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FESTIVALS AND
PUBLIC HOLIDAYS |
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Romanian festivals fall into four groups: those linked to the
Orthodox religion, with its twelve Great Feasts and hosts of lesser
festivals; those marking events such as marriage, birth and death; those
marking stages in the agricultural cycle; and secular anniversaries.
While the last are national holidays, and never change their date, other
festivals are less predictable. The Orthodox Easter is a moveable feast
and still reckoned according to the Julian calendar rather than the
Gregorian calendar that's used in the West and for secular purposes in
Romania. Rural festivals take place on a particular day of a month, the
actual date varying from year to year, and they can also be advanced or
delayed depending on the progress of the crops. The place to check dates
is the cultural office in the county prefecture.
Festivals specific to particular places are listed at the appropriate
point in the guide; we've given an overview here
Winter festivals
Christmas ( Craciun ) and New Year ( Revelion ) celebrations are spread
over the period from December 24 to January 7, and preparations often
begin as early as December 6 (St Nicholas' Day) while on December 20,
pigs are slaughtered for the forthcoming feasts. Groups of youths and
children meet to prepare the festival costumes and masks, and to
rehearse the colinde - allegorical songs wishing good health and
prosperity for the coming year that are sung outside each household on
Christmas Eve ( Ajun ), when the faithful exchange pastries called turte
.
In Moldavia and Bucovina , processions follow the Capra (Goat), a
costumed dancer whose mask has a moveable lower jaw which he clacks in
time with the music (to represent the death pangs of the old year). The
masked carnival on December 27 in the Maramures town of Sighet has
similar shamanistic origins.
On New Year's Eve , groups of plugarasi pull a plough festooned with
green leaves from house to house in rural areas, cutting a symbolic
furrow in each yard while a doina calling for good health and fecundity
is recited, accompanied in Transylvania by carolling, for example at
Arpas and Sercaia in Brasov county. In Tudora and the villages around
Suceava, and in Maramures, New Year's greetings are delivered by the
buhai , a friction drum which imitates the bellowing of a bull when
horse hair is drawn through the hole in a membrane. This accompanies the
Plugusor , a mime play featuring people masked as goats, little horses
and bears.
Although the official holidays end on January 2, villagers may keep
celebrating through to Epiphany ( Boboteaza ) on the 6th, when water is
blessed in church and taken home in bottles for medicinal purposes, and
horse races are staged in areas like the Wallachian plain and Dobrogea.
The Hutuls and Lipovani , who follow the Julian calendar, celebrate
Christmas on January 6. The final celebration in January is Three
Hierarchs' Day on the 30th, celebrated with great pomp in Iasi 's Trei
Ierarhi Church, which is dedicated to the saintly trio.
A review of Gorj county's folk ensembles and miners' brass bands - the
Izvoare fermecate or "Enchanted Water Springs" - is held on the third
Sunday of February in Târgu Jiu , winter conditions permitting. March is
the time of Lent, and though few Romanians are nowadays devout enough to
observe the fast, some rural folk still bake twisted loaves - colaci -
on March 9, Forty Saints' Day, and take them to the village church to be
blessed and distributed as alms. On one weekend during the month (decided
at fairly short notice) an early spring festival, the Kiss Fair, takes
place at Halmagiu , providing the opportunity for villagers from the
Apuseni and Banat regions to socialize and trade crafts.
Easter and fertility festivals
With the onset of spring in April and May , agricultural work begins in
earnest, roughly coinciding with Easter, the holiest festival of the
Christian year. Urbanization and collectivization have both affected the
nature of spring festivals , so that Resita's Alaiul primaverii features
firefighters and engineers as well as folklore ensembles in its parade
of floats (first week in April). Village festivals have tended to
conglomerate, so that perhaps a dozen smallish fetes have been replaced
by a single large event drawing participants and visitors from across
the region - for example, the Florile Oltului (Flowers of the Olt) at
Avrig on the second Sunday of April, attended by dozens of communities
around Sibiu, some of whom wear the traditional Saxon jewellery of
velvet and paste. Similarly, the Girl Fair at Gurghiu , on the second
Sunday in May, is an occasion for villagers from the Gurghiul, Beica and
Mures valleys to make merry. For pomp and crowds on a larger scale, the
Pageant of the Juni is held in Brasov on the first Sunday of May.
Though its exact dates vary, the Orthodox Easter (Paste) also falls in
April or May. From Floriile, Palm Sunday, through the Saptamâna
patimilor ("Week of Sufferings", during which, it's believed, souls will
ascend directly to heaven), the devout fast, clean their houses, and
attend church services, culminating in the resurrection celebration at
midnight on Easter Saturday. The cry Hristos o-nviat ("Christ has risen")
and the reply Adevarat c-o-nviat ("Truly he has risen") resound through
the candlelit churches, full to overflowing with worshippers. Hard-boiled
eggs are hand-painted on "Great" (Maundy) Thursday with red dyes
obtained from onion skin, to be given to friends and relatives on Easter
Sunday and kept by the family icons; it's said that the devil cannot win
as long as people go on singing carols at Christmas and painting eggs at
Easter. With the exception of Pentecost or Whitsun ( Rosalia ), fifty
days after Easter Sunday, other Orthodox festivals are nowadays less
widely observed.
In southern Romania, there's a traditional belief (still held by a
minority) that groups of mimes and dancers could work magic if all the
rites were correctly observed, and to this end selected young men were
initiated into the ritual of Calus . This took place in secret, and was
performed by a vataf who had inherited the knowledge of descântece (magic
charms) and the dance steps from his predecessor. On Whit Sunday , an
odd-numbered group of these Calusari began their ritual dance from house
to house, accompanied by a flag-bearer and a masked Mut (a mute who
traditionally wore a red phallus beneath his robe and muttered sexual
invocations), thus ensuring that each household was blessed with
children and a bountiful harvest, and, if need be, exorcizing anyone
possessed by the spirits of departed friends and family. Calus rites are
still enacted in some Oltenian villages, and the Calusari meet to
celebrate their dancing and musical prowess at Whitsun, starting with a
parade in Slatina and then two days of performances in Caracal . There's
a similar festival, the Calusarul Transilvanean , in Deva during the
second week of January, which doesn't have any particular magical
significance, being nowhere near the heartland of Calus culture, but is
nevertheless impressive.
Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Székely hold their Whitsun pilgrimage to
Csíksomlyó (near Miercurea Ciuc) on a date set by the Gregorian
calendar. Once common practice, the ritual garlanding of the plough is
now rare, although the Tânjaua or Festival of the First Ploughman (first
Sunday of May) at Hoteni , in Maramures, is similar. The age-old
pastoral rites and feasts marking the sorting, milking and departure of
the flocks to the hills are still widespread throughout Maramures and
the Apuseni mountains during late April or early May, depending on local
tradition and climatic factors. The best-known Sâmbra oilor occur on the
first or second Sunday of May, at the Huta pass into Oas and on the
ridge of Magura Priei ; but lingering snows can delay the smaller
festivals, perhaps even until early July.
Summer festivals
The Cherry Fair at Brâncovenesti on the first Sunday of June anticipates
other harvest festivals later in the month, and the round of great
summer fairs known as Târg or Nedeias . In the days before all-weather
roads, these events provided the people of remote highland villages with
an annual opportunity to acquire news of the outside world, and to
arrange deals and marriages. On the second Sunday of June, folk from
some thirty Banat settlements attend the Nedeia of Talcalsele at Avram
Iancu ; and another village with the same name is the base for the
famous Girl Fair of Mount Gaina , held on the Sunday before July 20. The
highlanders of Oltenia gather for the similar Polovragi Fair on July 15
or 20.
There are weddings in the villages every Saturday throughout the summer,
which continue through the weekend with music, drinking and dancing.
Other summer festivals perpetuate Romania's old customs and folklore:
the light-hearted Buying Back of the Wives at Hodac , and the funereal
declamation of boccas during The King of the Fir Trees at Tiha Bârgaului
in the heart of fictional Dracula country (on the second and third
Sundays of June). Various "summer folk holidays" occur between June 21 (Midsummer
Day) and June 29 (St Peter's Day); the most widespread is Sânziene , the
feast of St John the Baptist on June 24, celebrated in many places with
bonfires and wreathes of yellow flowers that are thrown over the houses.
Dragaica , the pagan pre-harvest celebration in the fields on Midsummer
Day, is today only practised in a few districts of southern Wallachia.
The diversity of folk costumes and music within a particular area can be
appreciated at events like Somcuta Mare 's pastoral Stejarul (The Oak
Tree), or the larger Rarau Mountain festival at Ilisesti , held
respectively on the first and second Sundays of July .
August is probably the best month for music, with four major festivals.
During the first week, the Songs of the Olt at Calimanesti in Wallachia
draws musicians and folklore ensembles from all over Oltenia. On the
first Sunday people from Maramures, Transylvania and Moldavia meet for
the great Hora at the Prislop Pass to socialize, feast and dance in
their finest costumes; a week later, the Festival of the Ceahlau
Mountain is held at Durau near the shores of Lake Bicaz. The music of
pan pipes and the bands of Gorj county (around Târgu Jiu) characterize
another festival, At Tismana in a Garden, where you can also find a wide
range of handicrafts. This is held on August 15, the Feast of the
Assumption or Dormition of the Virgin Mary (known as Great St Mary's),
when there are many church festivals and pilgrimages across the country,
notably at Moisei in Maramures and Nicula, north of Cluj. Fundata's
Nedeia of the Mountains, on the last Sunday of August, is the
traditional gathering for the highlanders of the Brasov, Arges and
Dâmbovita regions.
Reaping preoccupies many villages during September , giving rise to
harvest festivals , although the custom is gradually declining. The
timing of these varies with the crop, and from year to year, but you can
usually rely upon At the Vintage at Odobesti in the eastern Carpathians
being held on the last Sunday. On the second Saturday of September the
remaining Saxons gather for the Sachsentreffen at Biertan . Earlier in
the month, on the first Sunday, you can hear the pan-pipers of the
northwest perform the Rhapsody of the Triscasi at Lesu , in Bistrita-Nasaud
county. Many of the musicians are shepherds, who also play alpine long
horns and bagpipes, and compete with each other at The Vrancea
Shepherd's Long Pipe, a festival held at Odobesti on the third Sunday of
November . Finally, December 1 is the national day, celebrated above all
in Alba Iulia, scene of the declaration of union between Transylvania
and the rest of Romania.
Public holidays
January 1 & 2
Easter Monday - (Good Friday is not a holiday, but women are usually
given the day off to shop and cook)
May 1
December 1 - Unification of Transylvania with Romania
December 25 & 26
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