The Gospodinovden custom from the village of Mechkarevo will represent the Sliven Region in the Living Human Treasures - Bulgaria programme in 2024, said the Sliven Regional Administration. The nomination was submitted by the Prosveta 1925 People's Community Centre in the village of Mechkarevo.
"The custom is connected with the tradition of baptizing newborn children", the secretary of the community centre Marineta Kirova told BTA. People believed that when the child was born and they turned to Gospod (the Lord), his name would provide protection of the newborn. The old people from Mechkarevo recall that when children started dying one after the other in a family, the parents decided that the last one born alive will be destined for God to preserve it and survive. Hence the honorific Gospodin (Mister) or Gospodinka (Misses), derived from "the child of Gospod".
The custom is part of the winter rite and is always celebrated on December 26, Kirova added. As part of the custom, people go to church, but there was no church in Mechkarevo until 2016. What the villagers used to do in past times is get on the carriage and set off with the child to visit the neighbouring villages of Kovachite and Nikolaevo, which had churches. They brought wine, bread and koliva that have been blessed by a priest. After visiting the church, they returned back home, where they had a rich meal, as it was the day after Christmas and the pigs had been slaughtered. The meal was also blessed, Kirova pointed out.
Kirova noted that today there are not so many people with the name Gospodin in the village, and those who have it were merely named after some grandparent and the symbolism is largely lost. Young people, she said, prefer more modern names.
She added that rehearsals for the annual winter holidays, which the village has been hosting for over twenty years, begin in mid-November. Their goal is to popularize the traditional Bulgarian folklore customs related to the winter holidays, as well as to present the richness of the national folk songs and dances.
The Living Human Treasures - Bulgaria, which is part of the Living Human Treasures UNESCO programme, is organized by the Culture Ministry and encourages the bearers of intangible cultural heritage to practice the activities and pass on knowledge and skills to the next generations. The programme is carried out in two stages - regional and national. The activities or skills offered for registration must be from the spheres of manifestation of the intangible cultural heritage, according to the National Register of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
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