The
Name day of everyone named Ivan, Vanyo, Vanya, Yoan/Ioan, Yoanna/Ioanna,
Yonko/Yonka, Yoto, Ivaylo, Ivo, Ivona, Kaloyan, Jan/Jean, and Janna
(whose names all have the basic meaning of "God's blessing").
The ritual table on that day should always include the following dishes:
boiled wheat, cooked beans, stewed dried fruit, banitsa (cheese pastry),
baked blood sausage, baked loukanka sausage, pork ribs cooked with
cabbage.
On Ivanovden, the Orthodox Church celebrates the Day of Stain John the
Baptist, who baptized Jesus Christ in the Jordan River (John is Ivan in
Bulgarian, hence Ivanovden – meaning the Day of John). John recognized
and pointed out Jesus as the Messenger of God – therefore he was called
Forerunner, since he was sent to prepare the way for the Lord Messiah.
Ivanovden is a traditional folk festival, part of the rich in
festivities cycle around
Christmas and New Year.
Essential for that
day is the ritual involving water – the ritual bathing for good health’s
sake performed on Yordanovden/Epiphany
day, continues on the
next
day too. The newly-wed men are bathed by the best man at their wedding,
or the bride’s brother. Therefore, bathing can be seen as an element of
the post-nuptial rituals, thus ending the wide range of various marital
rituals. Bachelors bathe maidens on that day; as well as young man and
all having their name day today are also being bathed.
The traditional concept of Saint Ivan (John) as the patron saint of
“bestmanship” or “brotherhood” in general, determines the widely popular
visits by the newly-wed couple to their best man’s family. The
newly-weds bring along a ritual loaf of bread, some meat and wine, and a
common feast table is laid. That day the men perform the so-called
"Ivanovstvo" ritual – they become fellow-brothers and, as a vow, they
step in the glowing embers with their right bare foot. From this day on,
their wives become fellow-sisters.
In many
places, on the evening before Ivanovden, “after the water is blessed”,
men perform the rite of swearing brotherhood, also called “Ivanovstvo”
or “Aratlichestvo”. This is a ritual involving two or three men. They
step with bare right foot on glowing embers in order to be strong and to
care for each other. Then the sorcerer gives them to drink three times
from a vessel of red wine – a symbol of blood, which connects them
forever. Tied with one red belt the men break three ritual breads to
link forever three families in a holy union. Then the newly established
brotherhood is strengthened with three consecutive dances – “chepnya”,
performed by the women, “black pepper” – performed by the men of the
three families, and “dumb horo” – danced by all. In this way the three
men unite their three families and become brothers. Their wives become
sisters. Traditionally on this day people celebrating their name day,
the newly married and children are bathed for health and ritual bonding
with the family. It is believed that the water on this day has apart
from purifying also a consecration power, as this is the day of
brotherhood. In some villages they bathe the sons -in-law.
Traditional Wedding Season
Mid-winter time is the most celebrated wedding season in Bulgarian
traditions, beginning on 7 January, Saint John’s feast day, and ending
on the Sunday before Lent. The length of the wedding season could vary
from two to three months, depending on the variable dates Easter and
Shrovetide fall on. The apportioned period, though varying in length,
is sufficient to carry out in essence and imagery plentiful folk
rituals, attached to wedding traditions. Each point in any ritual has
its poetic image in accompanying songs, ritualized dialogues and
blessings.
Before any open talk about
marriage ever begins, the event must be
approached by way of poetic hints and symbolic images. A son would,
with a great dose of discretion, begin to prompt his parents as to the
girl he’s chosen to make his bride. If the parents should give their
approval, then a pair of matchmakers would be sent out on a mission to
approach the girl’s parents to see how the land lies. The matchmakers
would approach the subject of asking for the hand of the girl in a
very round about way- they must know for sure, on bidding goodbye to
the hosts, whether they would agree to the marriage or turn the young
man down. The girl’s parents too wouldn’t be frank and open, even if
they like greatly their prospective son in law. And so the first
exchange would sound very much like a riddle where the would be bride
and bridegroom are referred to as the characters in some parable.”
We’ve heard you have a lady-falcon and that our own falcon has been
making circles round her. We’ve come to catch her, if possible”, the
matchmakers would thus advise the girl’s parents they are here to do
marriage business. The girl’s father would reply in a similar manner.”
If you have the appropriate snooze, then go ahead and catch her, we’ll
not stand in your way. If she is out there flying in the sky she’s no
longer ours.” In other cases, matchmaking could revert to
more-down-to-earth stories from the rural scene- the matchmakers would
pretend to be tradesmen,
come
to buy high-quality wine and a heifer off the host. However, hunting
images seem to be the most employed. ”I have a son, a grey falcon, you have a girl- a dainty partridge, let’s
get them married”, the boy’s mother says to the girl’s mother while
they are kneading the ritual wedding loaves of bread.
A great number of plant images are taken on board
concerning the bride and the bridegroom. The bride is described now as
a fertile grapevine, now as a prickly blackberry bush high in the
mountain. Traditionally the bride would, in wedding songs, be pictured
as a sprig of fragrant basil, growing up in brothers’ courtyards,
comforted in a mother’s embrace and on father’s lap. The bridegroom is
the one to come and pick off the basil sprig. By tradition the bride
would be expected to move to live with her new in-laws. This comes to
explain why, more often than not, she would be described in folk songs
as a willowy fir tree which the bridegroom pulls out and re-plants in
his father’s courtyard. In certain songs the bridegroom is depicted as
a fearsome dragon which speaks to the fir tree:” Mind you, you grow up
well, we’re going to fall in love one day!” The most popular wedding
song, sung at wedding parties even nowadays, is entitled” A wailing
fir tree” portrays the separation of the bride from her parents and
the home she grew up in. The simile of the wailing and bending fir
tree is meant to cover up the profound poignancy of the moment and her
unspoken resentment of the new facts of her life, i.e. that she would
be expected to look up to and bow to only her new in-laws.
There is a Bulgarian folk song where a star shimmers and
twinkles over the girl’s beloved courtyard of her parents home or over
the wedding feast. To set the record straight, this is not a heavenly
star- it is the bride herself. In another story the newlyweds arrive
to their new home, while “a pair of suns, a pair of moons” rises over
the place. Meanwhile two fogs drop over the girl’s parent’s home, two
showers of rain fall over it, two winds come to tear down on the
parental home, symbolizing the double sadness of the girl’s parents
over the irretrievably lost daughter. In Bulgarian folk culture the
sun is celebrated as the ultimate source of life, the moon and the
stars as its siblings. The host of heavenly images adds not only
lustre to the newlyweds, they are also the signs of a new life, a new
universe, which creates the marriage alliance between two hearts and
minds.
Stolen bride: a bygone wedding ritual
In
the context of present-day habits and ways the stealing of a bride may
appear to be a rather strange practice. How come that in bygone times
the moral code allowed a young man to steal a bride and take her to
his house forcefully with the purpose of marriage?
Well,
it seems that the community believed that the bride herself wanting to
be stolen.
Everybody
had seen the girl flirting with the young bloke, the would-be
“kidnapper”, quite publicly. Traditionally parents often ignored the
romantic choice of their children, opting for the much safer marriage
of convenience. So, the rejected young candidate had to turn his back
on conventions to achieve his aim. His own friends and the girl’s
friends too, would often offer support. They all allied to help him
succeed. Girls on the kidnapper’s side would organize a working bee in
one of the village’s remote houses and invite the bride. While leaving
the bee, the young guy would take his sweetheart with him, to his
home. Well, the girl had to put up some resistance, shouting and even
crying. The “accident” was noisy enough for the whole village to hear,
but nobody intervened. And, by the way a proverb goes, that resistance
was put up only ostensibly, for the sake of decorum. In his brilliant
novel “Before I was Born and Thereafter”, Bulgarian writer Ivailo
Petrov told such a story. It is about two kidnappers stealing two
brides from the same working bee, who end up confusing the girls. With
this impossible predicament on their hands, the families of the
kidnappers engage in secret midnight talks in a bid to correct the
mistake, and swap back the girls.
One of Bulgaria’s most distinguished story-tellers of
the second half of the 20th century, Nikolay Haytov wrote a story
about stealing a bride, “Mannish Times”, which was successfully filmed
later. In this story however things take a dramatic turn rather than a
comic one. The conspirators keep their plan secret, and the parents of
the stolen bride learn about the kidnapping only afterwards. The
brothers and other male relatives of the girl go after them. They have
to overtake them and reclaim the bride saving her from disgrace.
According to common law, the father of the bride had to go to the
boy’s home and take his daughter back, if, however, she explicitly
said she wanted to return. This however, happened only seldom. Public
opinion favoured strongly the male side in kidnappings, as everybody
believed that girls often started flirting giving young guys a rope of
sand. If the girl had spent the night in the young man’s house, she
stood no chances altogether of being reclaimed by her family. A stolen
bride who later returned to her home falls from grace and could only
marry a guy from another village.
Ivanovden is a traditional folk festival, part of the rich in
festivities cycle around Christmas and New Year. Essential for that
day is the ritual involving water - the ritual
bathing
for good health's sake performed on Yordanovden/Epiphany day,
continues on the next day too. The newly-wed men are bathed by the
best man at their wedding, or the bride's brother. Therefore, bathing
can be seen as an element of the post-nuptial rituals, thus ending the
wide range of various marital rituals. Bachelors bathe maidens on that
day; as well as young man and all having their name day today are also
being bathed.
The traditional concept of Saint Ivan (John) as the patron saint of
best-man-ship or brotherhood in general, determines the widely popular
visits by the newly-wed couple to their best man's family. The
newly-weds bring along a ritual loaf of bread, some meat and wine, and
a common feast table is laid. That day the men perform the so-called
"Ivanovstvo" ritual - they become fellow-brothers and, as a vow, they
step in the glowing embers with their right bare foot. From this day
on, their wives become fellow-sisters.
On this holiday
the ritual bathing from Saint Jordan's Day continues. All over the
place the godfather or the brother-in-law baths the young couple. The
lads go round the houses and bath the people celebrating their name
day, the lasses and the young men. If a person does not want to be
bathed, he or she can redeem himself or herself.
In folk beliefs Saint John is protector of the godfather and
brotherhood. This is the reason why families stay with their
godfathers on this day. On Saint John Day disguised groups of people
from the New Year's Day cease going around.
In some places carol singers take the Tsar away to the riverbank
and bath him. Then he stands treat and the men disguise as bears,
bride, Negroes, etc. After the treat all people play a folk holiday
dance with which the Christmas festive cycle is put to an end.
Church Holiday: It is celebrated in honour of John the Baptist
who points at Jesus as the messenger of God. John the Baptist is
called the Forerunner because he predicts Jesus' coming on earth.
Ritual Table: dried fruit compote, pie with cheese, boiled
wheat, beans, black pudding, baked flat sausage, pig's ribs with
cabbage.
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PEACE HAVENS of BULGARIA
