Carnival in Brazil: From European origins to national festival

Nowadays, carnival is a festival that represents the Brazilian national ide ntity. As the main popular festival in Brazil, it attracts many tourists fr om the entire world, who come to experience first-hand the pleasures and de lights the country offers: female mulattoes swaying their hips, samba rhyth ms, and street parades joined by thousands of people in costumes in the mid dle of richly decorated allegoric floats. However, the present image of carnival madness hides the long history of ca rnival in Brazil. It was introduced by the Portuguese during the colonial d ays and went through numerous transformations before being identified as a national festival only in the 1930s. This article addresses some of the iss ues concerning the status of national festival in Brazil, the only country where carnivals define nationality.