Ritual food is an integral part of the Bulgarian ritual system. In the calendar of a Bulgarian village more than a century ago, food with meat was rarely consumed. People usually ate meat 4-5 times a year - on Christmas, St. George’s Day, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Fish was served for St. Nicholas Day. However, preparing a sacrificial meal (kurban) has become a distinctive feature for the entire Bulgarian ethnic territory, for all Bulgarian communities, wherever they are. 

The tradition has been preserved mostly for the sacrificial meal, which is given to people on the temple holiday of churches and monasteries. Among Orthodox Christians in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and some regions of Serbia and Northern Greece food is not given out, unlike the kurban among Muslims, but must be shared, i.e. the sacrificial meal is eaten while people are together.

"Sacrificial rituals in the Balkans date back to Early Antiquity, but the matrix of the kurban is in early Christianity - a table is laid after the liturgy and the community eats together. This table was called ‘agapia’ (love). Sharing the food from the kurban is a moment when both the living and the dead are at the table. And it is important that through the food the ‘gathering’ of the living and the dead creates a recurring tradition that is maintained every year," says Assoc. Prof. Petko Hristov from the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, who researches the tradition of the kurban in this country and among Bulgarian communities abroad.

"The participation in the ritual to this day shows that we are part of this local community. It is very interesting that 200 years ago, when after the Crimean War many compatriots fled to the steppes of today's Southern Ukraine - the Bulgarians and Gagauz in Bessarabia and in Ukraine and Moldova, they brought this kurban practice with them. Unlike the other Orthodox Christians around, they continued to prepare this sacrificial meal on the temple holiday and eat together. This has become a Bulgarian marker there, i.e. those who make kurban there are only Bulgarians and Gagauz."

"Kurban is the name of sacrificial offerings in the Old Testament and this is a word from the language of Christ, which is Aramaic," Assoc. Prof. Petko Hristov also told Radio Bulgaria. There are different ways and recipes for preparing the sacrificial meal. Usually a lamb or sheep is sacrificed during the autumn holidays. But it can also be a calf in the large sacrificial offerings in monasteries. The rule, however, is that people consume the food together, because this is an important part of the ritual process.

"This sacrifice is in the name of the patron saint. Every family had a saint who was the patron of the family and home, but also of the land they cultivated. There, in the field, there was usually a votive cross. In winter they perform the ritual for the saint at home, and in summer – they perform a sacrificial offering near the votive cross, inviting the entire village there."

The researcher of the ritual tradition gives an example that he personally observed - people from nine surrounding villages gathering for a sacrificial meal on Petrovski Krast peak near the town of Dragoman.

"The point is to demonstrate this local identity linked to the birthplace,” Assoc. Prof. Hristov says. “This can be seen to this day in abandoned villages in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Eastern Serbia. Even when there is not a single resident in the village, even if the village does not exist, people still gather again on the holiday of the local church and prepare kurban there. The next day, the people are no longer there, but through the tradition of the kurban they show that they are still a community, that they are still together."

Ritual food is not just about eating and drinking, as the meaning is much deeper and is about how the local community is constructed through this gathering and sacrifice every year, again and again: "Looking at the calendar cycle of the pre-modern Bulgarian village, there are not many occasions when families come together, including those that have scattered, and the kurban is one of the most important such moments," says Assoc. Prof. Hristov, who conducted his observations within the framework of the project "Diaspora in Motion", funded by the Scientific Research Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science.

Author: Gergana Mancheva

Publication in English: Alexander Markov

Photo: BTA, BGNES, Gergana Mancheva, kostinbrod.bg, bulgarianontheroad.com, bansko.bg