This is an old custom typical
of all regions on Lazaritsa - Saint Lazarus' Day, the Saturday of
Lazarus. It is of Slav origin and its symbolic meaning is associated
with fertility, as well as with love and marriage. Lazaritsa is the name
day of people named Lazar, Lazo, Lazarina, Lara, Lazarinka also the
name day of Kalina, Violeta, Bozhura, Vurban, Tzvetan, Tzvetana, Kamelia,
Nevena, Margarita, Lilyana, Yavor, Yasen – people named after flowers
and trees.
This
Saturday before Easter is a feast dedicated to youth and fertility -
young girls, pastures, fields and woods. Lazarovden is an event in the
life of every young girl, because then
she could demonstrate to her village community the fact of her becoming
a grown-up maiden. The girls would gather in groups of about ten at the
house of the prettiest one and then start their going around the village
singing and dancing their special "Lazar Day" tunes. The songs sung on
the Lazar Day praise the beauty of the maiden and her beloved one, the
industry of the farmer, the purity of maternal love, and they are
associated with wishes for happiness and prosperity.
The Orthodox church connects that day to the
resurrection of Lazarus (brother of Martha and Maria), whom Jesus raised
from the dead. Lazarus, who lived for 30 years more, was an ardent
follower of Christian faith and died as a bishop of the town of Ketonia
(in Cyprus).
Particular attention was paid to dress: festive and beautiful, with
superb heavy ornaments. The costumes are specially made for this
festival and usually have many elements of bridal attire. The
lazarouvane consists of a string of ritual games, dances and songs
trained in advance by the young Lazarus girls (lazarki) during the long
days of Lent. The maids would go round the neighbourhood and sing songs
at each house wishing the people there rich crops and abundance.
The ritual's varieties are numerous, their
differences lying in the celebration of Saint Lazarus' Day itself (eight
days before Easter). The common tradition, however, is the coming out of
marriageable girls. After taking part in the Lazaritsa dances the maid
was allowed to start preparing for her wedding. A popular belief had it
that a young man who had not been koledar or kouker, and a maid who had
not been lazarka should not get married.
Getting married and setting up a home
has always been an essential part of the Bulgarians' mentality and way
of life. In old times, people believed that the richer rituals devoted
to marriage were a more powerful guarantee of happiness, long life and a
house full of children.
Lazaritsa dancers and Lazarouvane customs
Pictures of Lazarouvane courtesy of Plovdiv Guide
Saint
Lazarus’s Day, folk-wise
There are two days on the Bulgarian folk calendar, which involve
mostly young girls and men. Saint Lazarus’s day and Christmas are
symmetrically situated on the days of vernal and the autumnal equinox.
The two holidays are very much alike in their significance as well as in
their rites and rituals.
They open up the way for boys and girls
to
the world of adults. It is the young who are the main protagonists in
the rituals, which will give them the right to get engaged and to marry,
and then give birth to children.
On Saint Lazarus’s day, this takes place in groups called
Lazarus groups. They start their tour of the town or village early in
the morning, and by the end of the day they visit each home, singing and
dancing.
Saint Lazarus’s Saturday, one week before Easter,
is a day full of flowers and beauty. The Christian calendar marks the
resurrection of Lazarus, while folklore tradition awakens the girls for
love and life, as a transition from childhood to youth and adulthood.
The Saint Lazarus’s day rituals have not succumbed to
any influences or transient fashions. They have preserved the diversity
of folk costumes, melodies and rhythms, dancing and games from the
different ethnographic regions of the country.
On this day the girls sing for health and a long
life, for fertility and love. There is a song for each member of the
family – blessing the husband and the wife of the family, the young
bride, the daughter and the son, the village teacher, the stranger one
meets in the street – whoever he might be. There are songs about the
vineyard and the garden, the field and the beehives… It is no
coincidence that beehives are connected with the mother-goddess, with
fertility…
The girls who sing ritual songs on Saint
Lazarus’s day are given eggs as a sign of gratitude. Bulgarians believe
in the beautiful spring girls’ ritual and the vitality of the Saint
Lazarus's day songs.
(Vrubnitsa) (Vrabnitza)
On this day young girls perform the “lazarouvane” ritual. The
legend tells that: “In a small village in Thrace – Chitalovo, they
organized a big fair. Once, from the next village of Kurtalan, a lass
named Ruzha set out with her mother and father to visit the fair.
After walking for some time the girl felt thirsty and asked her father
permission to go to the dragon well and drink some water. “Don’t go,
wait until we get to the village!” her father said. “This is a bad
place.” But the girl didn’t listen and went out of the way to the
well. As she bent down to drink water, there came a dragon, who asked
her to become his bride. “You will be rich, very rich,” he went on.
But Ruzha was frightened and ran away to catch up with her father and
mother. She didn’t say anything to them.
They went to the fair. The girls were singing, but
Ruzha looked sad – she was thinking about the dragon’s proposal. She
wanted to be rich and live in a palace. When the fair was over, she
left her parents and went back to the well. Then she eloped with the
dragon, became his bride and lived in the dragon’s palace. Years
passed. She felt sick for home and her kin and asked the dragon to let
her go and visit her family. The dragon agreed and left her on the
same day and at the same well. Then he flew away. During the years she
had spent with the dragon she had grown a dragon’s tail and decided
first of all to get rid of it.
She turned and
tried to bite off the tail but didn’t succeed. She turned to the other
side and tried to catch her tail but failed again. Then she started
throwing herself about but to no avail. She heard the songs of the
girls who were coming back from the fair. Bloody foam appeared on her
lips but the darn tail was still in place. Horrified that her friends
will see her this way, her heart burst. The girls found her, buried
her and from that day on every year they gathered round the well. And
they danced the horo, not in a ring but in the form of a snake to
remember young Ruzha the dragoness.
The dance was called
“buenetz” and the girls were called “lazarki”. Lazarouvane holds an
important place in the ritual system of the patriarchal Bulgarian
village. Through it people express their need to act upon the positive
development of things. We can discover in it traces of the pagan
holidays of Thracians and proto- Bulgarians, connected with the waking
of nature for a new life after the frosty winter days and the coming
of spring. Lazarouvane is a ritual practiced only by young girls who
have reached sexual maturity. Their participation is imposed by
patriarchal society, for in order to be permitted to have marital
relations girls had to have performed this ritual. Their participation
in the ritual is the highest point in their socialization. The
lazarouvane is a complex of ritual acts, ritual dress, ritual songs
and ritual dances. The young girls perform an open horo dance, which
is lead by the boyanitza”, also called in some places “kumitza” or
“godmother”.
This role is
given to the most prominent girl in the village, respected and liked
by all. She has an important part in the ritual – while the girls are
dancing and singing in the yard of the house, she goes to the hostess
and puts a scarf on her right shoulder and expects presents from her
as well – white eggs, cheese, flour, nuts, dried fruit and small
coins. The boyanitza must know the right songs for every house. For
the songs vary widely: about the man of the house, about the woman of
the house, about the children, about an unmarried man or woman. They
are all in praise of love, marriage, the family and expectations for
children in the future. After the lazarouvane, girls and young men do
the "razkumichvane" – the “lazarki” place their wreaths on a wooden
paddle, then they are dropped in running water and whose wreath comes
first will be the first to marry this year.
Pearls – Symbol of Wealth and Happiness
on Saint Lazarus Day.
“A pearl is a small seed but it is greatly revered”, according to a
piece of Bulgarian folk wisdom. There is a ritualistic Bulgarian folk
song which says that a wealthy man gives presents to Saint Lazarus Day
dancers in the shape of silver, gold and tiny pearls. Meanwhile, the
man’s wife is at home, busy embroidering, with a silver needle, her
baby’s bonnet with scores of tiny pearls. She throws the tiniest
pearls to the doves outside- to peck them together with white wheat
grains. Thus the pearls gain even more in stature: equals to wheat
grains, the symbol of fertility, and by way of the doves they grow
into symbols of family happiness too.
Bulgarian folk tradition holds pearls dear – they
come up third after gold and silver as valuables. Surprisingly enough,
in Bulgarian folk songs, pearls grow on trees, contrary to their
real-life habitat in a sea or river. The trees are fairyland ones, no
doubt about it.
There is a Bulgarian folk song, according to
which such a tree grew out of a single drop of wine falling on the
ground while a pretty young lassie, going by the name of Yana, treated
a young man to some of it. The tree is up in a trice, its roots
running as far out as the Aegean Sea, its branches reaching up to
touch the blue skies, heavy with clusters of tiny pearls. Fairyland
golden-winged birds, emerging from the sea, alight on the branches.
The birds cause the clusters of pearls to crumble. The lassie collects
the shed pearls to string them into a fine necklace. Only such a fairy
piece of jewellery will suit the pretty lassie with a countenance of a
peach, the song implies.
And yet, we discover in another folk song the pearls coming from the
roots of a fir tree, the abode of a mythical dragon. A peacock is
nesting on top of the tree. The dragon threatens the bird he’s going
to set the nest afire with his fiery breath. To save its nest, the
peacock offers a wager: they should both go to the village water
fountain where the village girls go to get water for their families;
the peacock will drop a couple or two of his beautiful feathers and
the dragon will sprinkle a handful of pearls. Then they’ll stand by to
witness what the girls are going to go for - the beautiful feathers or
the pearls. The peacock is confident the girls are going to like his
feathers better. In times of old girls used to collect peacock
feathers to add to their headdress. Conceptually, gems and pearls come
from the treasure coffers of the King of snakes and the Dragons in the
subterranean kingdom. This gives the pearls a touch of dangerous bait
with which the ferocious dragon lures and ravishes young girls. This
is why the girls prefer peacock feathers, the song claims.
As well as the mysterious danger lurking in pearls,
there is a dose of magic in folk tales too. It is all too evident in
the patently popular story of a stepmother banishing the pretty
daughter from her husband’s previous marriage. In one folk variant of
the story the wretched young girl is reborn in a poplar tree but the
wicked step mother orders that the tree be felled and burnt. The
ashes, however, turn into pearls. The king calls to his palace all
maidens in his kingdom to string the pearls into a necklace.
Eventually, all of the girls fail at the task. Meanwhile, an elderly
woman stumbles upon a piece from the felled poplar tree that has by
sheer chance escaped the burning and takes it home with her. And
there, in the poor woman’s home the destroyed girl comes to life at
night from the piece of wood. On hearing of the king’s pearls, the
girl goes to the royal palace and, wonder of wonders, the girl strings
all magic pearls into a necklace! While she’s at it, she sings a song,
revealing the evil acts of the wicked step mother. When the king’s son
hears the story he has the evil-doing step mother punished and marries
the girl. In another similar story, a group of good fairies presage
that a girl born in a Christian monastery will be beautiful and
kind-hearted; when she smiles a rosebud will bloom on her lips and at
night, when she goes to sleep, there will be a gold coin under her
pillow; whenever she cries, pearls will trickle down her face. When
the King’s son hears of the girl and takes a single look at her, he
desires to take her into marriage.
Lazarovden (the day before Tsvetnitsa-Vrubnitsa, Palm Sunday) -
the Lazarovden (Lazarus Day) ceremonies, called "lazarouvane", are
among the most popular Bulgarian traditional feasts.
The Saturday before Easter is a feast dedicated to youth and
fertility - young girls, pastures, fields and woods. Lazarovden is an
event in the life of every young girl, because then she could
demonstrate to her village community the fact of her becoming a
grown-up maiden. The girls would gather in groups of about ten at the
house of the prettiest one and then start their going around the
village singing and dancing their special "Lazar Day" tunes. The songs
sung on the Lazar Day praise the beauty of the maiden and her beloved
one, the industry of the farmer, the purity of maternal love, and they
are associated with wishes for happiness and prosperity.
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church marks Saturday the
traditional Saint Lazar's Day.
The holiday is celebrated each year on the eight day (last Saturday)
before Easter with typical ceremonies called Lazaruvane. The day is a
festival devoted to young girls, pastures, fields and woods.
In the past on Lazarovden the young girls could
demonstrate
to the village community that they had already grown to be "complete
maidens". The girls would gather in groups of about ten at the house
of the prettiest one, and start from there with their songs to make a
round of the village. The songs sung on Saint Lazar's Day praise the
beauty of the maiden and her lover, the labour of the farmer, the
purity of maternal love, and also express wishes for happiness and
prosperity.
On Lazarovden all those named Lazar, Lazarina celebrate
their name day. The Orthodox Church connects that day to the
resurrection of Lazarus (brother of Martha and Maria), whom Jesus
raised from the dead. Lazarus, who lived for 30 years more, was an
ardent follower of Christian faith and died as a bishop of the town of
Ketonia (in Cyprus).
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PEACE HAVENS of BULGARIA
