Цветок «Петров крест» (Lilium martagon L.) в контексте культа св. Ивана Рильского в регионе города Самоков, Болгария
The Flower “Petrov Krast” [Peter’s Cross] (Lilium Martagon L.) in the Context of the Cult of St. Ivan of Rila in Samokov Region, Bulgaria

Summary/Abstract: St. Ivan of Rila (c. 876–946) is a Bulgarian hermit and saintly patron of the Bulgarian people. Today, its holy relics repose in the Rila Monastery (Bulgaria) but for several centuries they were translated in various places, including in distant lands, such as the Hungarian capital of Gran (Esztergom). The last translation of his relics was made in 1469 from Tsarevgrad Tarnovo – the capital of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom, to the Rila Monastery (located in the central part of Rila Mountain, Bulgaria). This translation of St. John’s relics was described by Vladislav the Grammarian in the so-called “Story of the Translation of St. Ivan’s relics to the Rila Monastery”. As the writer did not participate in this procession himself, the exact route of St. Ivan of Rila’s relics’ translation remains unclear to scholars today. The present paper makes an attempt to trace back the route of the relics’ translation in the region of the town of Samokov (located in the northern foots of Rila Mountain) concentrating on the possessive adjective Petrov derived from the name Peter and connected to the feast of SS Peter and Paul and to the cult of St. Peter, King of the Bulgarians. The emphasis in the research is placed on the flower „Petrov Krast” [Peter’s Cross] (Lilium martagon L.), which grows on the slopes of Rila Mountain and in the yards in the villages in Samokov region. In 2006 during the fieldwork of Ongal Association in Dospei, a neighborhood of the village of Govedartsi (Samokov region), a folk belief for Lilium margaton L. was recorded by several interviewees. The flower was viewed as a mythological prototype of the First People from the time of the creation of the world. This belief as well as the name of the flower could be seen as connected ‒ in a mutually stabilizing link ‒ to other proper names containing the possessive adjective Petrov [Peter’s] and to the objects which these names denote and which are located in the northern slopes of Samokov region, viz. the sacred place “Petrova Tsarkva” [Peter’s Church] named after St. Peter, King of the Bulgarians, and the parish churches in Samokov region dedicated to SS Peter and Paul. All these names and dedications considered as a whole, contributed to the processes of construction and (pre)semantisation of the religious and ethnocultural space of the Bulgarians in the 15th century, the first century of the Ottoman rule of the Bulgarian lands. The cult of St. Ivan of Rila had a leading place in this this reciprocating ethno-religious and ideological – political movement.

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