Customs and Rituals Common to the Peoples of South-Eastern Europe
Customs and Rituals Common to the Peoples of South-Eastern Europe

Author(s): Manolis G. Varvounis
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences, Customs / Folklore, Culture and social structure
Published by: Великотърновски университет „Св. св. Кирил и Методий”
Keywords: customs; rituals; Southeastern Europe; Balkan folk culture; comparative folklore; ritual performances
Summary/Abstract: This paper examines some of the customs and rituals of the annual holiday cycle that are prevalent among the peoples of Southeastern Europe. These are mainly customs related to agricultural and pastoral communities, and especially to the magical and ritualistic effort to achieve euphoria, fertility and good harvest. The economic, social and cultural conditions that contributed to their spread to the peoples of the region, their local variations and their adaptations to the cultural tradition of each people, and their progress from traditional to popular culture, i.e. their forms and survivals, are examined today, in the age of modernity. The forms of their reproduction and management today, in the context of folklore and all kinds of tourist farms, are also examined, as well as the tendency of their replacement by modern ritual forms.

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