Il re del Carnevale? Raccontare i miti a Weimar

Abstract

Between 1927 and 1928 two curious studies were published in Germany with an historical-religious issue: Historische Psychologie des Karnevals by Florens Christian Rang, and a volume of dialogues – retracing the structure of the Macrobio’s Saturnalia – by Werner Hegemann, Der gerettete Christus, oder Iphigenies Flucht vor dem Ritualopfer. In both texts we find the theme of the “king of the Saturnalia”, which – based on previous fragile conjectural interpretations by James George Frazer, that hypothesized a parallel between the sacrifice of the roman Saturnal-king and the crucifixion of Christ – is interpreted as the sovereign of a carnivalesque interregnum that subverts the order of the cosmos, and founds in this space-time alternation a model of “closed destiny” from which man incessantly tries to escape.

Keywords

• Florens Christian Rang, political theology, sacrifice, sovereignity, Werner Hegemann