The lifestyle and culture of the Bulgarian

The lifestyle and culture of the Bulgarian nation had formed for thousands of years. It is located on the crossroad between Europe and Asia, and the lands of Bulgaria have been populated since antiquity. The Thracians, Illyrians and Greeks were those from whom the Slavs and the ancient Bulgarians inherited high antique culture. All peoples who resided on these lands – Thracians, Romans, Slavs, Bulgarians – left their mark in the global cultural treasury. It is not accidental that the first European civilization was born here. Some of the most famous treasures in the whole world are the treasure of the Varna necropolis, which was the oldest processed gold, ever found in the entire world; the Thracian tombs and sanctuaries in Kazanlak, Sveshtari, Starosel, Aleksandrovo, Perperikon, Tatul; the multiple golden treasures – the Panagyurishte, Valchitran, Rogozen treasure, etc. The remains of the Thracian, Hellenistic and Roman culture are multiple. In the dozens of discovered tombs the Thracians had left us unique high artistic models of the material and spiritual culture. Entire city complexes had been found – Augusta Trayana, Trimontium, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Pautalia, Akre, Mesemvria, Apolonia, Serdika and many others. The traditions, festivals, customs, rituals, preserved through the living memory of Bulgarians, are evidences of the great spirituality, lifestyle and culture of the Bulgarian people during the centuries.

The Bulgarian customs are rooted in antiquity and they are tightly entwined in the history and Christian religion. Dancing on live coals is a very old Bulgarian ritual, which was practiced in a few villages in the Balkan Mountain. The ritual in its authentic form is performed on the day of St. Konstantin and St. Helena – 21 May or 3 June (in the old calendar). Fire dancers prepare for their dance by staying the whole locked in a chapel, keeping the icons of St. Konstantin and St. Helena, and listening to drums and bagpipes, performing the special fire dancing melody, after which they often fall into trance. In the evening they perform their special dance on live coals. During their dance they always carry in their two hands an icon of St. Konstantin and St. Helena. The interesting thing is that they never get hurt or burn their feet.

“Mummers” is another local tradition, which has its analogs in other societies in the world. The Mummer games are special custom rituals, conducted most often at the New Year’s Eve and Shrovetide. They are only performed by men, who dress up with special masks and costumes, preliminarily made by each of the participants. With mummers and their ritual dance people chase away bad spirits and demons in the beginning of every year, in order to go on cleansed and charged with positive energy.

“Laduvane” is another interesting ritual, which is performed on the New Year’s Eve, George’s Day, Midsummer’s Eve and St. Lazar’s Day. At this ritual maidens predict their future in marriage and the people to whom they will get married. They turn to the goddess Lada, the goddess of love and family life, to ask her about their future husbands.

“Lazaruvane” is a ritual, which is related to coming of spring. It is conducted on St. Lazar’s Day, 8 days before Easter. The date of the celebration varies, but it is always on Saturday, a day before the celebration of Palm Sunday. On this day willow branches are picked, by which the entrance doors of houses are decorated on the following day. Then the young maidens in the villages pick flowers, by which they wreathe garlands on Palm Sunday. On Saturday maidens gather in the home of one of them and they dress themselves in festive clothes, decorated with flowers and branches. After that they walk through the village from house to house and bless people for health and rich harvest. Hosts receive them and give them small gifts. Probably the most important symbol of Bulgaria is the ritual of making and giving martenitsas for health and happiness in the beginning of March. For Bulgarians this is a symbol of the new beginning, health and rich harvest.

Especially well respected in Bulgaria are the traditions related to the circle of life – birth, christening, wedding and funeral. The name days are also respected in the country, as the most famous ones among them are St. John’s day, St. George’s Day and St. Dimitar’s Day.

The greatest holidays, honored by Bulgarians, are undoubtedly Christmas and Easter – this is the time when the entire family gathers, a number of generations celebrate together, united by the feeling of belonging to the healthy Bulgarian family. Especially highly honored are also the first Sunday before Lent, the second Sunday before Lent, Mothering Day, All Soul’s Day and Lent.

Hiking all over the country, tourists will get acquainted with various rituals and customs, many of which are typical only for specific regions in Bulgaria.

Rose is the symbol of Bulgaria. Rose picking, which was once a real ritual, has presently turned into a tourist attraction. Rose picking is one of the oldest and traditional customs of Bulgarians. Carpets from the age of Revival are pieces of art. The basic centers of carpet making are Kotel, Chiprovtsi and Samokov. The people have also preserved the cultural diversity in the popular customs and songs, as well as in the popular crafts.

There are a number of architectural reserves in the country, which preserve the unique Bulgarian architecture from the age of Revival (the 18th – 19th century) – Koprivshtitsa, Tryavna, Bozhentsi, Zheravna, Bansko, Melnik, etc. In some of the ethnographic complexes (Etara, Zlatograd, the Old Dobrich, etc.) you can get acquainted with Bulgarian lifestyle and the mastery of crafts, which continue making their articles according to old technologies, inherited from our ancestors.

During the Bulgarian Revival the monasteries formed as centers of artistic and educational activity. Many monasteries are preserved on the territory of the country – Rila Monastery, Bachkovo Monastery, Troyan Monastery, Zemen Monastery, Glozhene Monastery, Kilifarevo Monastery, Shipchenski Monastery, etc. Our country is also famous for the established national artistic schools of icon painting and wood carving. The most famous of them are the Samokov, Tryavna and Bansko Schools.

The Bulgarian national costume is an irreversible part of the Bulgarian lifestyle and culture. With time it interweaved Thracian, Slavonic and ancient Bulgarian motives. The main cloth is a white shirt with long sleeves. Top clothes, various in shape, material and decoration are dressed over it. There are 4 types of national female costumes: one-apron, two-apron, tunic and sayana, and there are 2 types of national male costumes: white-shirt and black-shirt. Each ethnographic area (Dobrich, Pirin, Rhodope, Northern, Thracian and Sofia) has its own typical workday, holiday and wedding costume.

Important parts of the Bulgarian culture are also folklore music, folklore songs and the Bulgarian national dances (horo). Various typical instruments are used for performing Bulgarian national music. Some of those are fiddle, mandolin, flute, bagpipe, pipe, dvoyanka (double pipe), drum and taranbuka. Bulgarian folklore songs are transferred orally from generation to generation. The ensembles “Cosmic Voices”, “The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices” and the folklore ensemble “Pirin” are globally famous. The Bulgarian traditional dances are some of the most vivid forms of artistic presentations of Bulgarian people. Most often they are performed by a group of people, caught palm to palm in a closed or open circle, semicircle, twisted form or in a straight line. At the same time the participants perform similar movements, gestures and steps in a specific melody (horo). Depending on the rhythm and the steps, there are a number of types of horo: straight horo, rachenitsa, paydushko horo and irregular horo.

The museums in Bulgaria preserve treasuries of domestic, cultural and military articles; statues, burial steles and monuments, masks, mosaics and small statuettes of ancient gods and many other precious exponents.

Bulgarians inherited this culture, enriched it with their millennial experience, preserved it and continued to develop it to the present day. In the more contemporary times the Bulgarian culture is proud of its achievements in the area of literature, arts, music and architecture. A proof of them is the rich cultural calendar, which includes international and national children festivals, as well as gatherings, cultural events, expositions, etc.