7
In the town of Yakoruda in Southwestern Bulgaria, the preparations for one of the best-loved holidays Gergiovden, St. George’s Day, start on the day before, 5 May, when, early in the morning, the lasses and young brides take the colourful Yakoruda rugs out of their boxes to lend colour to their town for the grand day. And in the evening, before the sun sets, in their richly decorated traditional clothing typical of the region, the amateur performers from the Svetlina-1907 chitalishte (community culture club) in the town go out into the town square to reenact an ancient ritual “dipping the posy”, a ritual connected with the belief in good and evil, and the hope of health and fertility.
“The posy is made up of spring flowers, bound by a red thread to a small bottle which we dip into a clay jar,” explains Iva Rashkova in an interview with Radio Bulgaria. “The jars are filled with water and the ritual can begin.”
The older women start to sing an emblematic song – St. George – which is only sung on this day, and the first-born girls in the families start to dip the flowers, arranged around an icon of St. George.
Reenactment of “dipping the posy” at the open-air Regional Ethnographic Museum Etara by a female folklore group from Svetlina-1907 chitalishte, Yakoruda, 2022. The song is “St. George”.
The jars are covered with a piece of red cloth and left overnight underneath a white or a red rose bush. And late in the evening the people come out to dance the horo in the town square.
“On the following day, again before sunset, we start to take the posies out,” Iva Rashkova goes on. “But this time this is done not by the first- but by the last-born child in the family, who makes an incantation for each person who takes a posy – usually for health, happiness and fertility. After fishing the posies out, the girls wash their faces to make them “red and white”, and the woman of the house takes the flowers and hangs them up high – to bring luck to the home. The water from the bottle is used for sprinkling – with a wish for health to humans, to the home, and to the animals.”
“Dipping the posy” ends with a celebration on St. George’s day itself, 6 May. Interestingly, in Yakoruda, it is celebrated by Christians and Muslims together.
“People in Yakoruda go to the St. George the Victor church in the town’s suburbs, which is actually the spot where old Yakoruda was once located before it burnt down in 1666. And Christians, along with Muslims gift lambs for the feast day. And then the celebration begins, in which we all take part, together,” Iva Rashkova says.
More:
Translated from the Bulgarian and posted by Milena Daynova
Photos: Svetlina-1907 chitalishte
Batak is a name every Bulgarian remembers with deference and pain because the fate of the small town in the Rhodopes is scarred by one of the bloodiest events in national memory – the Batak massacre. During the first days after the outbreak of..
There is a map which helped usher in the birth of modern Bulgaria during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. The Austro-Hungarian researcher Felix Kanitz (1829 – 1904) was the first West European to have travelled to more than 3,200 towns and villages..
On 3 March, Bulgaria celebrates the 147th anniversary of its liberation f rom five centuries of Ottoman rule. The day was declared a national holiday in 1990 by a decision of the National Assembly. The Treaty of San Stefano, signed on 19 February..
The book "Icons from the National Church Historical and Archaeological Museum" - a huge work of over 500 pages, with more than 700 published photographs..
Clear
Mostly Cloudy
Partly Cloudy