The ritual masking in Bulgarian\nlands comes from ancient times and is still actual today. The holyday Surova in\nCentral Western Bulgaria takes a special place amongst the traditional\nmasquerade games. It\nis performed every year on 13 and 14 January\n\u2013 the folk New Year (St Basil\u2019s day according\nto the old Julian church calendar). For the local settlement communities today\nSurova is the most anticipated feast of the year. The main core in it is the\nmasquerade ritual, through which a positive transition between the old and the New\nYear is realized. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ritual masking on the Surova feast\nis a living tradition in the settlements of Banishte, Batanovtsi, Begunovtsi,\nBela Voda, Berende, Bogdanov Dol, Velkovtsi, Viskyar, Vitanovtsi, Gabrov Dol, Gigintsi,\nGolemo Buchino, Gorna Vrabcha, Divotino, Dolna Sekirna, Divlya, Dolni Rakovets,\nDragichevo, Drugan, Elov Dol, Zemen, Zidartsi, Izvor, Kalishte, Kovachevtsi,\nKondofrey, Kosacha, Kopanitsa, Kosharevo, Kralev Dol, Leskovets, Lobosh,\nLyulin, Meshtitsa, Mureno, Nepraznentsi, Noevtsi, Peshtera, Priboy, Radomir,\nRakilovtsi, Rasnik, Rebro, Sadovik, Svetlya, Selishten Dol, Sirishtnik,\nSlakovtsi, Sopitsa, Stefanovo, Tsarkva, Chepino, Cherna Gora, Yardzhilovtsi. In many of those settlements the population has\nseriously decreased in number, but in the days around Surova they become lively\nagain and a center of unseen spectacle and beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The direct participants of this old\nbut live tradition are the masquerade groups, which are called \u201csurvakari<\/em>\u201d, \u201csurvashkarye<\/em>\u201d, \u201csirviskarye<\/em>\u201d,\n\u201cmechkarye<\/em>\u201d, \u201cstartsi<\/em>\u201d. Most of the masked participants are dressed in skins of\nwild and domestic animals with the fur turned outside, or with costumes from many-colored\ntextile fringes. Each of them is carrying a few dozens of bells and cowbells on\nhis waist, and a mask (local name \u2013 \u201clik<\/em>\u201d)\non his head. The mask is made of wood, stuffed parts of domestic animals,\nleather, horns, wings and feathers. The masks are zoomorphic and more rarely\nanthropomorphic. Amongst the multitude of masked men, mandatory characters with\nspecial roles are \u201cthe leader\u201d (bolyubasha<\/em>),\n\u201cthe newlyweds\u201d, \u201cthe wedding kin\u201d, \u201cthe priest\u201d, \u201cthe bear and the bear keeper\u201d.\nParticipants make their masks by themselves, hence each of them is a unique\npiece of applied art. In\nrecent decades in some villages there are artisans making masks through the\nwhole year for everyone willing to take part in the feast. The bells are made\nby blacksmiths and are attuned by the participants themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the evening on 13 January the survakari<\/em> go out to the center of the\nsettlement, light fires, dance around them, play around with the crowd, visit\nneighboring villages, welcome other masquerade groups, and everyone takes part\nin the chain dance \u2013 horo,<\/em> and has\nfun. Early in the morning on 14 January, the masked men gather again to walk\naround the village. As a rule, they visit every house and people interpret this as a wish for good\nhealth and well-being. In each house, \u201cthe priest\u201d\nweds \u201cthe newlyweds\u201d, \u201cthe bear mauls\npeople for good health\u201d and everyone else noisily dances and plays in the yard\naround. The hosts wait for them with love and impatience, welcome them with\ntraditional food, feed\nthem and generously gift them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Until the beginning of the 20th<\/sup>\ncentury, only young non-married men from the local community were wearing\nmasks, because the custom had initiation functions, connected with their future\nmarriage. Today men of all ages, women and children also wear masks. In some villages,\nthere are numerous children groups with some of the characters like those in\nthe groups of the adults. All of the survakari\n<\/em>participate willingly, as in tradition, like their predecessors thousands\nof years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every Surva <\/em>group has between 50 and 100 participants, so the masked men\non the Surova <\/em>folk feast on 13 and 14\nJanuary in the Pernik region are several thousand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After the feast, on their gatherings\nthe survakari, <\/em>knowing well the\nproblems of the village, decide how to spend the acquired funds and gifts.\nUsually they help in meeting the local community and the cultural house (chitalishte)\nneeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Based on the living masquerade\ntradition, in 1966 in the town of Pernik an International festival of\nmasquerade games was founded, which with its half-century history has no\nanalogue in Europe. The groups, which participate from Bulgaria and all over\nthe world, are always more than a hundred and the masked people \u2013 over 5000.\nEvery year in the last weekend of January Pernik welcomes hundreds of thousands\nof visitors, willing to enjoy together the glee and unmatched beauty of the\nmasquerade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The ritual masking in Bulgarian lands comes from ancient times and is still actual today. The holyday Surova in Central Western Bulgaria takes a special place amongst the traditional masquerade games. It is performed every year on 13 and 14 January \u2013 the folk New Year (St Basil\u2019s day according to the old Julian church […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1309,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1313,"href":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1312\/revisions\/1313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/survakari.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}