A Büttenrede (also washtub speech, carnival speech) is a humorous speech, originating in the western German cultural tradition, that is given during

carnival Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Carnival typi ...

. It is usually given at carnival conventions,

revue A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatre, theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketch comedy, sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural pre ...

-like events organized by carnival societies. Büttenreden are often rhymed and are performed from a special lectern called a ''bütt'' (

rhenish franconian __NOTOC__ Rhenish Franconian or Rhine Franconian ( ) is a dialect chain of West Central German. It comprises the varieties of German spoken across the western regions of the states of Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, northwest Baden-Württember ...

moselle franconian Moselle Franconian (; ) is a West Central German language, part of the Central Franconian languages area, that includes Luxembourgish. Overview Moselle Franconian is spoken in the southern Rhineland and along the course of the Moselle, i ...

/ colognian/

rhinelandic Rhinelandic is a term occasionally used for linguistic varieties of a region on both sides of the Middle and Lower Rhine river in Central West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, including some varieties of the Limburgish language g ...

for barrel, vessel) in a local

German dialect German dialects are the various traditional local varieties of the German language. Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant sh ...

. Over the last few decades, Büttenreden have also become more popular in

eastern Germany The new states of Germany () are the five re-established states of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) that unified with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) with its 10 "old states" upon German reunification on 3 October 1990. The ...

, including at the

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

carnival.

Format

Especially in the Rhenish carnival tradition, the format of the traditional Büttenrede has undergone many changes. The spectrum of Büttenreden nowadays ranges from elements of

stand-up comedy Stand-up comedy is a performance directed to a live audience, where the performer stands on a stage (theatre), stage and delivers humour, humorous and satire, satirical monologues sometimes incorporating physical comedy, physical acts. These ...

and sung interludes to

dialogues Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is ch ...

and

ventriloquism Ventriloquism or ventriloquy is an act of stagecraft in which a person (a ventriloquist) speaks in such a way that it seems like their voice is coming from a different location, usually through a puppet known as a "dummy". The act of ventrilo ...

. Even the ''bütt'' itself is only rarely visible, although this is usually for technical reasons. The content of the speeches has also gradually shifted from an expository, ironic mirroring of society to merely performing a collection of jokes.

Origin

The Büttenrede can be traced back to the medieval practice of ''Rügerecht'', through which peasants were allowed to freely criticize their rulers during carnival without fear of retribution.

Rhyme structure

Structurally, the traditional rhymed Büttenrede is known to use a very consistent

metre The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...

, for example

iambic pentameter Iambic pentameter ( ) is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in each line. Meter is measured in small groups of syllables called feet. "Iambi ...

. It is often divided into multiple stanzas, that, like a refrain, end in the same, reoccurring

punch line A punch line (also punch-line or punchline) concludes a joke; it is intended to make people Laughter, laugh. It is the third and final part of the Joke#Telling jokes, typical joke structure. It follows the introductory framing of the joke and th ...

. The preferred

rhyme scheme A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB rh ...

is a

couplet In poetry, a couplet ( ) or distich ( ) is a pair of successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there ...

(AA BB).

Televised carnival conventions

There are several long-running broadcasts of Büttenreden through carnival conventions designed for TV on German public television. Prominent examples include ''Mainz bleibt Mainz, wie es singt und lacht'', ''Fastnacht in Franken,'' and ''Kölle Alaaf''.

Controversy

The use of racist and misogynistic language has a well-documented history in this tradition, and, in more recent times, has sparked discussions around bigotry in the carnival scene as a whole. In 2020, an orator in the village of

Süplingen Süplingen is a village and a former municipality in the Börde district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2014, it is part of the town Haldensleben Haldensleben (; Eastphalian dialect, Eastphalian: ''Halslä'') is a town in Saxony-Anh ...

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...

held a Büttenrede in which he used derogatory language towards

asylum seeker An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A per ...

s and

Black people Black is a racial classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and often additional phenotypical ...

. Although the head of the local carnival society originally refused to censure him, the speaker ultimately apologized and resigned from the society.

References

{{Authority control Poetic forms Speeches by type