The Feast Mutant. The historic construction of Valencia July Fair

• Main Author: Gil-Manuel Hernández i Martí
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universitat Politècnica de València 2014-10-01
• Series: Culturas
• Subjects: Fiestas; Festivales; Rituales; Modernidad
• Online Access: http://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/cs/article/view/3121

In the present article it is tried to show as the holidays they are social historical constructions, which mutations are inseparable both of the diverse political contexts and of the institutional action. This one is the case of Julio's Fair of Valencia, founded in in 1871 under the requiriments of bourgeois taste. In our work we show, resting on historical documentation of press and file, the diverse stages of the evolution of the Fair, insisting in since there is modified his cultural institutional management. So if at firdt period of euphoria and ascent, the Feria de Valencia managed to become one of the most important festive events in Valencia, taking on a distinctly popular caracter, then the thrust of other festivals and the change in the preferences of the public would go plunging it in a progressive decline that did nothing but increase during the second half of the twentieth century, which forced the fair to a slow reestablishment according to the new demands of modern society of leisure.