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    • Emrah Gökdemir
    • Safet HadžiMuhamedović
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    • Guy Hayward
    • Jens Kreinath
    • Federica Manfredi
    • Ashim Kumar Manna
    • Reza Masoudi
    • Jason Minton Brown
    • Manoël Pénicaud
    • Marlene Schäfers
    • Jesko Schmoller
    • Tom Selwyn
    • Olga Sicilia
    • Konrad Siekierski
    • Yogesh Snehi
    • Yuri Stoyanov
    • Jill J. Tan
    • Samuel Tettner
  • Symposium
    • About the symposium
    • Yogesh Snehi
    • Glenn Bowman
    • Tom Selwyn
    • Ioan Cozma, Maria Chiara Giorda and Silvia Omenetto
    • Bojan Baskar
    • Dionigi Albera
    • Emrah Gökdemir
    • Yael Navaro
    • Ethel Sara Wolper
    • Yuri Stoyanov
    • Manoël Pénicaud
    • Jens Kreinath
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    • The Xenia Series
    • CIP Summer School in Inter-Faith Relations
    • Cambridge in Your Classroom
    • Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage Summer School
    • Bosnian Landscapes

'Romano Dive, Amaro Dive, Ederlezi'
'Romani Day, Our Day, Ederlezi'
by Safet HadžiMuhamedović

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’. 
Picture
© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
Picture
© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
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. ​
Picture
© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
Picture
© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
Picture
© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
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. ​
Picture
© Safet HadžiMuhamedović
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  • Home
  • About
  • Exhibition
    • Dionigi Albera
    • Maria Angel
    • Philippe Antoine Martinez
    • Glenn Bowman >
      • Al-Khadr (series)
      • Sveti Nikola (series)
    • Helen Cornish
    • Susannah Crockford
    • Lene Faust
    • Jackie Feldman
    • Maria Chiara Giorda, Luca Bossi, Daniele Campobenedetto & Equoatelier
    • Emrah Gökdemir
    • Safet HadžiMuhamedović
    • Vanja Hamzić
    • Guy Hayward
    • Jens Kreinath
    • Federica Manfredi
    • Ashim Kumar Manna
    • Reza Masoudi
    • Jason Minton Brown
    • Manoël Pénicaud
    • Marlene Schäfers
    • Jesko Schmoller
    • Tom Selwyn
    • Olga Sicilia
    • Konrad Siekierski
    • Yogesh Snehi
    • Yuri Stoyanov
    • Jill J. Tan
    • Samuel Tettner
  • Symposium
    • About the symposium
    • Yogesh Snehi
    • Glenn Bowman
    • Tom Selwyn
    • Ioan Cozma, Maria Chiara Giorda and Silvia Omenetto
    • Bojan Baskar
    • Dionigi Albera
    • Emrah Gökdemir
    • Yael Navaro
    • Ethel Sara Wolper
    • Yuri Stoyanov
    • Manoël Pénicaud
    • Jens Kreinath
  • Panel
  • Contact
  • Related Projects
    • The Xenia Series
    • CIP Summer School in Inter-Faith Relations
    • Cambridge in Your Classroom
    • Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage Summer School
    • Bosnian Landscapes