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Paper short abstract

The paper explores St. George’s Day in Bulgaria as a remnant of migratory sheep herding traditions. Using archives, interviews, and maps, it argues that the holiday’s prominence reflects the lasting imprint of seasonal pastoral rhythms on local economies, culture, and festive life.

Paper long abstract

While studying St. George’s Day as a local celebration in Bulgarian villages and towns, I asked why these communities concentrated their festive calendar precisely on this date. In the Balkans, as elsewhere, St. George’s Day marks the beginning of the agricultural year, just as St. Demetrius’ Day signals its end. When I asked “why exactly St. George’s Day?” the common reply was “because St. George is the patron of our church.” Yet why he was chosen as patron remained unknown.

In archives and newspapers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I found numerous traces suggesting that in early May, events linked to migratory sheep herding often took place in these regions. This pastoral practice involved large-scale seasonal movements within the Ottoman Empire and its connected principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia—northward and to mountain pastures in spring, southward to warmer valleys in autumn. It was carried out mainly by Vlachs, Aromanians, and Sarakatsani, but also by many Bulgarian communities in the Rhodope and Balkan mountains. In the Bulgarian case, herds typically remained in village enclosures during the winter, and in spring they were grouped and driven to remote summer pastures.

My hypothesis is that transhumance played such a significant role in local economies and cultures that the prominence of St. George’s Day as a special celebration today is a surviving echo of that seasonal rhythm. Drawing on archival materials, interviews, and maps, my paper will argue for the deep, though now obscured, connection between agrarian practices and contemporary festivity.