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День города как перформанс единства сообщества
In this article we look at The Town’s Day holiday as a performance, as successful or failed performance of a particular message (of the unity of urban community) for a particular audience (urban community). For this we use Jeffrey Alexander’s theory of cultural pragmatics. We conclude that in the case of The Town’s Day, held in Gorokhovets in 2011, message performed during the official part of the celebration, was not performed successfully. Through the message of official scenario was declared the unity of citizens (in the form of congratulatory speeches, nominations, awards and music numbers metaphorically referencing family and home) However, it was delivered to only a segment of the town’s community. Even that small segment of community did not engage with the performance fully. In conclusion we discuss that The Town’s Day was not perceived as an authentic performance, because of the discrepancy between the message of unity and segregation of audience on the level of mise-en-scène. We suggest that such community celebrations cannot function as a ritual that brings segmented community together, although it may function as a ritual that revives existing community solidarity.