The season when anything goes

What can be said about the Cologne carnival that hasn't already been told a hundred times? A lot, Monika Salchert said to herself. Right on time for the start of the new session on November 11th, the journalist and presenter – among other things she comments on the Cologne Shrove Monday procession for ARD – has published a thick, chic book about the Cologne carnival.

Its founding date is 1823, which means: The 200th birthday is imminent. But that is only the external reason for the 247-page publication, which is simply called "Cologne Carnival" and is not a chronicle; that would be boring in view of the large number of chronicles already written. Rather, it is intended for the coffee table. Pictures by prominent photographers, from August Sander to Chargesheimer (Karl-Heinz Hargesheimer) to Boris Becker and Wolfgang Zurborn – they all dealt with the Cologne Carnival phenomenon in their own visual language – adorn the book. Photographically it is a journey through time. And lyrically, at least that's how Monika Salchert would like it to be understood, food for thought. "I want to make you think," she says over the phone.

The author examines her topic from a historical, economic, political and, so to speak, fundamental point of view. After all, carnival is a "festival of longings", as the educator Wolfgang Oelsner wrote in his book of the same name. Want to say: The carnival is important for the mental life of the people. Slip into other roles. Escape all constraints for once. Be carefree jeck for once and do what you deny yourself the other 360 days a year.

Monika Salchert, 66 years old, is a carnival professional and, in her own words, a fan of the street carnival (as opposed to the carnival in session). Not only was she born in Cologne, she is also a true Cologne resident, which means that her ancestors and ancestors came from the cathedral city. That certainly benefits the credibility in the conservative, class-conscious Cologne carnival scene. As a journalist with a work ethic, she is not a member of any carnival club, but knows the scene inside out – and loves it. So much so that she wants to prescribe a makeover for her hometown's carnival.

She is not stingy with advice. Your 15-page outlook at the end of the book is a veritable catalog of reform proposals. The subheadings are called “More Courage”, “More Cologne Nonsense”, “More Ideas”, “Fewer Records” and “Less Garbage”. If you love carnival, she says, "you can't be uncritical." After all, she wants the Cologne carnival – this foolish institution that is well known throughout the republic – to “come well over the next 200 years”.

The book also deals with the question of women. It's hard to believe, but the city's first carnival club - it's called "The Great of 1823" - has only allowed women to be members since 2021. No misprint. This leads to the next theme: the triumvirate, consisting of prince, farmer and maiden. Will it ever be female? Prince, peasant and maiden are roles like in a play and could theoretically, as well as practically, be cast independently of gender. In a non-representative survey that Monika Salchert conducted in jester circles for the book, she reaped a multitude of opinions on the vision of a female triumvirate, from "not possible at all" to "better today than tomorrow". Another topic that Cologne jerks like to disregard: sustainability. "It hasn't arrived at the carnival yet," says the author. The carnival industry still produces vast amounts of disposable items and rubbish.

But the Cologne carnival would not be a centuries-old phenomenon if it were not fundamentally capable of change. Sometimes it just takes time. When asked if she thinks she will still experience a female triumvirate, Monika Salchert replies with a resolute: "Yes!" She even put herself in for one of the roles. It didn't work. The answer she received: "You are not a member of a carnival society." Tätä!

Monika Salchert, Cologne Carnival, Greven Verlag, 36 euros