Article

Bulgarian Tracks: The Road to the Koprivshtitsa Festival (and Back Again, and Again)

Liz Mellish

Published in: Ethnomusicology Ireland 4 (2016)

Pages: 44-64 | Published Online: June 2016

https://doi.org/10.64208/AYVQ2344

Abstract

The Koprivshtitsa, National Festival of Bulgarian Folklore, has long been held (around) every five years since 1965, and throughout its fifty-year history has drawn an ever-increasing audience of Bulgarian music and dance enthusiasts from all corners of the globe. This paper asks by many participants traveled to this festival for every successive edition. It traces what I am terming the tracks of the festival and its audience on three interrelated trajectories; the first follows the historical track of the festival; the second explorers interrelations with the landscape and place and the notion of the festival; and the third is linked to memory, real and imagined, exploring how the changes in the world beyond and the festival have had implications on the festival experience. It concludes with that the reasons that participants continue return to the festival can be found in a conflation of the second two trajectories, the (relatively) unchanging tracks linked to the festival location and organisation, and the changing tracks as this festival has adapted to new technology and travel possibilities, and has expanded its market to include Bulgarian urbanites and diaspora Bulgarians.

Keywords: Bulgaria, festival, Koprivshtitsa, performers, spectators

Author: Liz Mellish