ЛАЗАРСКИ ОБИЧАИ И ОБРЕДИ
CUSTOMS AND RITES CONNECTED WITH ST. LAZARUS' DAY

Summary/Abstract: The paper is devoted to the customs and rites connected with St. Lazarus' Day (the Saturday before Palm Sunday), which are among the richest traditional Bulgarian customs from a ritual point of view. Ensuing from their relatively extensive scientific elucidation so far, the author has also defined her own research task, namely to present Bulgarian customs and rites devoted to St. Lazarus' day within definite temporal frameworks (approximately from the mid-19th to the early 20th century), in order to reveal their state as a stage in their general historical evolution, with their specific variants and modifications, ritual characteristics and functions. The scope of the paper has been purposefully restricted to cover only the actual customs connected with St. Lazarus' Day starting from the beginning of Lent, the ritual game buenets, the rituals and games on St. Lazarus' day and on Palm Sunday, the ritual called koumichene and the coustomary visiting of the girls performing the rite in the home of the koumitsa on. Easter Day. This covers the whole range of the custom and is sufficiently representative of the general cycle of spring customs of maidens. Different regional and more local variant of the rites devoted to St. Lazarus' Day are presented and the typical characteristics of the custom are sought in a national Bulgarian perspective in their concrete manifestations. Special attention is devoted to the place occupied by the customs connected with St. Lazarus' Day in the festive life of the Bulgarians during the period under review. Their importance in the total festive and ritual system is considered to be one of the prerequisites for their relative stability.

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