The University presents a book on the forms of entertainment in a changing Navarre society

The Chair of Basque language and Culture of the School of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Navarra has presented the book "Tiempo de ocio y diversión: Navarra 1900-1936", a collective work coordinated by María del Mar Larraza, professor of Contemporary History and director of the Chair, which explores the forms of entertainment of the Navarrese in the first decades of the twentieth century. The work was presented last November 6, at the Civivox Condestable in Pamplona, and counted with the participation of five of the authors, Paola Ruiz, Alberto Cañada, Mikel Berraondo, Jesús M. Usunáriz, David Mariezkurrena, and its coordinator, María del Mar Larraza.

Published with the partnership the Government of Navarra, the Issue brings together eight researchers who analyze the main manifestations of leisure in that period: from pelota and carnivals to cinema, sports or music. "Having fun is something inherent to human nature, so knowing how a community entertained itself at a particular time says a lot about its values, beliefs and behaviors," Larraza points out. This idea is the backbone of a book that combines a historical and ethnographic perspective to portray a Navarre in the midst of modernization, where traditional forms of entertainment coexisted with new practices typical of an urban and industrial society.

Among the chapters, the study by Professor Francisco Javier Caspisteguion the professionalization of pelota and its identity role; the one by Karlos Sánchez Ekiza on music and dance as cultural and political symbols; or the one by Jesús M. Usunáriz, who reviews the evolution of rural and urban carnivals, stand out. Other authors, such as Mikel Berraondo, Alberto Cañada, Paola Ruiz and David Mariezkurrena, deal with more modern phenomena such as the birth of cinema, the rise of children's sports or the history of the Orfeón Pamplonés and the Pamplona Lawn Tennis Club, "the favorite place of the good society of Pamplona".

The period 1900-1936, explains the coordinator of the monograph, "marks the transition from a leisure reserved for the elites to a popular and mass entertainment", favored by the reduction of the labor workshop , the concession of Sunday rest and the expansion of the mass media. In this way, the work reflects "how the old and the new mixed to give shape to contemporary Navarrese culture," Larraza concludes.

The work will soon be available at the publishing house Lamiñarra.