Gifts to Children and the Ritual Year in Eastern Lithuania and Western Belarus in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries
In this paper, I chose to analyse the gifts given to children in Lithuanian villages in eastern Lithuania and western Belarus in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries on the occasion of various calendar celebrations. I tried to reveal what types of gift were given to children from different social groups: one’s own children, one’s godchildren, children who worked as hired hands (herders), and neighbours’ children. I also analyse the dominant ways that gifts were given to individual children or groups of children at these times. After conducting this analysis of the gifts and gift-giving traditions, we can conclude that during the research period gifts were given only within limited periods, usually from Easter to Pentecost. In most cases, the gift was an egg or another edible product. When analysing occasions for giving gifts, little difference was found in the types of gift given to one’s own children, godchildren, herders, the neighbours’ children or even those from other villages. However, the way these gifts were given did differ. When giving a gift to one’s own child a mediator would usually be called for, while gifts to godchildren, herders and village children generally were given directly. In all cases, a gift to a child carried a sacred value. However, of all the gifts it was those received from one’s godparents that were cherished the most by children. These children held a number of social statuses: that of child, godchild, herder, neighbour’s child, and in different situations they would receive gifts from their parents, neighbours or masters. In most cases (except one’s own child), gifts served the function of balancing or ensuring an equal exchange, which is typical in a community.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rasa Paukštytė-Šaknienė (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
St. Nicholas and St. Cornelius, transcultural relations
The aim of this article is to examine a selection of folk custons, beliefs and legends associated with St. Nicholas of Myra the Wonderworker, focusing on their diverse typological features and the problems arising from their mutual intertwining.The first section discusses the ritual complex connected with St. Nicholas of Myra the Wonderworker (4th century). The second part analyses narratives about St Nicholas and John Cassian the Roman (Cassian, 3rd century) as confirmations of the hagiographic canon and as explanatory models. The third part explores the convergence between giant folklore and saintly traditions, historical sources and oral history drawing on texts concerning Hegumen Cornelius of Pechory (16th century). The analysis demonstrates the importance of St Nicholas and shared motifs with giant-like saints such as St. Christopher (3rd century), as well as parallels with Christian and Islamic holy figures, gods and heroes. Particular attention is given to biblical motifs, historical reinterpretations, and narrative entanglements surrounding the death of Hegumen Cornelius, and the positioning of St Nicholas as a restorer of justice. The comparative folkloristic approach draws on early 20th century texts recorded among Russians and Setos in Southeastern Estonia, as well as contemporary fieldwork materials from Belarus. Both the Setomaa and Belarusian belief traditions reveal a rich repertoire of motifs and suggest that these regions shared, to a significant extent, a common culturalhistorical paradigm.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mare Kõiva, Elena Boganeva (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Annual Fairs and Town Holidays in Haskovo and Byala, Bulgaria
Markets held annually were once part of Ottoman heritage in the Balkans. However, after the empire’s collapse between the 1890s and 1910s, they eventually lost their importance due to border changes and development of a new market system. The presence of annual and weekly markets in numerous towns in Bulgaria is relatively recent. Some of these markets were inherited from livestock or craft seasonal markets while some emerged as side event for traditional festivals. At the start of the 20th century, annual and weekly markets in Bulgaria were regulated at a national level to avoid clashing because many merchants and even customers travel from place to place buying livestock and household products or just for enjoyment. Following the centralisation of the products market in the years after 1944, and especially after 1950, the local markets were no longer able to carry out their role as trading venues and instead mainly became entertainment events that attracted people to return to their hometowns. Consequently, these trading activities were transformed into local cultural events and town holidays. Despite being suspended or even banned during the 1970s and 1980s, in the 1990s they were recognised as official holidays in many towns. This research is made up of a few examples, but two of them will be the focus of the presentation: the city of Haskovo and the town of Byala. Haskovo, a main provincial city, a former open-air market day – now celebrated as a holiday despite the disappearance of the market itself – illustrates the transformations that traditional fairs have undergone over time. Byala is a smaller town where the fair was transformed into a humorous parade staged along with a funfair.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lina Gergova (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Images of Saints at Annual Fairs in Vilnius: Ritual Attributes, Souvenirs, Works of Art
The article examines images of saints made by folk artists and presented for sale at Vilnius religious fairs (St. Casimir’s Day, Palm Sunday and Christmas). Based on field research conducted in 2012 and between 2019 and 2022 using interviews and participant observation, the study identifies a functional shift where religious images, once primarily devotional objects, are now largely perceived as souvenirs or decorative art. Findings reveal that while angels and the Pensive Christ remain the most popular motifs, their role has transitioned from essential religious attributes to souvenirs and interior decorations. Despite a declining demand for traditional large-scale folk sculptures, small souvenir statuettes maintain a stable market. The article also considers how commercialisation affects the supply and demand of folk art production. The article concludes that to remain relevant, folk artists need to modernise their creative strategies and interpretations to meet the changing expectations of today’s buyers.
Copyright (c) 2025 Skaidrė Urbonienė (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Communicative Aspect of Festival and Pilgrimage in Greece, Modern and Ancient
During modern and ancient religious festivals in Greece everyone offers what one wishes to receive more of in return, based on a logic very similar to the one Hesiod (ca. 700-650 BCE) expresses in his poem Work and Days (349 ff.) when he recommends the giving of a large gift in order to get more in return. Today, the significance of gifts and counter-gifts is obvious within Orthodoxy, since in Greek terminology, antidōro signifies the blessed bread (literally, “counter-gift”); that is, their bread offerings, or gifts, which have been blessed by the priest during the service, and what people are preoccupied with during the liturgy is the blessed bread they will obtain when the liturgy is over. During the festival of Agios Nektarios, a piece of the blessed bread might, for instance, be used as a healing remedy. In the Mediterranean clientela system, people employ strategies based upon gifts and benefits to gain return gifts. The gift makes the recipient morally obliged for return giving, a favour for a gift. All personal and social relations rest on expectations of reciprocity. This principle also pervades the relations between people and their saints. The religion reflects a culture in which reciprocity and feasts are important elements. As the British anthropologist, Edmund Leach once stated in his book, Culture and Communication. The logic by which symbols are connected. An introduction to the use of structuralist analysis in social anthropology (1986), the logic of sacrifice illustrates how a religious ritual serves to express a relationship between the human world and the other world. By making a gift to the Gods, the Gods are compelled to give back benefits to man. This logic is also found elsewhere in the Mediterranean, and in the ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish worlds. This article, therefore, has not dealt with commerce and traditions per se, but rather the economic foundation of modern and ancient Greek religion by discussing some topics related to the communicative aspect of Greek religious festivals.
Copyright (c) 2025 Evy Johanne Håland (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Songs as Folklore, Popular Culture, and Emotional Resources for Commerce
The subject of this chapter is songs that can be considered a contemporary hybrid cultural phenomenon. The key question addressed in the article is the role of folklore as a manifestation of tradition within this phenomenon. Folklore does not disappear due to technological and economic dynamics but rather constantly recreates itself around the process of cultural modernisation, creating fruitful relationships with the technological and global world, while remaining rooted in its local cultural homelands. People who practise singing also live simultaneously in the global world and in their familiar local worlds. Thus, the object of this study, examined through a case study of one Lithuanian song, can be considered living folklore and a continuation of local tradition, while also being part of the intersection between popular culture and economics (and consequently commerce). The aim of this article is to reveal the spectrum of functions the song has as a hybrid cultural phenomenon. The conclusion is that the song’s role as a key element of local cultural practice is precisely what has ensured its long-term commercial success.
Copyright (c) 2025 Aušra Žičkienė (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A Village for a Day: Annual Meetings of Relocated and Flooded Villages in Bulgaria
The text attempts to explain the need for annual meetings of village communities after the village has been relocated due to the construction of a reservoir. The object of research are meetings in Popovo (Vitoshko), a village that was flooded by the waters of the Studena reservoir, and in Zhrebchevo, submerged later in the Zhrebchevo reservoir. The study applies the theories of collective trauma, collective memory, and cultural memory. Through analysis of interviews, archives, and literature, the study examines the motives of the former village communities to gather each year and the reasons that their leaders organise these meetings. The text attempts to answer the following questions: how do these meetings manage to revitalise the village for one day, what rituals do they include, how is generational dialogue brought to realisation, what is the meaning of memory for the submerged villages, and finally, what are the perspectives for continuing such meetings?
Copyright (c) 2025 Mariyanka Borisova (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Winter Carnival in Vevchani (North Macedonia): Between Commercial Festivity and Folklore Tradition
This paper is based on fieldwork conducted in the Republic of North Macedonia, where in 2019 I observed the Vasilitsa winter folklore carnival held annually on January 12–13 in the village of Vevchani, near Ohrid. The tradition of winter masked carnivals exists throughout the Macedonian cultural area, with local variations and different names for the participants. The core structure of the event is a ritual drama that parodies a wedding ceremony and symbolically enacts themes of fertility and renewal. Masking practices and the use of noisemaking implements – jingling, clattering, and striking – serve both traditional ritual and modern entertainment purposes. The performances combine elements of folk drama, with prescribed roles, alongside improvised satirical scenes addressing contemporary political and social issues. Today, the carnival demonstrates the coexistence of traditional ritual forms and modern expressions, including theatrical spectacle and tourism-oriented activities. This interplay sustains the event’s status as a marker of both local identity and national cultural heritage. Examined in the context of globalisation – with its emphasis on multiculturalism and consumption – the Vevchani Carnival exemplifies the dynamic synergy between inherited ritual culture and contemporary festive practice. It reveals how tradition can be adapted and reinterpreted within modern frameworks, without losing its cultural resonance.
Copyright (c) 2025 Oksana Mykytenko (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A Festival For Locals or For Tourists? The Ritual Year in Three Southeastern Lithuanian Settlements
This article deals with the ritual year in the famous historical settlements of southeastern Lithuania – Trakai, Kernavė, and Medininkai. My aim is to show how newly created commercial holidays are perceived by local populations and to show the locations of these holidays in their ‘personal ritual year’. In order to achieve this goal I have analysed the current state (non-working days), parish church and newly created local ‘historical’ festivals, analysing their duration, seasonality and how they are appreciated by local populations. The main source is ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2019 within the framework of the Lithuanian Institute of History’s Leisure, Celebrations and Rituals in the Vicinity of Vilnius: Social and Cultural Aspects programme. Online ethnographic sources were also used. In the article I come to the conclusion that the formation of new holidays is a rather complex process. Even the mobilisation of cultural heritage, the introduction of a commercial character, the longer duration of the holiday, and the right season cannot guarantee that the local people will really appreciate a holiday if it is not linked to a specific date with valuable content. Such holidays are St. John’s Day, as a symbol of resistance to Soviet ideology, and the day of the coronation of the first Lithuanian king, i.e. State Day.
Copyright (c) 2025 Žilvytis Šaknys (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Kyustendil Spring Day: Post-Socialist Re-inventions and Transformations of a Socialist Festival
The article presents a case study of Kyustendil Spring Day, a traditional local holiday associated with the spring equinox, (re)invented as a socialist festival in the late 1960s, which has continued to take place uninterrupted to date. It traces the transformations that the festival has gone through in the years of post-socialist transition in Bulgaria looking into the challenges posed to both the (ritual) form and the (semantic) content of the festival after the collapse of the Bulgarian socialist state in 1989. As the analysis shows, the imperatives of global popular culture and the new economic and political realities have brought about new actors, symbols, rituals and venues in the old festive scenario of Kyustendil Spring Day. Two distinct periods in its post-socialist development are distinguished: the early post-socialist years of the 1990s when the holiday was radically privatised by local businessmen (i.e. sponsors), commercialised (i.e. patented as a festival), and spectacularised; and the most recent years, when it was re-claimed by the local municipality, re-traditionalised, and instrumentalised in local town branding strategies. In spite of the seemingly undisputed success of Kyustendil Spring Day as a town holiday today, the critical voices raised about the festival’s exhausted social function and its commercialisation in the present suggest that it might have reached a critical point in its life course, and that new re-inventions, i.e. new re-semantisation, would be needed to save its relevance for the local community in the future.
Copyright (c) 2025 Svetla I. Kazalarska (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Commercialisation of the Căluș Tradition
The paper presents a diachronic analysis of the Căluș ritual, a component of Romanian popular culture included on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008. We are considering the most important aspects of Căluș’s genuine performative model, the specifics of its keepers and the changes occurring over time. Our analysis considers those evolutionary aspects that led to the diversification of the performative model and the repercussions of these changes, both in the traditional form of the ritual and in the way it is perceived by its own performers and direct beneficiaries. Following its evolution from the communist and post-communist period, we highlight the appetite of the protagonists to enhance in particular the spectacular and economic functions of Căluș, a trend that could significantly influence the performative model. The study also exposes the new contexts in which Căluș is presented today, proving that we are facing a living phenomenon, a constant process capable of generating new cultural models and beliefs.
Copyright (c) 2025 Cătălin Alexa (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Re-Localising Cultural Economy through Heritage Building
In this article I consider contemporary heritage building as a productive process helping the re-localisation of cultural economy in a post-crisis context. I recall the debates concerning cultural development in economic anthropology, showing how heritage building processes have become a widespread manner of fuelling the local economy. As a social-cultural anthropologist, I use the data collected during my fieldwork to show that the transformation of festive rituals into local economic resources also has a deep influence on the complex structures and meanings of local traditions. This eventually creates the opportunity to compare ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ ways of thinking about the place of festive rituals in the economy. First, I use examples of festive rituals that have been granted the status of intangible cultural heritage in France by UNESCO, to show what economic effects were desired by local practitioners of the rituals when they proposed their candidature, and what real effects can be observed ten years later. Second, I document some British festive rituals that have not asked for intangible cultural heritage status and explain how they nevertheless have a strong relationship with the local economy. Third, I focus on Italian festive rituals that have asked for intangible cultural heritage status but which have not yet received it. Through these various examples I try to understand how local practitioners use the UNESCO candidature process itself as a means to re-localise regional cultural economies.
Copyright (c) 2025 Laurent Sébastien Fournier (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Copyright (c) 2016 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Evolution of Valentine’s Day in Socialist and Post-Socialist Times
The paper outlines the changes in St. Valentine’s Day celebrations in Estonia from 1980 to 2014. Valentine’s Day, called also Friendship Day, reached Estonia in the late 1980s. At the time, the holiday in Western Europe and America celebrated love, engagement and marriage. However, to Estonia the holiday was introduced as a day to remember your close ones and friends. In the 1980s, the holiday spread among young people, with support from (pre)schools and teachers: cards and small gifts were prepared for friends and family. The 21st century saw a breakthrough in media influence and commercialisation. Self-made gifts (cards, small objects) saw competition from international commercial gifts. Valentine’s Day has also become a definite occasion for entertainment and food catering establishments with special offers, and romantic packages for couples. Today, Valentine’s Day stands both as a day celebrating friendship as well as being in love, and accordingly the customs are varied.
Copyright (c) 2016 Liisa Vesik (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Calendar Rites of the Muslim Bulgarians — at the Crossroads of the Сultures
The paper presents some preliminary results of the field research conducted by the author during the ethnolinguistic expeditions in the Middle Rhodopes in southern Bulgaria in 2012—2014. The field research was aimed at collecting materials on the traditional calendar of the Bulgarians Muslims (Pomaks) who live in Bulgaria where Orthodox Christianity is its main religion. The expedition’s task was also to detect traces of mutual influences and interference in the texts of traditional culture, its archaic and borrowed reservoirs; to determinate assessment mechanisms of “their” and “foreign” language and culture, to analyze the completeness of different cultural codes in the culture of the Muslim Bulgarians. As a result of the data analysis, the author came to the conclusion that in the national calendar of the Pomaks there are a number of phenomena similar to those cultural phenomena of the neighboring Christian population, due to their common ethnic origin. In the traditional Muslim culture, however, a more compact calendar—in comparison to the extensive system of Christian Orthodox calendar rites—has a compensatory mechanism, which operates on the principle of substitution and intensification of magical acts in various rituals and beliefs.
Copyright (c) 2016 Elena Uzeneva (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Ethnic and Confessional Aspects of a Holiday in the City of Vilnius
This article analyzes ethnic and confessional aspects of the New Year festival in Vilnius city. It is based on fieldwork data collected through semistructured interviews, freeform conversations, published sources, and is grounded on the historical comparative method. The author shows that a celebration of the same festival among different ethnic and confessional groups of people living in one city, viewed historically, can create symbolic boundaries of otherness or, in some instances, reduce such boundaries.
Copyright (c) 2016 Žilvytis Šaknys (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Modern Folk Festivals in Tatarstan: The Paths of Development and Their Specific Features
Contemporary festive rituals among the peoples of Tatarstan are being established in two different ways. Firstly, they are offered “from below,” as a popular initiative on the part of individuals and groups who seek to follow a tradition and to take part in the festive activities “as their soul commands.” Secondly, there is development “from above,” when festivals are initiated by various state and public structures, whose activities have their own goals and organisational means for their implementation. Specialized educational institutions also contribute to the development and maintenance of folk traditions. Based on the authors’ field-work materials and publications, the paper examines the specific ways in which festivals are conducted in Tatarstan by Russians and Tatars respectively, with a special attention to the two mentioned above tendencies. The case of the pagan festival Uchuk of the Chuvashs is also analysed in detail.
Copyright (c) 2016 Guzel Stolyarova, Alsu Enikeeva (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Transformation of Festive Culture of the Russian Rural Population: Regional Dimension
In this article various dimensions of the festival of Russian folklore Karavon are considered in the context of the general ethnic situation in Republic of Tatarstan (RT), which is defined on the basis of official statistics and the state policy description in the sphere of interethnic cooperation. The place of Karavon among other ethnic fests of the region is shown. The fest is considered in terms of the concept of “cultural nests” and also as the tool of symbolic political techniques of demonstrating state power.
Copyright (c) 2016 Sergey Rychkov (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Family and the Ritual Year in the Modern Lithuanian City
Using the results of fieldwork conducted in Vilnius in 2011—2014, the author of the article aims to present tradition as perceived by a present-day Vilnius citizen and to analyse which festivals of the life- and year- cycles are viewed as traditional. How tradition is observed when making preparations for the most important celebration of the year, Christmas, is another issue touched upon. The author reaches the conclusion that the concept of tradition is contextual. Its content can be seen in a different way not only by an ethnologist and a person distant from the academic sphere respectively, but also by the informant himself or herself as they seek to define the concept of tradition, when speaking about traditions observed by their own family and when singling out the festivals which are traditionally observed.
Copyright (c) 2016 Rasa Paukštytė-Šaknienė (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Sacred Rituals and Calendar Festivities in the Annual Cycle of Udmurts
This article examines the interaction between Udmurt traditional rituals and newly imposed Soviet festivities. Udmurt sacred religious rituals have been modified during the Soviet period and official events have absorbed traditional elements. The author concentrates on the peculiarities of transformation from one status of the festivals to another and considers the reasons for transformation and the methods of transitions. The author also examines the origin of new types of festive activities, which developed their internal structure under persistent external influences.
the Day of the October Socialist Revolution
Copyright (c) 2016 Tatiana Minniyakhmetova (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Relationship Between the Folk Calendar and Folk Astronomy Heritage
Time can be determined by observation of astronomical objects. For determination of time, various phenological signs as well as the position of the heavenly bodies were used. To tell the time of the day (or night), the most useful constellations were the Great and Little Wain (Big and Little Dipper), Orion and the Sieve. The North Star (Põhjanael—the Northern Nail) was the centre of the clock and due to its immobility, an important landmark. The best known time teller was the Wain, also used for fortune telling and meteorological forecasts. Orion and the Sieve were the wintertime time-telling constellations, providers of omens and marked the start of various types of work on the agricultural calendar. To this end, the Sieve’s position was observed on a number of days dedicated to different saints. This article is based on materials from the manuscripts of the Estonian archives, digitised and analysed by the Department of Folkloristics of the Estonian Literary Museum.
Copyright (c) 2016 Andres Kuperjanov (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Ritual Year of Domestic Animals: Zoofolkloristic Aspects
This article focuses on changes in human-animal relationships and strives to characterise the ritual year traditions in modern society, where attitudes and relationships with pets are developing towards greater equality. The custom of greeting and wishing animals well during celebrations of the ritual year has undergone major changes, while the almost fully normative traditions of agrarian communities has been on the decline. In modern urban environments, pets receive gifts, similarly to other family members. Many families celebrate special occasions in an animal’s life (such as birthdays and family get-togethers). The last part of this article describes the public celebration of the first birthday of Laura, the dog in a state institution. All cases characterise, and are part of the continuum in, the evolution of human-pets relations.
Copyright (c) 2016 Mare Kõiva (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
“From This Place You Cannot Hear Speech. From This Place You Cannot Receive a Letter”: The Letter-Message in Russian Funeral Lamentations
The article is devoted to the use of verbal formulas in funeral and commemoration lamentations. The article consists of two parts: in part one there are some comments about lamenting and the existence of the texts in rites, while part two contains a text analysis of one particular verbal formula (the letter-message). This formula can be found in the lamentations of different cultures, but the Russian texts are the focus of this research.
Copyright (c) 2016 Elena Iugai (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Rituals of Herb-Gathering in M. Velyakov’s Manuscript of the 1890s: Transformation of Tradition
This paper analyzes a manuscript from the 1890s ascribed to M. Velyakov. The manuscript contains a heterogeneous mix of botanical, medical, and household information: it includes several copies of herbals,1 extracts from medical books, recipes, a catalogue of books on botany, household notes, and so forth. A section of Velyakov’s manuscript concerns details of herb-gathering: “Prayers regarding the collection of herbs and instructions on how to pick them” (f. 134r—136r). It contains a list of canonical prayers, non-canonical prayers and charms (“How to approach the herb,” “About picking herbs and digging up roots,” “An answer to the picking of herbs,” “A general prayer for herbs,” “A general charm for herbs”) as well as a description of the herb-picking rite on St. John’s Day and “Detailed instructions on how to gather herbs.” Such sections were not typical of the Russian herbal tradition of the 17th—18th centuries. Therefore, the Velyakov manuscript data is here analyzed in the context of oral and written traditions.
Copyright (c) 2016 Aleksandra Ippolitova (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Midwinter Masking Place and Identity in an Ironworks Community
In the dead of winter on January 13th each year, an evening masking festival takes place in Gimo, a small rural ironwork community situated in the district of Uppland in central Sweden. No one knows for certain how old this festival, which on the calendar day of St Knut marks the end of Christmas season, is, but one of the main functions of the festivity nowadays is the opportunity for the population of Gimo to reconnect with friends and neighbours. This is done both while preparing for the main event on January 13th and on the evening of that date when everyone reveals what they secretly have been working on for this year’s festivity. The traditional division of labour between the sexes during the preparations (for Swedish urban standards surprisingly) results in an exchange of work occurring; reaffirming ties between men and women, and of family and friendship within the community. The main inspiration for dressing up is current events, and the choice of masking can be seen as a form of external monitoring, functioning both as individual expressions and statements of the community as a unity, illustrating political views, humour, and fears. The research examples in this paper come from the fieldwork carried out during the winter seasons of 2012/2013—2014/2015 in three small rural ironwork communities in the district of Uppland in Sweden: Gimo, Österbybruk and Östhammar. The importance of the masking tradition is especially apparent in Gimo, which will be the main focus in this paper.
Village Kurban as the Constructing of Local Identity and the Ritual Process in Post-Socialist Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia
The paper deals with the specific use of collective rituals focused on the blood sacrifice among Orthodox Christians in the Balkans, known mostly as kurban. In studying a variety of kurbans, the analytical focus is on the collective feasts, which celebrates the small village community as a ‘homeland’, but also as a ritual community living under the protection of a patron saint. This paper pays particular attention to examples of the collective kurban in abandoned villages. Kurban is therefore understood as a ritual that helps produce and/or re-produce a group identity within a broader national framework, and also as a means of social cohesion for kinship-based and territory-based groups, beyond confessional attachment. In a selection of cases, the paper demonstrates how through a blood sacrifice, shared around a common table, as well as by the symbolic use of the saintpatron, the cohesion between the former members of a now deserted village is recreated. By concentrating on the celebrations of village communities that have been completely depopulated by the rural exodus, mainly due to socialist urbanization and industrialization, this article shows how every year, the mobilization of the symbolic capital of the community allows for the formation of its “real” or “virtual” boundaries.
Copyright (c) 2016 Petko Hristov (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Transformation in the Polish Festival of Harvest
The festival of harvest, called dożynki, is celebrated locally throughout Poland when all crops have been harvested from the fields, usually at the end of August or beginning of September. This tradition has been kept up for centuries in Poland, and although the core of the celebration has remained the same, there have been some changes of various kinds influenced by ideologies as well as technologies and global processes. This article is a follow-up to my research on the celebration of dożynki in Poland in the 1950s, the results of which are presented in the publication Politics, Feasts, Festivals (2014). This time, I concentrate on the celebration of dożynki in recent years. I describe all parts of the celebration, indicating the changes that have occurred and comparing it to the celebration in the 19th century, each stage of which is described in detail by Zygmunt Gloger. The research is based on folklore sources, materials transmitted in the mass media, and my interviews with people who took part in such festivals, as well as on my own personal observations as a participant.
Copyright (c) 2016 Bożena Gierek (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Russia and the USSR in the Bulgarian National Ritual Year
Russia and the USSR have played a very important role in the Bulgarian national processes from the National Revival period (19th century) until nowadays. The image of Russia and the Russians was at the core of the processes of developing a national festive calendar—both before and after 1944, as well as after the democratic changes in 1989. Although Russia is no longer considered “the big brother”, “brother nation”, “matushka” or “bratushki” and the ideological focus of the Bulgarian national narrative has changed, 3 March—the date of Liberation—did not lose its central place in the centre of the national calendar (it is the date of signing the peace treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in what came to be known in Bulgaria as the Liberation War of 1877—1878). The position of Russia and the Russians will be analysed in the paper from a historical perspective, as well as in view of the present debates and festive practices. The study is based on data collected by the author in the last four years.
Copyright (c) 2016 Lina Gergova (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Blood Libel Legend in Latgale: Types of Narratives
The article is based on the materials collected among the non-Jewish population of Latgale, that is, the southeastern region of Latvia. The accusation of Jews in the ritual murder of Christians has been widespread in Europe from the Middle Ages to the present. Usually, such narratives speak about a small Christian child who is murdered and whose blood is supposedly used in a ritual context, for example, added to the unleavened bread (matza), which Jews eat for Passover. The topic was subject to quite abundant research work during the last two centuries. The article presents the circulation of this myth in modern Latvia and discusses the types of the story, the topics of narratives and transformation. The theme of the blood libel is well known in this territory, and almost all our interviewees have heard that Jews used blood for some ritual purposes. Often these narratives were associated with calendar festivals, frequently with Pesach and the legend of the crucifixion of the Christ, but at present stories are transformed and have lost contact with the folk calendar.
Copyright (c) 2016 Svetlana Amosova (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This article focuses on festivals and rituals of the Mari people living in the economically depressed Volga region of Russia. The article focuses on women’s activity during the Mari festivals and the ways in which this activity can be framed as a representation of the official power. The festivals organized by the local administration are compared to the rituals coordinated by the local people, mostly by the women. Based on field work done in 2002—2004, the purpose of the author is to find an answer to the following question: does the feast, the stage provided by the bustle of a festival, construct the strength of national identity, or do festivals just provide the binding force to the recurring rhythms of everyday life?
Copyright (c) 2016 Ildikó Lehtinen (Author) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0