Кумът като вредител и низов персонаж в българския юнашки епос
The Godfather as a Harmful and Low Figure in Bulgarian Epic Songs

Summary/Abstract: In contrast to the key role and importance attributed to the institution of godparenthood in Bulgarian customary law, Bulgarian epic songs reveal the godfather in a rather negative, derogatory and parodied way. In the folklore epics he is regularly shown as a coward, a treacherous evil-doer, and a cunning competitor to the bridegroom in the wedding procession. The article proposed here attempts to analyse this paradoxical incoincidence between the high status, ascribed to the godfather in the customary law, and the representations, which his figure receives in the folk epics. The various inversions of the godfather's status are viewed as predetermined by the specific mediating role he holds in the system of kinship relationships, and by the epic context, which encodes and interprets this role according to an internal epic logic.

• Details
• Contents