Лазаруване

The tradition & historical record

Lazarice (Serbian: лазарице), also known by its Bulgarian name Lazaruvane (Bulgarian: лазаруване) or in Greek known as Lazarines (Greek: λαζαρίνες), is a South Slavic traditional procession during the Eastern Orthodox feast of Lazareva Subota (corresponding to but distinct from Lazarus Saturday in other Eastern Orthodox Churches), the day before Palm Sunday. Historians and anthropologists think that Lazarice originated from the Roman Empire festival Rosalia, popularized in Southeastern Europe by the Romans after their conquest of Balkans in the 2nd century BC. Slavic tribes, settled in the Balkans in the 6th to 7th centuries, adopted and developed part of the Greek-Roman traditions in their rituals.

Traditionally, a girl who has never participated in the ritual may not marry or be engaged. The ritual is performed by young girls (typically of age 16 who are unmarried), called lazarki (Bulgarian: лазарки). The girls decorate their hair richly and colourfully (usually with flower and ribbon wreaths) and dance around the village singing songs. They stop from house to house, performing songs and blessing the homes, accepting small presents and food from the hosts, typically the men. They meet by a river, where they drop their wreaths. It is said that the girl whose laurel first takes the lead will be married first.

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Lazarice”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.

Lazarice is eastern Orthodox procession, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ¹

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ¹