onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www.toplink.gr/greek/network/greece/index.html”>Greece and whose roots were lost in time, dating back to the ancient god Dionysus. Characterised by phallic symbols and a wide range of disguises and songs, the latter were mainly rural festivities celebrating the fertility of spring and the yield of the earth and the flocks.
Its western character was further reinforced by the fact that, in addition to the cosmopolitan local bourgeoisie (Greeks from the colonies, as well as English, Germans and others local businessmen, mainly raisin merchants), the carnival attracted the city’s sizeable Italian community (political refugees) and the islanders from the Ionian Islands, who had settled in Patras in search of work.
The Patras Carnival evolved with these Italian, urban and bourgeois traits, which at times were more apparent and other times less, depending on the prevailing political and economic events, until 1940. In the years between 1940 and 1950, the carnival was put on hold because of WWII, the German Occupation and the Greek Civil War. It resumed in 1951 with a single change: from then on the organisation would be handled by the Municipality of Patras. In 1966, a new game was tried, in the context of the carnival: a treasure hunt for the chariot crews. Only 94 people participated, but the number gradually rose in the following years, as the car ownership condition for participation was dropped.
The secret of success of the Patras Carnival is summed in the following: since it was never related to old customs and rituals, it evolved in harmony with the times. Thus in 1968, as perceptions, freedoms and pastimes changed, the carnival