The Festival Calendar

Hungarian Folk Art & Traditions

Course 1 · Chapter 6 · The Festival Calendar

The village year was marked by festivals that joined the church calendar, the farming year and older customs of uncertain origin. This chapter follows the year from Advent to the grape harvest, describing the customs best known today and asking, as Chapter 1 proposed, which are record, which are revival and which are staged. Dates, origins and heritage listings are from general knowledge and flagged for checking.

Advent and Christmas

St Nicholas (6 December). Children leave out boots to receive sweets from Mikulás, sometimes with a Krampusz figure who brings switches (check the regional pattern).
Luca day (13 December). Linked to St Lucy, with customs including the making of a "Luca chair" over the days up to Christmas Eve and the sowing of wheat in a dish, whose growth was read as a sign for the year ahead (check).
Christmas Eve and Christmas. The household meal, the tree (a relatively modern addition, check), nativity plays, and the "Bethlehem-going" (betlehemezés), where groups carried a small crib from house to house, performing a short play and song (check).
New Year and Epiphany. Wishes, house blessings and the end of the Christmas season.

Carnival and Busójárás

Carnival (farsang) is the period before Lent, marked by feasting, dances, masks and mock trials. The best-known Hungarian carnival is the Busójárás at Mohács in the south, where masked figures called busós, in sheepskins and carved wooden masks, parade through the town, making noise to drive away winter (check). Local tradition links the festival to the Ottoman period and the Šokci (a South Slav community of the area), though the origins are debated (check the story, the community and the listing). The festival is on UNESCO's list of intangible heritage (check the year) and draws large crowds, so it is a clear case of living custom and tourist event at once (see Chapter 1).

Easter

Water sprinkling (locsolás)

On Easter Monday, boys and men visit women and girls and sprinkle them with water or perfume, often reciting a short rhyme, and are given decorated eggs, food and drink in return (check the details and how the custom has changed).

Painted eggs

Elaborately decorated eggs, using wax-resist and other techniques, are an Easter craft in several regions (check, and see Chapter 4 for related crafts).

Holy Week and fasting

Church services and food customs, including ham and bread blessed in church and eaten on Easter morning (check).

Spring

The custom is also a spring festival, which is why some historians link elements of it to older pre-Christian practices, a claim to treat with caution (check).

Whitsun, Midsummer and Harvest

Whitsun (Pentecost). Customs include the crowning of a Whitsun queen (pünkösdi királyné) and the choosing of a Whitsun king in some areas (check).
St John's Eve (23 June). Midsummer fires, jumping over embers for luck, and the gathering of herbs. Such customs are widespread in Europe (check the Hungarian forms).
Harvest. A wreath made from the last ears of grain is carried in procession, with feasting and a harvest ball (check).
Grape harvest. In wine regions such as Tokaj, Eger and Villány, a grape-harvest festival with a procession, music and dancing is held in early autumn (check the dates, which vary by place).
Martin's Day (11 November). The new wine is tasted and a roast goose is eaten. A saying links the weather to the day (check).

Festival	Season	Today (general, check)
Mikulás	6 December	Widely kept, mostly for children
Betlehemezés	Christmas	Kept by some groups, schools and church choirs
Busójárás	Carnival, February or March	Large public festival
Locsolás	Easter Monday	Still widely kept, often in a modest form
St John's fires	23 June	Kept in places, revived in others
Grape harvest festivals	September or October	Public events with parades and music
Martin's Day	11 November	Goose dinners, new wine

A British comparison Compare Scotland's Hogmanay and Up Helly Aa, or the Burning of the Clavie at Burghead (check): old-looking fire festivals whose current form is often more recent than their reputation. The same record-versus-revival question applies.

The pattern of the year Almost every festival has three layers: a church feast, a seasonal or farming meaning, and a local custom whose age is uncertain. Ask which layer a claim refers to before accepting that it is "ancient".

Check the details The origins of Busójárás, the list of customs for each feast, heritage listings and the way customs are kept today all vary by place and are often presented in an idealised form. Verify specific claims, and treat "pre-Christian survival" explanations with caution.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Describe the Busójárás and explain why it is both a living custom and a tourist event.

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Exercise 2

Choose two festivals from the table and say what church, farming and local layers each contains.

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Exercise 3

A website says that a midsummer custom is "thousands of years old". Explain how you would test the claim.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

Winter: Mikulás, Luca day, Christmas, betlehemezés
Carnival: farsang; Busójárás at Mohács (UNESCO, check)
Spring: Easter locsolás, painted eggs
Summer: Whitsun, St John's fires, harvest
Autumn: grape harvest, Martin's Day
Method: three layers: church, season, local custom