Bulgarian Folk Costumes Calendar 2024

With great joy, we share the new 14-sheet, large, wall calendar "Devojko, marie, hubava" of the "Bulgarian Roots" Foundation. In its pages for 2024, you will see beautiful traditional women's costumes, worn by no less beautiful Bulgarian girls. This year we also have two men's costumes. The frames in this calendar are the work of a year of our team and thousands of kilometers across Bulgaria. We searched for the face suitable for each costume, the place for the authentic recreation of the time. But most importantly, the precise completion of the costumes, as they were worn by our ancestors. The team of experts with whom the costumes shown here are agreed is becoming larger and more serious. And the work is getting more complicated. The goal of the entire team behind the "Devojko, marie, hubava" project is to show the Bulgarian folk costume as accurately and in the best possible way. And also that the photographs and publications with them carry knowledge and respect for the Bulgarian cultural heritage - the folk costumes of our ancestors.

Prof. Dr. Angel Yankov, ethnologist, director of RMM - Plovdiv: Dear readers, Admirers of the native, of the traditional, of the beautiful,

This year again, the "Living Bulgarian Roots" Foundation brings us immeasurable joy for our senses with this wonderful calendar dedicated to the traditional Bulgarian costume.

The costume is not only a witness to the era in which it has existed, but it also "speaks" a lot about the people who created it, who wore it. In addition to its daily purpose, the Bulgarian traditional clothing is a measure of the cultural level of society, which is felt and recognized in any costume, regardless of its territorial affiliation. Each garment from the not-so-distant past reflects the sense of beauty, color harmony and symmetry, and on the other hand, reveals the knowledge in detail of the natural endowments. For the richness and cultural diversity of the costume, in addition to belonging to a specific ethnicity or ethnographic group, decisive roles have been played by gender, age, marital status, livelihood, faith, traditions.

The costumes of the past, their individual elements, as well as their decoration, are saturated with symbolism - they can protect or contribute to the fertility of the fields, the offspring of the livestock and the well-being of the family. It is no coincidence that clothes are called the second skin of man and are considered his double. Therefore, their function is not only to protect the body from the cold, but they also have a hidden magical meaning. Every costume tells its own story...

PRIVATE COLLECTIONS. In Bulgaria, there is a category of people who are difficult to understand. They devote free time and money to searching for and collecting invaluable Bulgarian costumes. These people are not ethnologists, but they have knowledge of costumes and Bulgarian folklore that many museum workers would envy. In the calendar "Devojko, marie, hubava" for 2024, we show costumes from the collections of five such Bulgarian collectors. Through our photographs, we hope to immerse you in the world of Bulgarians preserved by them from over 100 years ago. A world rich in the harmony of patterns, abundant in stylizations of flowers and birds, carrying encoded knowledge about the world around us, about love and respect for the land and the family. All this beauty awakens in us a sense of pride in our ancestors, who, despite the hard life, had a sense of beauty. We are happy that these costumes have survived to this day and we can show them to you. A bow to the collecting activity of the collectors Tanya Grammatikova, Sirhan Mustafa, Diana Dimova, Boris Rakladziev and Miroslav Dimitrov. And a deep bow to the skills and knowledge of our ancestors.

CONTENT OF THE CALENDAR. In this edition, you will see 15 pages of different authentic folk costumes. Shaped in a 14-sheet large wall calendar, with a transparent astrolon cover and with a gift cellophane packaging. The calendar is bilingual, in Bulgarian and English. The 14th page is turned over and on it are shown and described all the costumes in the edition.

THANK YOU! The Bulgarian Roots Foundation would like to express our sincere gratitude to the entire team that worked on the project this year:

• Chief Consultant: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Angel Yankov, ethnologist, director of the Regional Ethnographic Museum – Plovdiv

• Consultants:

  • Tanya Kirovska-Gramatikova, collector, local historian, and chairman of a community center

  • Syrhan Jelillov Mustafa, anesthesiologist and collector

  • Diana Dimova, collector

  • Boris Rakladjiev, collector

  • Miroslav Dimitrov, one of the youngest collectors in Bulgaria

  • Zlatka Tumbelekchieva, curator of the Municipal History Museum – Goce Delchev

  • Evgenia Dobreva, curator of the House-Museum of Elin Pelin – Baylovo

The Bulgarian Roots Foundation also extends its gratitude to all consultants, friends, and supporters of the initiative who provided information, advice, and assistance in the implementation of the project.

Official thanks to our hosts and friends from the town of Koynare, municipality of Cherven Bryag; the House-Museum of Elin Pelin – Baylovo, part of the National Literary Museum – Sofia; the Architectural-Historical Reserve of Katunitsa; the Architectural Reserve in the village of Dolen; and our warm-hearted hosts from the village of Kyulevcha.

Special thanks to our friends, collaborators, and consultants: Svetla Bonkova and Peter Karpachev.

Photographer: Peter Petrov

The 2024 calendar “Devojko, mari, hubava” is published with the kind assistance of Corteva Agriscience!