Kukeri

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Kukeri from the Karlovo region

Kukeri ( Bulgarian кукери ; Singular Kuker , кукер) is a traditional game of animal-shaped mask dancers in Bulgaria , which is held in winter or spring at regionally different times between New Year and Lent .

background

Kukeri is an outdoor ritual game in the south and south-east of Bulgaria, in which the male actors, costumed and masked in animal form, represent the expulsion of evil spirits, scenes from everyday domestic life and agriculture, to the fall of the old and the beginning of to illustrate the new year and to ask for fertility and bountiful crops. It has its origins in pre-Christian times and is closely related to agricultural use.

The masks that are used in the rituals are made of goat skin and mostly have a wooden construction that makes the wearer appear larger. These are full-body masks, which are usually intertwined with long hair. Faces, if any, are modeled on animals such as goats and sheep. But often the long hair falls where the face is. The costumes have two to four cowbells that make noises when moving. The porters are called Kuker. All other participants can take part in the festivities in normal clothing as well as in traditional clothing. There are also other roles, such as the Bulka (bride), the Zet (son-in-law) and the Hajji. The female roles are also mostly played by men. The Kuker carry a piece of wood called “falos”, with which childless women are to be touched.

The process follows certain rules, which can, however, differ from village to village. Usually the Kuker, mostly almost exclusively men, meet in the morning in the center of the village or at the house of the organizer. The disguised people dance horo , a Bulgarian tap dance . The dance begins in the square and then spreads to the whole village, with participants dancing to simple rhythms. The actors are accompanied by musicians with the cylinder drum Tapan and the cone oboe Zurla or the bagpipe Gajda . The musicians play almost the entire time, up to six hours.

Then the Kuker visit the individual houses of the village and express wishes and blessings. Various rituals are used, such as an exhibition fight with the men of the house or a disguised priest sprinkling holy water in the house. Attempts can also be made to steal the bride of the house, which in turn other Kukeri want to prevent. Depending on their desire or religious affiliation, the people in the house then take part in the further singsong and dance.

After visiting the houses, the Kuker meet again at the square where the ritual continues with dancing and singing. Subsequently, some agricultural movements are pantomiming.

The Kuker are rewarded with donations and gifts, in addition to money, agricultural products are also used here. At the end there is a collective banquet.

The entire ritual can take up to 20 hours. However, there are also shorter versions that are mainly performed at public festivals.

Originally the game was mainly performed during Lent , but this connection is no longer relevant today. Instead, it now often takes place on a weekend in February or early March, mostly in the transition from winter to spring. It is to be distinguished from Survakari , a similar ritual at the turn of the year in the south of Sofia and in the west of Bulgaria. Furthermore, Kukeri can also be part of a folk festival or be presented as a kind of play in an amateur theater.

Similar staged dances that go back to pre-Christian cult practice are also performed in other parts of Southeast Europe . In Romania the game is called Capra (Romanian " goat "), the main character acts with a goat mask.

Origin and history

The exact origin of the ritual is unclear. Most sources point to Thracian , Greek or Slavic traditions. This is how some researchers, especially in the 1960s, see the origin in the Dionysian games in ancient Greece.

In 1963, however, Petur Petrov took the view that the Kukeri was a mixture of Slavic and Thracian cultures.

In the 1980s and 1990s, science again took the view that it was primarily the Thracian culture that had an influence on the creation of the kukeri.

However, it can be assumed that a lot has been changed from the original tradition and that it was therefore a hybrid form. Bulgaria was under foreign rule for many years, so that the Ottoman culture also had its influence on the tradition. Some of the disguises have Turkish names and Arabic characters appear in some rituals.

When Bulgaria became the People's Republic of Bulgaria in 1944 and was under communist rule, Kukeri enjoyed a great revival. The communists supported the identity-building tradition and also supported Kukeri financially by providing the community centers ("Chitalishte") with additional funds for costumes and the implementation of the festivities. It was hoped that this would create a demarcation from Western culture and a stronger patriotism that would benefit socialism. After the fall of communism in the 1990s, the Kukeri tradition died out, at least in its form at the time. The community centers closed so no organization was available to prepare. The masks and costumes were also lost. Kukeri became a local phenomenon again, organized by the village communities and no longer had the character of identity that it had in the middle of the 20th century.

Comparable customs at the turn of the year in spring, when animal masks are used, include Busójárás among the Šokci in southern Hungary, Percht in the Alpine region and Vijanera in Cantabria , northern Spain.

Cultural acquisitions

Swiss vote against an anti-EU initiative, Zurich 2014

In the German film Toni Erdmann with Peter Simonischek and Sandra Hüller , the protagonist wears a Kukeri disguise in a key scene. The panel is now part of the Berlin Museum for Film and Television . The Swedish-German industrial metal band Lindemann around Rammstein singer Till Lindemann and Peterätgren used a Kukeri mask for their 2015 video for Fish On .

In 2014, the Society for Open & Modern Switzerland (GomS) put up a poster by the artist Ana Roldán showing a Kukeri in the vote against the SVP initiative against mass immigration . The figure of the "wild man" should show that there are similar folk customs as in Switzerland in Bulgaria and in other European countries, that there are generally beautiful traditions in other countries as well.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Kukeri  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Gerald W. Creed: Constituted through Conflict: Images of Community (And Nation) in Bulgarian Rural Ritual . In: American Anthropological Association (Ed.): American Anthropologist . 106, no. 1 (March 2004), pp. 56-70 , JSTOR : 3567442 .
  2. ↑ a b c Kalina Bakalova: Kukeri: ritual performances in Bulgaria. (PhD dissertation) University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 2009
  3. ↑ Kukeri - Part of the Living Heritage of Bulgaria • Public Republic. Retrieved November 10, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b c Kalina Bakalova: Kukeri: ritual performances in Bulgaria. (PhD dissertation) University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 2009. pp. 8-12
  5. ↑ Kalina Bakalova: Kukeri: ritual performances in Bulgaria. (PhD dissertation) University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 2009. P. 78f
  6. ^ Dpa: Shaggy costume from "Toni Erdmann" now in the museum. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. May 16, 2018, accessed August 14, 2020 .
  7. ^ Kukeri in a Music Video . In: Masks & Monsters . October 26, 2015 ( wordpress.com [accessed November 10, 2018]).
  8. ↑ GomS posters: Wilder Mann. Society of Open & Modern Switzerland (accessed on January 23, 2020)