Semana Santa

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Semana Santa is the Spanish term for the holy week ( Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday ). It is extensively celebrated in many places in the predominantly Catholic countries of the Spanish-speaking area.

The best known in Germany are the celebrations of Semana Santa in Andalusia , where they are celebrated intensively and with great participation by the population. Corresponding celebrations are also held in other regions of Spain and Latin America as well as in Italy. The most important part are the processions .

Processions

Capuchones in front of the cathedral in Valladolid
Little penitent in El Puerto de Santa María
Penitents with wooden crosses in Seville

Processions take place throughout the holy week, but the main procession is usually on Good Friday . They are organized and carried out by associations called Hermandades or Cofradías . The fraternities are usually a church connected. Several hundred to over a thousand people belong to each procession. The processions usually consist of the pasos with their bearers and companions, the Nazarenos and Penitentes (dt .: penitents), and music bands or groups of drummers (in Aragon). The penitents often go barefoot , wear long robes and are masked with the typical pointed hood , which serves to make the act of penance anonymous.

The procession begins in the church of the home parish of the respective brotherhood. The goal is the route that is prescribed for the fulfillment of the act of penance. This route is precisely defined and the same for all brotherhoods in a city. In Granada this is the route from the town hall square to the cathedral , through the main portal into the cathedral, to the altar , on the side of the Puerta del Perdón (door of forgiveness) out of the cathedral. Then the procession moves back to the exit church. Processions with figures of Christ and Mary and (often veiled) penitents are typical .

The population observes or accompanies the processions with special attention to the pasos and in relative silence. It's a little louder at two of the most famous processions in Seville . Their images of Mary, the Virgen de la Esperanza Macarena and the Esperanza de Triana , divide the population of Seville into two “fan camps”. In some places, including Granada, there are also silent processions during which the street lights are switched off. Only the candles carried by the participants in the procession are used for lighting. In some of these processions, the marching music is replaced by short, orchestral pieces of music.

The traditional processions for Semana Santa in Seville are also the most famous. They take place throughout the holy week (around 60 in total). In addition, the processions of Málaga , Cuenca , Cartagena , Salamanca , León , Zamora , Valladolid , Lorca and Hellín are officially recognized as "of international tourist interest" in Spain .

In Andalusia there are similar celebrations in almost all other cities and smaller towns, especially in the provincial capitals of Huelva , Cádiz , Córdoba , Granada , Jaén and Almería .

The celebrations often have certain local characteristics. The processions in Murcia are known for the fact that the processing Nazarenes give away beans, hard-boiled eggs and candies. The drum processions in Lower Aragon are also known nationwide. There are also isolated Semana Santa processions in Valencia , Catalonia and Galicia, as well as the autonomous city of Ceuta .

In countries such as Colombia , Ecuador , Peru , Mexico , Venezuela and Guatemala , which were once under Spanish colonial rule, the Spanish tradition of processions to celebrate Holy Week has also established itself. There are similar traditions in Taranto in southern Italy . In Croatia , on the island of Hvar , there is a similar custom, the procession of the cross in Hvar .

Hermanos

Among the Hermanos who take part in the procession of the Brotherhood to celebrate Semana Santa , there are three groups according to their function:

  • Nazarenos : the well-known penitents with the typical pointed hood. Depending on the length of their membership in the brotherhood, they go to one of the pasos with more or less distance and wear candles or other insignia.
  • Penitentes : penitents who carry a wooden cross on their shoulder. Like the Nazarenos , they are also dressed in the tunica , but the hood hangs back.
  • Costaleros : The bearers of the pasos . Around 35 to 50 of them wear each Paso and take turns regularly. You protect your scalp with a cotton cap , the costal .

Pasos

Costaleros of a paso with companions
A Paso is in the Cathedral of Valladolid worn
Palm Sunday procession in Astorga

The pasos are an important part of the processions . These are table-shaped constructions that show a statue of Mary or a scene of the Way of the Cross with a statue of Jesus. They are carried on shoulders by porters ( costaleros ), members of the Hermandades . Sometimes the carriers are located under the structures. Because of the fabric side hangings, the wearer cannot see the surroundings. Companions shout commands for direction and speed. Commands for the simultaneous lowering and lifting of the structures are given by knocking signals.

Francisco de Rincón : Erecting the Cross, 1604, polychrome wood, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid

From the 17th century, large polychrome wooden figures were created for the pasos. One of the first such groups is an erection of the cross by Francisco de Rincón in Valladolid. Later, Gregorio Fernández , among others, created other groups.

In Málaga, the company tronos , sometimes weighing more than 4 tons, are particularly powerful and impressive. They are worn (instead of the usual costaleros ) by up to 250 hombres de trono , who in turn are accompanied by the so-called Nazarenes ( nazarenos ). Usually a train consists of two tronos : a figure of Mary and a station of the cross . Another distinction of Semana Santa in Málaga is the rocking step. There are countless stories and anecdotes about the individual tronos : Mena with the Cristo de la buena Muerte (Christ of the beautiful death) is accompanied by the desert army Legionarios . Every year a prisoner from the nearby prison is pardoned in honor of El Rico . This tradition has its origins in the Middle Ages , when the porters to the throne became scarce during the plague and the prison inmates of Malaga agreed to step in.

music

Drum procession in Urrea de Gaén (Aragon)

In Andalusia, the processions are accompanied by bands with percussion instruments and horns. The music is mostly a slow marching music . It is spontaneously interrupted here and there by Saeta sung a cappella . These are lamentations of Our Lady about her son's ordeal or personal lamentations of the singer. This singing has strong Arabic echoes and is also known as the genre of flamenco singing .

In the region of Castile-León , too , drums and trumpets determine the sound, but the musical design is sparse.

The drum processions on the Ruta del Tambor y del Bombo around Alcañiz and Calanda are particularly well-known, especially in Lower Aragon and the Bajo Martín .

See also

literature

Non-fiction
  • Radegunde Amtmann: The penitential brotherhood in France . Steiner, Wiesbaden 1977, ISBN 3-515-02637-1 (also dissertation, University of Cologne 1970)
  • Antonio Hermosilla Molina (text), Gabriel Pou Riesco (pictures): Holy Week in Seville . Edition Everest, Léon 2000, ISBN 84-241-0086-7 .
  • Enrique Guevara Pérez, Mariano Rivera Vázquez: Historia de la Semana Santa de Madrid . Silex, Madrid 2004, ISBN 84-7737-138-5 .
Fiction

Web links

Commons : Semana Santa in Spain  - collection of images, videos and audio files