Трънският „светьц" - родов или семеен празник
The Trun "Svetuts" (Saint) - A Clan or Family Holiday

Summary/Abstract: The article dwells on one of the forms of the cult interpretation of the patrilineage marital model among the Bulgarians - a variant of the holidays, clan holidays in type, characteristic of all Southern Slavs. The analysis is based on materials personally collected by the author in the village of Nassalevtsi, Trim region (Central Western Bulgaria) on the rituals and the real social regulative role of the "svetuts" holiday - i.e. the celebration honouring a common Christian saint, the patron of all families of a common patrilineage. An attempt has been made to find the place of the multifamily unification of the Trun region into a Sunday household, referred to as a family, bringing together three or four generations of family couples of direct patrilineage, based on patrilineage and patronymic, as one of the forms of extended family households of the Southerns Slavs in the Balkans of the patrilineage type. Subject to analysis are both the components of the ritual complext itself, performed on the day of a "svetuts". regardless of the specific saint who is the patron of the clan, and to whom it had been dedicated, as well as the actual normative functions of the holiday within the framework of the rural community. The ritual actions bear the imprint of the patriarchal cult Tor the forefathers-protectors, and of reverence for the dead. The joint celebration of the family patron by all multifamily households, originating from a common forefather and following strictly the patrilineage genealogical principles, which is characteristic of the "svetuts" holiday of the Trun region, makes it possisble to outline the exogamous circle of relations by kinship and by marriage. In the villages of the Trun region, which have preserved that marital exogamous circle in their tradition by keeping the memory of the kinship genealogical unity, no marriages are allowed between members of 5-6 generations of family couples related on the direct male side. The traditional forms of family rituals like the "svetuts" holiday were also used in the 1930s for the establishment of new unifications based on family relations and resting on the ritual kinship on the line of the godparents, who in the Bulgarian tradition, serve as best man and bride's maid during the marriage ritual.

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