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The Bulgarian National festival of Folklore 
Koprivshtitsa – August 2005

by Liz Mellish and Nick Green

Koprivshtitsa festival is one of the largest folk festivals held in the Balkans and is also one of the best known among folklore enthusiasts. It was founded by the Bulgarian State in 1965 as a showcase of Bulgarian village folklore and has been held around every five years since. During Communist times it was made possible by generous state support for traditional arts and folklore. The festival is held at the beginning of August in the Voivodets meadows above the museum village of Koprivshtitsa in the Stara Planina Mountains. It usually lasts 3 days, and is the culmination of local folk festivals held throughout Bulgaria in the preceding months. The winners from these festivals are bussed to the village of Koprivshtitsa to perform in front of panels of regional folk experts, with the winners from each region performing for Bulgaria television on a central stage. 

(1) Survakari from Pernik in Šopluk region of West Bulgaria

The action takes place on 6 or 7 acoustically separated stages nestled into the hillside about 30 minutes walk from the village. Since 1989 there have been many stalls selling crafts, traditional instruments, CDs and cassettes, food and drink intermingled among the stages. This is one of the big changes that has taken place. In Communist times, there was only one or two caravans selling plastic toys and around four or five food outlets with long queues. In 1986 drinks ran out by the third day, which posed an interesting problem in the hot sun. The tourists were outnumbered by the locals to such an extnet that when we tried to join the back of one of the long queues to get a grilled 'kebechita' the Bulgarians in front of us made us go to the front of the queue like honoured guests!

(2) Russali dancers from Petrich in Pirin Macedonia (southwest Bulgaria) dancing in the main square on a cold wet morning

After 1989 folklore enthusiasts living outside Bulgaria feared that the festival would be one of the casualties of the change in regime, but despite much deliberations and exchanges between the organisers and prominent folklore figures outside Bulgaria funds were made available. The main problem was the cost of transporting the participants from villages throughout Bulgaria to Koprivshtitsa village. However the festival continued, first in 1991, then 1995, then 2000, and now in 2005 and hopefully in five years time. We can now be optimistic that the worst traumas have been overcome and the new place of the festival in the world folklore stage has been secured.

The number of folk ‘tourists seem to increase every time. To our knowledge at the most recent festival (August 2005) there were people from UK, US, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Hong Kong China, Russia, Canada, Austria, Israel, and Australia. Many of these folk tourists combine their visit to the festival with attendance at a folk dance course in Bulgaria or take the opportunity to have music lessons on traditional instruments or traditional singing lessons while in Bulgaria. 

Each festival has its own highlights but one of the most special is the Rusalli from Petrich, in the south west corner of Bulgaria, who perform to the ear splitting sound of the zurna (shawm). In the evenings impromptu dancing take place in the village square with a mix of young Bulgarians and tourists and in the campsite many impromptu performances take place. 

(3) Group of Kukeri from Tundja,Yambol Region posing for photographs

In 2005 unfortunately the festival coincided with the worst floods Bulgaria had had for 100 years. On Thursday and Friday performances took place all day in the Voivodets meadows. As always there was too many choices as to what to watch, although for the first time our choice of stage were helped by the availability of parts of the programme on the Internet in advance of the festival. The rain started in the middle of Saturday evening while we were drinking Bulgarian coffee in a small café in the village. We were woken during the night by a massive thunderstorm which seemed to roll round and round the around the village for many hours. It was still raining when we woke up on the Saturday morning and at that point we really did not imagine the days events would take place. Luckily Koprivshtitsa village itself had avoided the floods due to its location in the hills although the river running thought the village reached very close to overflowing at its highest point that morning but the coaches of performers were still arriving and they all seemed to know where they were going. After some detective work we found that the seven stages on the hill had become 3 indoor venues in the village, the school hall, and 2 rooms in the town hall. The festival organisers are certainly to be congratulated for their flexibility. Luckily the rain more or less stopped by mid morning so the 2 open-air stages in the village were put to use, and the performers put on numerous impromptu performance in the village square. We still have no idea how so many of the groups managed to reach Koprivshitisa that morning as the village was cut off from much of Bulgaria by the floodwaters. We know some of them were camping in the very waterlogged campsite on the edge of the village. But we saw the coaches arriving! 

(4) Koledari men (Carol singers) from Thrace (central Bulgaria) dancing on the festival main stage

By Sunday morning the worst of the weather had passed so the final concert was held on the main stage in Voivodets meadows. The site looked rather bedraggled after the rain but this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the performers who put on an excellent concert of varied performances, a mix of folk dance groups, solo musicians, mummers plays and masked kukeri. It finished by lunchtime and we set off back down the hill for the last time. Rows of coaches arriving in the village to take the visitors back to Sofia or to other parts of Bulgaria on sightseeing tours, and the stall holder packed the remainder of their wares into vans to return to their permanent shops or stall throughout Bulgaria. . By the end of Sunday the village was returning to its normal life as a sleepy museum village in the Bulgarian mountains - until next time.....

More facts about the festival can be found at 
www.eliznik.org.uk/Bulgaria/Koprivshtitsa.htm
and
www.sabor-koprivshtica.mct.government.bg/

Liz Mellish and Nick Green

Text and photographs © Copyright 2006 Liz Mellish and Nick Green

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