Original subtitles

The richness and great diversity of winter traditions must be understood in the context where

the Christian church separated the celebration of the physical birth of Christ, on December 25th,

from that of the spiritual birth, on January 6th,

thus creating a ceremonial intersected cycle of twelve days by the New Year's celebration.

Aswell, after the adoption of the Julian civil calendar starting on January 1st,

numerous traditions of renewing the calendar time, of agrarian origin,

were transposed from spring to winter, at the end of December.

It is no coincidence that the New Year's caroling is called "Plugușorul", because it is refering to plowing, sowing,

harvesting and baking bread. The carolers were accompanied, until recently, even by an oxen-drawn plow,

and a symbolic furrow was drawn in the middle of the yard,

the props of the tradition include the "buhai", the whip, "tălăngi", and at the time when the dawn is about to rise,

seeders pass through the households, small groups of children who, imitating the sowing, scatter grains of wheat wishing for health and abundant crops.

The New Year's Eve was eagerly awaited in all Bucovinian communities, being "the richest in traditions"

and beliefs, the most mysterious and pleasant for Romanians everywhere.

Most of the most spectacular traditions took place in open spaces. In the evening, the "small plow" passed from house to house

of the children, followed, after nightfall, by that of the bachelors "big plow", of the householders,

accompanied by the plow decorated with a fir-tree top, symbol of the tree of life in the Bucovinian communities.

Gradually, the streets of the village became the scene of real masked performances

grouped, as a rule, in large groups called "malanca, partia, bandă, turka or, simply, ceată."

Their composition included the bear, the goat, the horse and the deer, the old women and men, the groups of handsome people,

(emperor, herod, general, jandarm, deputy, bride and groom), the social masks with ethnic character

ethnic (Turk, Jew, Armenian, Greek, Gypsy) as well as the masks with professional character

(doctor, barber, merchant, wizard).Often, the packs were accompanied by real popular theater troops,

such as Jienii, Banda lui Bujor or Vihleimul.

Each character in the group had a well-defined role. The bear was the symbol of nature that always returns to life.

The goat was the mythological representation of a fertile divinity, bearer of the energies of the whole nature.

The horse, the solar character in Romanian mythology, had apotropaic properties.

The deer, was considered God's messenger on earth, representing purity and justice.

The ugly ones, in general, were personifications of time which, having reached old age, were to be reborn through death.

The old women and men represented the ancient cult of the ancestors. Emperors and bunghiers were parodies of Austrian officers...

Although largely desacralized, most of these traditions have survived until contemporary times

being part of the spiritual heritage of Bucovina, always present in rural and urban communities at the turn of the year.

Similarly, New Year's traditions are the subject of real folkoric festivals

that take place on major national and international stages