Abstract
This chapter analyses the relationship between the Maltese middle and upper classes and the British through an examination of power and rank in relation to the Carnival balls, a type of revelry that was common to all colonies. It shows how these events reflected Maltese social aspiration, as well as the British enforcement of power. It discusses presence and appearance in private and public balls, in order to clearly distinguish the type of playfulness and the social intentions behind such play in the different settings. It also examines invented tradition as a manifestation of colonial concession, but also nationalism.
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Notes
- 1.
Leggi Criminali per l’Isola di Malta e le Sue Dipendenze, Libro Terzo, Delle Contravvenzioni e Della Loro Punizione, Malta 1848, p. 55. This law appeared in the section concerning contraventions against public order, and was reproduced in the version published in 1860 in Chap. 11, p. 19, from which the quote is taken.
- 2.
In this particular instance, the newspaper also chided the governor’s wife, Lady Stuart, who directed the organization of the ball, for having invited to supper persons ‘who would barely be received in very third rate society’. The day before the ball, Governor Sir Patrick Stuart had ordered soldiers and policemen to round up and arrest innocent citizens, guilty of celebrating Carnival on a Sunday, which he had forbidden for religious reasons.
- 3.
For a comprehensive study on jewellery between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, see Balzan 2009.
- 4.
Italian television was introduced in Malta in 1959, and Maltese television took off three years later.
- 5.
The Maltese were divided over the question of constitutional liberties—two politicians, the pamphleteer Giorgio Mitrovich and Baron Camillo Sceberras had fought hard to obtain a ‘Consiglio Popolare ’ and Mitrovich at the time was still fighting for more liberties. He was opposed by a faction of the Council headed by Judge Giacomo Pantaleone Bruno, the Crown Advocate.
- 6.
Among these clubs were: the Casino San Giorgio , founded in 1837, situated in the Palace Square; the Circolo Maltese, inaugurated in 1849; Casino dei Nobili, also situated in Strada Reale; and the Casino Ghar id dud, situated in Sliema. In a personal conversation with the author, Dr Albert Ganado, owner of an extensive private collection of Melitensia archives, stated that there was another Casino Maltese, based in Vittoriosa, and a Club Maltese at 30, Strada S. Lucia, Valletta (5 August 2015). In 1913, a gentlemen’s club, called ‘Circolo Gozitano’, was created in Gozo.
- 7.
These comprised Ivanhoe, Amy Robsart and Queen Elizabeth (from the novel Kenilworth), Countessa Isabel of Croye (Quentin Durward), Edgar of Ravenswood (The Bride of Lammermoor). An ailing Walter Scott had visited Malta in 1831 (Sultana 1972).
- 8.
8 September marks the victory of the Knights and the Maltese over the Ottomans in 1565, the overthrow of the French in 1800, and the end of the Siege of Malta in 1943, when Italy turned against Hitler.
- 9.
The list published in 1870 in The Malta Observer features a puzzling appearance: ‘Baron and Baroness Testaferrata Abela, as Prince and Princess Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, with page’. Although some British officers had appeared in 1845 as ‘Officers of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard’ (MM 7 February 1845, 2), the act of appearing as the son of Josephine Beauharnais, first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, in a ball given by a British Governor seems rather incongruous, even if the prime enemy of the British had died almost sixty years earlier. It is interesting to note that at the time, two brothers, Ettore and Augusto Testaferrata Abela, had been fighting in court since 1861 over who was to claim the family’s nobiliary title of Gomerino, and, obviously, the lands that went with it. It is uncertain which member of the family wore the costume, and the reason for donning it is open to speculation. The question of nobiliary titles was generally so controversial that a Commission was appointed in 1876 to investigate claims of nobility. In 1878, although the Commission recognised the title, it did not come to a decision as to whom the title belonged. See http://www.saidvassallo.com/SME/maltesenobility/nobility/depiro/TestaferrataCassia.html and http://user.orbit.net.mt/fournier/maltese_nobility_in_maltese_hist.htm. (accessed 7/8/2015).
- 10.
The book by Jules Verne had been published in French in 1873, and translated into English that very year.
- 11.
The note also contains other interesting information about the sources and amounts of the Governor’s budget: ‘Before the office of H.C. for the Mediterranean was created the Governor got £1000 from Col. Funds and £1500 + £500 from Imperial Funds. Since the creation of that office he gets £3000 from Col. Funds and £500 from Imperial Funds.’
- 12.
At the time, the Principal Secretary was Sir Edward Marsh Merewether (1858–1938), who earned an annual salary of £1300. See Malta Blue Books 1906–7. Chapter H—Civil Establishment, p. 4.
- 13.
It was these reasons that motivated Katharina Blum to go to the Café Polkt during Carnival, where she picked up the criminal, Ludwig Götten.
- 14.
See publicity for the Carnival dances at Café Premier, Valletta, the Odeon Theatre, Hamrun, the Prince Theatre, Birkirkara, the Buckingham Theatre, Zabbar, and the Adelphi Theatre, Sliema and others that were advertised in the Times of Malta, in March 1943 in the week preceding Carnival.
- 15.
Panzavecchia (1855–1925) had personally renounced the post of Prime Minister two years previously in favour of a layperson, Joseph Howard, who was later knighted (1862–1925, r. 1921–1923).
- 16.
The other priests were Mgr. Alfons Maria Hili, a member of the Legislative Assembly for the Nationalist Party and Professor Enrico Dandria, former Minister of Education.
- 17.
By ‘clubs’ the author is referring to the two Valletta band clubs: the King’s Own and La Valette clubs, both situated in the city’s main street.
- 18.
Balls were certainly held in the town of Sliema (Malta 20 February 1914, 2), facing Valletta to the north which, as stated previously, boasted a theatre to house them, the Teatro Vittoria (which certainly also functioned as a cinema in 1906), and the Duke of Edinburgh Cinema, opened in 1907 and run by the Axisa family (Bonello 2012, 205–6). In the 1930s, new venues were opened, including the Queen’s Hall, which hosted the dance organised by the Navy (TOM 1 March 1936, 17) or the Gaiety Theatre. Balls also took place in the three cities facing Valletta to the south, forming the Cottonera area, where Carnival celebrations vied with those of the capital in public participation and brio. In 1923, mention is made of ‘Vapura’ in Bormla, probably a place of entertainment, and venues belonging to the Mabbli and Gambin families in L-Isla (L’Ors 22 February 1923, 3). In 1936, balls were held at the famous cinema-theatre in Bormla, the Rialto, which also housed political gatherings, as well as at the Trops Hall in Paola, situated further south (TOM 24 February 1936, 12). They were also held in the town of Hamrun, which had developed with the growth of port activities (TOM 1 March 1936, 1).
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Cremona, V.A. (2018). Fancy Dress, Rank and Dignity: Power and Play in Carnival Balls. In: Carnival and Power. Transnational Theatre Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70656-6_4
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