by Addison Bennett

Rosenmontag (Rose Monday) is a Carnival celebrated in mainly German speaking countries like Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium. Cologne, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Aachen, and Mainz are the five biggest cities to celebrate this festival. It involves creating float attraction out of paper and sometime clay, many other attractions are also involved like traditional dances, food, drinks, and costumes. This year the celebration was taken place on Monday, February 16th, right before Ash Wednesday. 

The significance of this celebration is to serve as the climax of the “Fifth Season” of carnival, a months-long period of festivities officially starting on November 11 at 11:11 AM. This celebrations traditions consist of marking cities with bright colorful parades with performances and floats that most of the time satirize politicians and current global events.

This year an artist by the name of Jacques Tilly created floats involving political leaders including both President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Jacques Tilly is known for his creative insight and making international headlines for his sharp criticisms of political figures. He was a designer for the Düsseldorf parade, he has been creating floats for Rosenmontag since 1983. 

His floats have a political meaning behind them as well as religious meaning as they are often directed towards the people of the far-right parties. This is the reason why many people have conflict or complaints about this festival. Some United States citizens, along with many Russian citizens are critical of what they see as the offensive nature of the political satire. 

Satire, whether it be The Daily Show or Tilly's floats are often misinterpreted. Complaints arise that there is bias instead of an artform critical of issues surrounding the world. As the complaints grew, so did the interest in the festival. As critical thought prevailed, most citizens people see the floats to be important and inspirational rather then offensive. 

Rosenmontag, or "Rose Monday", is a celebration prior to Ash Wednesday during the carnival season. There is more to this celebration than just colorful attractions. Photo by Alex jiang on Unsplash