ROSES, TOMATO CHUTNEY AND RISING SUN: ON VISIBILITY OF THREE FESTIVALS IN BULGARIA

Abstract

Objectives. This study focuses on the visibility of three local festivals in Bulgaria: Rose Festival in Kazanlak, July Morning at Kamen bryag and the Festival of Peppers, Tomatoes, Traditional Foods, and Crafts in Kurtovo Konare. The research on festive visibility has been deconstructed to three components of analysis: story, local imagery and photogenicity (colors, photographic visuals). Material and methods. These include participant observations, in-depth interviews, analysis of visuals (both website and media ones as well as photographs, taken by the researcher), and desktop research of scientific literature and online media outlets. Results. The researcher conducted fieldwork as participant observer, interviewer, photographer, and visual analyst of festive events. It was discovered that the Rose Festival promotes pink symbols as prevalent elements of the cultural-historical branding, encompassing Thracian heritage and rose farming. July Morning has been commodified towards fragmented celebrations happening in the peripheral moment of 30th June and 1st July. This has obscured the sense of community and the sense of place affiliated with the initial phenomenon. Local farmers’ aesthetics and diligence play a central role in the publicity of Kurtovo Konare Fest: their agrarian knowledge and willpower to actively participate in social life, upskill and exchange know-how with fellow famers. Conclusions. The three local celebrations represent collections of sensations, colors, imagined experiences, memories, visitor’s expectations, sense of community and awoken sense of place. The optics of the Rose Festival in Kazanlak comprises of contrasting messages: the pink aesthetics is representing the beauty and the traditional means of local livelihood; however, the flashy pink ambience somewhat mutes the demands of the rose farmers, seen in the pieces of critical journalism. July Morning Festival has been largely deterritorialized from its original place to dispersed celebrations which do not recur the initial code of conduct. In the locality of Kamen bryag, however, the scent of wild nature and sea salt still reunites a few generations of like-minded people, mostly admirers of rock music and camping. The heart of the optics of Kurtovo Konare Fest are the village producers, eager to raise voices in defense of their production and generate a distinctive local ethos. Keywords: local festivals, story, visibility, local imagery, photogenicity.