fbpx St. Basil's Day

St. Basil's Day

Name days and name names of St. Basil's Day:

Vasil, Vasilka, Vasko, Vaska, Valchan, Valcho, Veselin, Veselin, Vesela, Vasa, Valko, Vesco, Veselka, Veska

St. Basil's Day or Survaki, Surva is celebrated on January 1st (January 14th AD) and is a Bulgarian national holiday marking the beginning of the new calendar year. It is known in all Bulgarian ethnic territories.

Customs

In the folk calendar, St. Basil's Day is called Survaki because of the custom of survakan. According to an old Bulgarian tradition, children, between 5 and 12 years old, leave in the early hours of January 1 and go around the homes of relatives, neighbors and friends with survakniki in their hands to bless the hosts for health and prosperity. Survakniki were made from raw dogwood sticks, shaped like the letter F, which were decorated with wool, twisted white and red yarn, cowpeas, popcorn and dried fruit.

For good wishes: "Hard, harsh year, a red apple in a garden, a large bunch of grapes in the fields, a large bunch of grapes on a vine, a yellow mamul in the forest, a house full of children!" Alive and healthy for a year, for a year, for amen!”, the hosts gave them goodies, dried fruits, cows and small money. With their wishes, the survakars should drive away the unclean forces that roam during the "dirty" days and protect people from them. The roots of this health and fertility ritual have not been discovered. He is also unknown to other Orthodox Christians.

St. Basil's Day
A meal

Traditionally, on the night before St. Basil's Day, a festive table is arranged around which the whole family gathers. The dishes generally repeat those that are put on the Christmas dinner table, but there are also significant differences. Mandatory dishes to be present are pie and/or pogacha and pork. Banitsa, also called mill (Eastern Bulgaria); plakia, plakya (Elensko), zelnik (Kyustendilsko), bulgurnik (Haskovsko), etc., is the main dish present on the table. In different parts of Bulgaria, it is prepared in a different way, but everywhere dogwood branches with buds are placed in it, and each of them is called e.g. for health, luck, fertility, etc. and according to who has fallen to what, one guesses about his condition in the coming year.

In Loveshko, before the pie is broken, the farmer raises it high above his head so that the crops grow high, and dogwood branches are thrown into the cattle's feed.

 In Strandzha, a dogwood branch is placed in the middle of the pie, to which a silver pair is tied with a red thread, which is the luck of the house, and in Dobrudzha lucky branches are also called for laziness.

 The cake for St. Basil's Day is ritual bread, a large fresh (unleavened) pita, specially made for this evening. Somewhere (Panagyursko, etc.) the woman who has kneaded the pita before washing her hands of the dough, goes and touches every fruit tree in the garden and the beehives in order to have fertility during the year, and among the peasants in Strandzha, this pita is kneaded with sweetened hands.

 Silver vapor is placed throughout this pita. After the meal is set, the pita is broken into a certain number of pieces, each of which is named after a member of the family; there are also pieces about the house, livestock, God and/or the Holy Virgin. According to which piece the pair is in, it is determined who will be lucky during the year. In some places in Bulgaria (parts of Strandzhansko, Pirinsko, Sofia, Loveshko, etc.) pita is not made, but banitsa only. Pork dishes are mandatory at the festive table, which mainly distinguishes it from the Christmas dinner. Traditionally, it is pacha from the boiled head and/or feet of the pig slaughtered at Christmas. The presence of pork on the table determines the names dirty (ie "blessed") Christmas Eve (in Plovdiv), dirty incense (Strandja).

 This is the only case of ritual use of pork in Bulgarian spiritual culture – it is not sacrificed and sacrificed on any other occasion. In some settlements in Sofia, part of the meat, as well as part of the broth, is used to make the pie, called there mesnik; in some Sakarya villages (Dositeevo, etc.) pork knuckles are thrown away at night far from home, and in the village of Dolno Lukovo, Ivaylovgrad region, this pacha is considered a "pagan mandja" (related to the Dirty Days) and is called "karakanzel ” (i.e. Karakonjul).

 

Bulgarian holidays and customs
St. Basil's Day St. Basil's Day or Survaki, Surva is celebrated on January 1 (January 14
 

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