Народни песни на Гергьовден
Folk Songs on St. George’s Day

Summary/Abstract: N. Kaufman makes a survey of the folkloristic investigations on St. George’s Day. He has sought the place and the functions of St. George Day’s songs, their dialectal specificity. A special place he has devoted to the horo songs. He is of the opinion that in the past there existed rigid specific musical-dance features of these songs and later they were “washed away” and mixed with the horo songs of other genres. The author divides the songs representative for St. George’s Day into two types: 1) songs performed on an altogether horo on the square or late in the afternoon in different neighbourhoods; 2) songs performed during the preparation of the offering, round the table or during the preparation of ritual bread. The songs of the first type are more pliable to transformation, their melodies are related to horo-dances in a much faster tempo. The songs themselves are in a comparatively slow tempo, in not much variable metrums. The horo songs of the second group are not many in number, but show connections with archaic types of musical and dance thinking. In this group songs with lacking synchrony between the metrum of the melody and of the dance movements dominate. The actions accompanying them are with archaic symbolism, the performers are separated according to their sex. The texts of songs are rigidly connected with the ritual actions which they accompany at the moment. The author deals with the interbreeding of songs on St. George’s Day with the songs on Krastonoshe and on Peperuda (rain rites); he also deals with the existence of the maiden’s rite “chanting of bunches” on St. George’s Day. The connections of St. George’s Day with Easter and with the funeral and the memorial rites are shown, as well as the presence of lamentations on St. George’s Day.

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