The Image of the Collective Past in the Palio Di Siena Festival-Competition

The article analyzes the reflection of Italy's collective past expressed in folk festivals, in particular, a detailed description of the il Palio holiday in the city of Siena in the Tuscany region is presented. This event annually gathers many tourists from all over the world on the main square of one of the most ancient cities of Italy, and this is due to the presence of a sacred component in the structure of the holiday, as well as thanks to those methods that organically developed at the most important historical moment in the development of a rich and politically successful region. The semantic concepts of the Palio holiday are considered through the prism of research by scientists of the sociological field E. Durkheim, M. Halbwaks, P. Nora, who consistently develop the ideas of the genius of a place, a social fact, an intangible value involving the whole society. The relevance of the work is explained by the continuing interest in festive culture, which is a factor in the reconstruction of the past and its actualization in the present. The allocation of different types of memory makes it possible to expand the sphere of influence of cultural phenomena on public life.