Kurban in the Balkans

The collection of studies Kurban in the Balkans (Belgrade 2007) is the result of the international cooperation between the Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, and the Ethnographic Institute with Museum of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia. The volume gathers together a group of researchers from different branches of the humanities in an inter-disciplinary approach to post-modern anthropology, anthropological linguistics and the anthropology of folklore. The connecting thread of this joint work is personal experience of fieldwork in the modern-day Balkans, and the perception of tradition as a process rather than a state. The editors are, therefore, aware that this collection is a scholarly construct, an attempt to pin down insular practices of animal sacrifice, linked only by the fact that they take place in a common geographical location: the Balkans.
By reexamining the local (Balkan) knowledge of local (Balkan) occurrences, the collection Kurban in the Balkans becomes part of a series of editions published in the framework of the project “Ethnic and Social Stratification of the Balkans” by the Institute for Balkan Studies, which is dedicated to marginalised or urgent issues of anthropologically directed fieldwork: Hidden minorities in the Balkans, Belgrade 2004; The Bayash in the Balkans, Belgrade 2005; Refugee Kosovo, Kragujevac 2004; Life in the Enclave, Kragujevac 2005; Torac, Fieldwork Methodology, Novi Sad 2006.

 

CONTENTS

Note on spelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Editors’ introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 9

Andrey N. Sobolev: On Balkan names for the sacrificial animal
on St George’s Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Elena Marushiakova, Vesselin Popov: The vanished kurban. Modern
dimensions of the celebration of Kakava/H›drellez among
the Gypsies in Eastern Thrace (Turkey) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Sanja Zlatanović: The Roma of Vranje: kurban with five faces . . . . . . . . . .. 51

Svetlana Ćirković: Temporal dimensions of kurban for the deceased:
refugees from Kosovo and Metohija . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87

Katalin Kovalcsik: Gurbane as a representation of traditional identity
and culture in an Oltenian Rudar community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109

Annemarie Sorescu-Marinković: The gurban displaced: Bayash guest
workers in Paris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Biljana Sikimić: Gurban in the village of Grebenac: between participants’memory
and researchers’ construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Gerda Dalipaj: Kurban and its celebration in the Shpati Region in
the first half of the 20th century. A case study of local social
structure and identities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . 181

Rigels Halili: Kurban today among the Albanians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .197

Petko Hristov, Tsvetana Manova: The new ‘old’ kurban. A case study . . . .209

Margarita Karamihova: Kurban sacrificial offering for good health
at a ‘strange’place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . 231

Petko Hristov: Celebrating the abandoned village: the ritual process
in the post-socialist Balkans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . 245

Rachko Popov: Kurban sacrificial offerings on the feastdays of the
summertime saints in the calendar tradition of the Bulgarians . . . . . .. . . . 259

Vladimir Bocev: Kurban among the Macedonians . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . 269

Smiljana Djordjević: Dušno: blood sacrifice in the posthumous customs
of colonist Serbs in Omoljica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

About the authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . 299