Restructuring of the Ritual Year in the Post-Socialist Countries

Abstract

The panel, under the title Restructuring of the Ritual Year in the post-socialist countries: European values, ideology and ethnography, was held in Stockholm in August 2010 at the 8th congress of ICEES (International Council for Central and East European Studies) and was dedicated to multifaceted processes in the festival year of former socialist countries. Three specially invited panelists (Ekaterina Anastasova, Bulgaria; Gabor Barna, Hungary; Arunas Vaicekauskas, Lithuania) made their presentations aiming to outline the major trends in the development of the corresponding national ritual years. The discussant Mare Koiva (Estonia) made some points regarding the relations between official and personal celebrations and summed up the meeting.1 The theme for this academic discussion continued the questions raised on a smaller scale in 2007 in Stražnice (Czech Republic) where the SIEF (Societe Internationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore) Ritual Year Working Group (President Dr Emily Lyle) held its annual conference under the general title The Ritual Year and History. Proceedings of this conference were published in the series of this working group’s publications (The Ritual Year and History (The Ritual Year 3). Ed. by Irina Sedakova. Stražnice, 2008). At this conference and in the proceedings the correlation between holidays (be them official – state, church, or non-official) and history was set up as a major research problem, especially for the countries of the former USSR and the socialist bloc. At the Stockholm panel we decided to concentrate on a certain historical period – that of the last two decades when the socialist regime gave way to another new period in the history of many East European countries. The change of epochs, regimes (and leading political and religious figures) results in new rituals, rethinking of heritage and inventing of traditions followed up by restructuring of the whole ritual year. Thus the official bank holidays, a single ritual or a part of one festivity (performance, folklore, magic object or art object), even individual celebrations are subject to historical transformations. The changes in the ritual year(s) in the Eastern Europe and former socialist republics of the USSR proved to be a very deep, active and on-going project.