Shared by Orthodox and Catholic Christians, Muslims and Roma people of different faiths in Bosnia, St George’s Day is a deeply inter-faith occasion. Most people observe it according to the Julian calendar on the 6th of May. It is the beginning of the vegetative cycle, when landscapes blossom, farm animals can be led to pasture, and intricate rituals are conducted. It focuses on movement, rejuvenation, and fertility. In the wake of dawn, before the daylight is set, young women go either to water slopes or watermills and wash in the magical droplets they call omaha. Everyone ties small red ribbons to branches of cornel, repeating, ‘I take health, forsake disease’.
© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
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© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
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In these images, you see a Roma celebration of St George’s Eve in 2012 in the town of Visoko, traditionally shared with those who are not Roma. Melina, a local Roma activist from Visoko, was happy for everyone to participate, but thought that describing it as ‘everyone’s day’ was wrong: ‘It is a Roma day. We should be proud of our heritage, say that we are Roma and that it’s our festival!’. Her words recalled a famous Roma song, which goes ‘Romano dive, amaro dive, Ederlezi’ ('Romani day, our day, Ederlezi'). But even that song has been translated into virtually all the languages of the Balkan Peninsula. It is a Roma day and a Roma song, but everyone else’s too.
© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
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© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
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Known as kolo – meaning circle or wheel – the cyclical dance around fire on St George's Eve fosters proximity and coordination. Joining hands and revolving around a shared vertical axis of the fire, synchronising your movements to the movements of the dancers next to you gives the body an opportunity to understand the principles of the cyclical calendar, when the body is asked to re-align with the movements of the seasons and the cosmos, awakened to the springtime after a long winter slumber and offered an opportunity to release the accumulated tension before the hard summer labour begins.
© Safet HadžiMuhamedović