monks prohibited were the dances, especially the dances of women. This final dance of the women is the highlight of the festival.
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