Official Holidays – Implementation and Transformations. The Archives of a Village Community Center

The establishment of a calendar of public holidays within nation-states gives expression to the national ideal, to the "values, merits and achievements" important for the affirmation of national identity. Looking at the normative and institutional order, draws attention to the framework set by the state and its supposed best possible realization. If we turn our attention to places and regions and look for records of the process, we can see how public holidays are celebrated and how national ideas reach people and communities. This study proposes a look at the archival documents of a village community center (focusing on the period from the 1930s to the 1980s) in an attempt to show how a local cultural and educational institution, charged with the duty of establishing and organizing the village holiday calendar, accomplished this task. In this way, local 'resistances' can be seen and our understanding of what actually happened in the official holiday calendar can be deepened.