Festival Committee Cologne Carnival

Festival committee of the Cologne Carnival of 1823 eV
purpose	Maintenance of traditions and customs of the Cologne Carnival
Chair:	Christoph Kuckelkorn (President), Christine Flock (Vice President, Children's and Youth Carnival), Joachim Wüst (Vice President, Legal Counsel and Program Designer), Holger Kirsch (Train Leader Rose Monday Parade, BDK) Markus Pohl (Treasurer / Projects), Bernd Höft (Strategy and Protocol) , Michael Kramp (communication)
Establishment date:	1823
Number of members:	over 100 carnival societies
Seat :	Cologne
Website:	www.koelnerkarneval.de

The festival committee of the Cologne Carnival of 1823 eV sees itself as representing the interests of most of the societies and associations active in the Cologne Carnival . It is represented by a five-person executive board , led by a president and two vice-presidents.

The festival committee regards the maintenance of traditions and customs of the Cologne Carnival as its main task, which the organization wants to preserve in its originality. This also includes setting up the Cologne triumvirate and organizing the major events, especially the Cologne Rose Monday procession . Within the organized Carnival in Cologne, the organization , which is supported by many voluntary members, therefore has a great deal of influence, and from the background it contributes significantly to the appearance of the festival in public.

Order versus exuberance

The reason for the formation of the festival committee was a change in the carnival festival in the second decade of the 19th century. While the “Fastelovend” was shaped for a long time by the exuberant, anarchic and intoxicated hustle and bustle of the lower social classes , the bourgeoisie now also wanted an appropriate design of the celebrations based on the Italian model . For this purpose, the Festival Ordering Committee, as it was initially called, was formed in 1823 at the same time as the first Rose Monday procession around Cologne's Neumarkt, which he organized . The Carnival hero, the role model appointed by the committee - the forerunner of the Carnival Prince - also made his first appearance in 1823.

The contradiction between the unorganized, exuberant Fastelovend of the common people and the well-structured and well-regulated organized club carnival, which is today experienced as being shaped by rituals and symbols as well as power, relationships, offices and posts, was always palpable. As early as 1830, Karl Leberecht Immermann had his protagonist reflect on the contradiction between exuberance and regulatory organization in the story The Carnival and the Somnambule :

“An organizing committee is appointed long before Mardi Gras; General assemblies and special committees determine which jokes in general and which in particular are to be made; its own carnival newspaper appears in various numbers and has a responsible editor - in short, nothing is left out that can give the matter a certain consistency and consequence. The great old city of Cologne, as it called itself in that period, is preparing itself for its irrationality with deliberation and disdains to jump into it blindly like a careless youngster of sixteen ” .

Carnival societies

The Festival Committee of the Cologne Carnival represents the interests of over 100 Cologne carnival societies.

Ordinary societies

Ordinary societies are full members of the festival committee with voting rights. As of January 2014, there are 60 companies and associations.

Observing societies

The observing societies are societies with entitlement to vote and full membership.

Supporting societies

The sponsoring societies support and promote the Cologne Carnival and the Festival Committee. There are currently 40 supporting societies affiliated to the festival committee.

Dance groups

24 dance groups and dance corps are affiliated to the festival committee.

Children and youth dance groups

There are currently 25 children's and youth dance groups in the Cologne Carnival Festival Committee.

Traditional corps

Nine carnival societies that have been awarded this honorary designation by the Cologne Carnival Festival Committee are called traditional corps. The current traditional corps were all founded before 1926. In addition to the four traditional corps Rote Funken , Blauen Funken , EhrenGarde of the City of Cologne 1902 and Prinzen-Garde , the Corps Society of Old Town Cologne was awarded this title in 1968 by the festival committee. In 2001 the Cologne Carnival Society Nippeser Bürgerwehr from 1903 , the civil guard "blau-gold" , the KG Treuer Husar and the equestrian corps Jan von Werth were awarded this title by the then festival committee president Hans-Horst Engels.

Gulf War

In 1991, on the occasion of the Second Gulf War , the festival committee decided to cancel the main carnival celebrations for political reasons: There was no organized Rose Monday procession. The people of Cologne went through the streets and pubs on Rose Monday, though unorganized, and opponents of the war tried, not without success, to integrate their political concerns into the hustle and bustle. In addition to the corresponding political floats on Rose Monday, the ghost procession, initially independent of the festival committee, was also formed as an expression of the alternative carnival. Over the years there have been rapprochements between the festival committee and alternative carnivalists. The alternative ghost train could take place several times only thanks to the subsidies of the festival committee.

Cologne Carnival Museum

→ Main article : Cologne Carnival Museum

The Cologne Carnival Festival Committee has also been running its own museum in Cologne-Ehrenfeld since 2005. It is the largest carnival museum in Germany.

literature

• Günther Ortmann: Dreimol vun Hätze: Kölle Alaaf . 1st edition. JP Bachem, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-7616-1780-1 , p. 653 .
• Wolfgang Oelsner: Carnival - How does it work? 1st edition. JP Bachem, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-7616-2705-1 , p. 192 .

Web links

• koelnerkarneval.de - Official website of the festival committee

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Naturist Society ( Memento of the original from July 10, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on January 31, 2014  
2. ↑ FKK - observing societies ( Memento of the original from June 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on January 31, 2014  
3. ↑ FKK - Supporting Societies ( Memento of the original from June 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on January 31, 2014  
4. ↑ FKK - Tanzgruppen ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on January 31, 2014  
5. ↑ FKK - children and youth dance groups ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on January 31, 2014  
6. ^ The traditional corps in Cologne Carnival , accessed on January 31, 2014.
7. ↑ The jeckste Museum of Cologne. In: koeln.de. Retrieved February 9, 2020 .