Маскарадната обредност при българите в Бесарабия
Masquerade Rites and Rituals of the Bulgarians in Bessarabia

Summary/Abstract: In the traditional holidays calendar of the Bulgarian settlers in Bessarabia the question of the masquerades has not been the object of any special discussion in Bulgarian ethnography so far. In the early and later investigations, carried out on the traditional calendar holidays of this Bulgarian community, the masquerades have been either just mentioned in passing with the minimum of ethnographic description, or have been passed over owing to the lack of information about the existence of such type of rites and rituals among that population. The present article is an attempt at a historical review of the functioning of the masquerade rites and rituals among the Bulgarians in Bessarabia, whereby both the changes that have set in and the factors and causes engendering them have been brought to the fore. The results of the discussion of this range of problems will put into scientific circulation materials from a subject, relatively new and not studied so far.

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