ГЕРГЬОВДЕН
St. GEORGE'S DAY

Summary/Abstract: Gergyovden (St. George's Day) is characterized as an important spring holiday, coinciding with the most dynamic temporal transition in the life of Nature. It has a deep semantic content, as well as widespread and varied rituals, which determine its complex structure. The study covers the period from the late 19th to the middle of the 20th century and shows the regional variants of these festivities within the limits of the ethnic territory of the Bulgarians. One of the main circles connected with St. George's Day centres around the ritual taking of the sheep to their summer pasture, the ritual milking, the sacrificial practices devoted to that saint who has inherited the characteristic features of the patron-ancestor and of the Thracian Heroes, including the open-air feast usually associated with them. A second circle of rites and customs connected with St. George's Day is intended for guaranteeing health and well-being for the family, with fortune-telling about the forthcoming wedding feasts for the young people, which is directly related with the reproduction of the community in a biological and social plan. It is pointed out that the performing of these rites involves also a certain symbolization of social relations in the rural community. The rites and rituals connected with St. George's Day are shown to be a complex and multistage phenomenon with varied historical superpositions over the substrate. The reasons for the dying out of the customs based on paganism and for the reinterpretation of other customs, corresponding to the new conditions, are discussed. St. George's Day, combining characteristics of a village feast and professional holiday, has become today one of the most joyful spring holidays — Shepherds' Day.

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