Abstract
The term “Burgenland Croats (Gradišćanskih Hrvati)” was coined by vicar, poet and scholar Mate Mersich Miloradić in 1921, after the majority of Western Hungary's Croatian population became annexed to Austria. By the interwar period an extended use of the term became the norm – it had come to refer to all Croatians living in the remaining areas of the Croatian diaspora, such as Western Hungary, Western Slovakia and Moravia, who had settled in these parts after fleeing the ravages of the anti-Ottoman wars of the 16th century. Worries about the mere existence and survival of the identity of the Burgenland Croat population has been a concern for well over two hundred years. It is fair to ask the question what kind of traditions the collector can expect to find and whether traditions are still in a collectable state in the 21st century, as we approach the 500th anniversary of the re-settlement of this population in Western Hungary. In the present paper I take the example of a specific custom, the Barbara procession of Horvátkimle, to show what it means for a community if one of their practices comes to be included on the ethnographic map of the country. We explore what sort of chances a community has to revive traditions that it had believed to be lost time and time again, and how it affects the life of the community if it succeeds in breathing new life into old traditions by accepting and adapting to the spirit of the times. The paper focuses not on the vanishing traditions, but on resilient tradition constructs that have proved flexible enough to survive. It concentrates not on the signs of the disappearance and assimilation of an ethnic community, but on the scenes and means of preserving such identity. I shed light on the role of individuals and of ethnographic scholarship in the process of preserving traditions.
Introduction
“The ethnographer will find little that is characteristic among the Western Hungarian Croats – superstition is almost extinct; the folk poetry shows far fewer characteristic traits than that of the South Slavs of the Balkans.” This quote comes from an article published in Ethnographia by Rezső Szegedy in 1921. The author inventoried the wedding customs of Western Hungarian Croats – a group of customs that has proved to me among the most resilient (Szegedy 1921:60). The disappearance and erosion of traditions is a recurring concern among collectors of traditions. Well over a hundred years after the publication of Szegedy's paper it is fair to ask what sort of traditions the ethnographic researcher can expect to find; whether traditions of the Western Hungarian Croats are in a collectable state at all in the 21st century and if so, what kind of methodology we are to use, since concerns not only about the traditions but the very identity of the Western Hungarian Croatian community go back to well over 200 years (Horváth S. 2005:181). In the present paper I take the example of a specific custom, the Barbara procession of Horvátkimle, to show what it means for a community if one of their practices comes to be included on the ethnographic map of the country; what sort of chances a community has to revive traditions that it has believed to be lost time and time again; and how it affects the life of the community if it succeed in breathing new life into old traditions by accepting and adapting to the spirit of the times.
It is generally known that the preservation of traditions plays a crucial role in sustaining and strengthening communities on a local level and beyond that, it often plays a pivotal role in shaping individual life-course (cf. Eitler 2019:51–79; 2020:81–104). This is why the present paper focuses not on the vanishing traditions but on resilient tradition constructs that have proved flexible enough to survive. It concentrates not on the signs of the disappearance and assimilation of an ethnic community, but on the scenes and means of preserving such identity. We shed light on the role of individuals and of ethnographic scholarship in the process of preserving traditions (cf. Juhász 2007:152–178). The reason why the resilience paradigm is a promising approach in researching the Burgenland Croatian population is that it provides a space in which we can concentrate on opportunities and remaining platforms for survival and for the preservation of identity – even in a broader perspective than that presented here. In the context of the Burgenland Croats, who live in multiple countries in areas that lie along national borders, one such approach can be to explore cross-border connections which may strengthen not only a general sense of identity, but also the role of the (Gradišćanskih) Croatian language. Research of this kind must inevitably extent to comparative explorations of the Burgenland Croatian populations living in various countries.
The Croats of Gradišće/Horvátkimle – following the track marked out by Miloradić
The scene of this piece of research is a village that lies on both banks of the Moson-Danube and which emerged as a municipality in 1966 via the unification of two villages, Horvátkimle and Magyarkimle (Bognár 2020:289–308). Data of the 1910 census state that of the 991 inhabitants of Horvátkimle 812 were Croatians (82%), while of the 772 inhabitants of Magyarkimle 409 were Germans (53%). At Horvátkimle Hungarians numbered 156 (16%), at Magyarkimle 338 (43%). 97% of the population of both villages were Roman Catholics (KSH 1912:24–25). Most of the Croats of Horvátkimle had settled on the right bank of the Moson-Danube in the 16th century as part of the organized population relocation1 which affected a number of other villages in the region and were aiming to escape the ravages of the anti-Ottoman wars of the period (Ress 2008:411–412). József Horváth, author of the monograph on the village, has shown that, similarly to other villages, settlement at Horvátkimle probably took place in several waves, and it is not clear where the new settlers were coming from.2 The village gained a majority Croatian population from the mid-17th century onwards, and it was from this point on that it gained the distinctive prename “Horvát” (Croatian). It was also from this time on that the neighboring village Magyarkimle, lying on the opposing bank of the Moson-Danube, gained its prename “Magyar” (Hungarian) to distinguish it from its Croatian counterpart. A further characteristic trait of the Croats of Kimle is that they in fact constitute a linguistic island, since the nearest Croatian-speaking village, Bezenye, lies more than 20 km away.
The local community celebrated the 450th anniversary of its settlement in 1984 by erecting a monument, and now, in 2024, it will be celebrating its 490th anniversary. One important bastion of local Croat identity was the life's work of vicar, poet and scholar Mate Mersich Miloradić (1850–1928)3 which overarched nigh-on 50 years. Miloradić did a great deal for strengthening the Croatian identity of the Burgenland Croats: he publicly promoted the emergence of an independent literary dialect, he produced textbooks to assist the teaching of the mother tongue, he in fact coined the phrase “Gradišće” (the Croatian term that refers to Austria's Burgenland region), and even the anthem of the Burgenland Croats comes from Miloradić (Benčić 2017; Horváth J. 1999:358).
Naturally, we cannot deny the fact that the use of the term “Burgenland Croat” has remained controversial to this day. Geo-physicist László Szarka went so far as to write that the epithet Gradišće (i.e. from Burgenland) used in the context of the Croats, which was extended to those living in Hungary by “somebody at some point (some 20th century Jellasic? internationalist self-abnegators? petty imitators of the Austrians? some naive ignorant?) is so utterly unfounded that it amounts to a slap on the face of history, “the betrayal of the 1004-year-old Hungarian statehood”.4
A detailed description of the use of the epithet Gradišće is provided by the author of the Miloradić monograph, Nikola Benčić (Benčić 2013:261–262). The term itself was coined by Miloradić in 1921, after the majority of Western Hungarian Croats were annexed to Austria. By the interwar period an extended use of the term became the norm – it had come to refer to all Croatians living in the remaining areas of the Croatian diaspora such as Western Hungary, Western Slovakia and Moravia, who had settled in these parts after fleeing the ravages of the anti-Ottoman wars of the 16th century (Benčić 2013:261; Botík 2001; Tyran 2021:22–24). By now, therefore, Miloradić’s term “Burgenland Croat” has come to be used as a socio-linguistic and cultural umbrella-term.
To be sure, this is not without precedent in the relevant Hungarian literature, either. Ethnographer László Kósa argued for the use of the term Gradistyei/Gradišćanskih Croat. In his assessment of the historical work of Daniló Urosevics he wrote, “We must note that the collective term ‘Western-Hungarian Croats’ is just as anachronistic as the alternative term ‘Burgenland Croat’. It would have been correct for him to use the term ‘Gradistyei/Gradišćanskih Croat’, which contradicts neither history, nor our contemporary national borders” (Kósa 1971:444). Thus, the Croats of Horvátkimle are parts of the fairly expansive Croat island which has emerged in the Central Danube region, within the area of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. At the time, the center of this island, with the highest number of Croatian settlers, was the Burgenland region, found in present-day Austria, and thus the self-definition of this community is also rooted in belonging to this population island. We may confidently point out that the validity of the epithets “naïve and ignorant,” as well as “small-minded emulator of the Austrians” to scholar, vicar and poet Mate Mersich Miloradić may be ruled out with certainty. László Szarka's opinion paper ignores not only Miloradić’s erudition and benevolent intentions, but also his achievements.
After all, the vision conjured up by an intellectual concerned about the future of his nation came true: the term Burgenland Croat is known and used to this day and, more importantly, it is accepted by the community of the Burgenland Croats themselves: it plays a key role in the survival of the identity of this community.5 It would go beyond the frames of the present paper to get involved in the details of the fierce and extended disputes that have surrounded the exact population figures of Hungarian Croats or Burgenland Croats. Daniló Urosevics's data claim that 1590 of the 1766 inhabitants of Horvátkimle were Croats in the 1960's (Urosevics 1969:20). I readily concede József Horváth's statement whereby this is an exaggerated claim, nevertheless it is true that this was a period when Croatian was the language spoken in the homes of these families and when young people were more than happy to preserve their ethnic traditions. This was the case despite the fact that in the 1950's school instruction in the Serbo-Croatian literary language was introduced, taking absolutely no account of the local dialects spoken by the population in question (in Horvátkimle's case the Chakavian dialect).
The national minorities policy of the Kádár era manifested not in legislative acts, for instance in an act on national minorities, but in the (partially secret) rulings passed by the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (HSWP)6 every ten years (Föglein 2009:1–13; for more detail on the preceding line of events see: Tóth 2016:337–372; Molnár Sansum – Dobos 2020:253–255). The 1958 ruling on national minorities declared that the church and the clergy had a significant influence on ethnic minorities, and that a part of the priesthood was “carrying out covert nationalist and hostile propaganda” (Föglein 2009:8). This ruling appeared simultaneously with an incident in which Miloradić was characterized in 1964 as a bloody-mouthed instigator, an anti-communist and an anti-Semite on the strength of a poem he published in 1919 – thus it is little wonder that the local commemoration planned in honor of Miloradić for 1966 was rendered impossible by the ruling power.7 In his paper on the subject, Imre Ress points out the part that religion played in the preservation of Croatian identity. The fact that the Croats managed to preserve their language and identity from the early 17th all the way to the early 20th century, positioned, as they were, along the German-Hungarian language boundary, was certainly partly due to the over-representation of Croatian priests in the Győr Diocese, as well as to the tight-knit community network organized around religion (Ress 2008:411–426; Fazekas 1993:101–131). This is what became fragmented after 1948, and thus it is little wonder that the 2011 census found that there were only 311 Croatians living at Kimle (Sokcsevits 2021, Appendix). Today the two most important bastions of Croatian identity are Miloradić’s cult and the Barbara Procession. A piece of novelty relevant to our theme in the 1968 ruling of the HSWP on national minorities was that a top-down institutional system of national minorities was constructed and the cultural life of the minority group also came to be organized following these lines. A further change was the commencement of research into national minorities (Dobos 2008:385–405; 2019:36). This is the background to the fact that while tending to the cult of Miloradić was rendered impossible, the local Croatian community of Kimle was offered external support in raising the custom of the Barbara Procession to the rank of a central element in expressing ethnic identity. This external help came from none other than ethnographic scholarship itself: namely from noted ethnographers Tekla Dömötör and Ernő Eperjessy developing an interest in the custom of the Barbara ritual.
The Barbara Procession of Horvátkimle in ethnographic scholarship
The Barbara Procession of Horvátkimle is one in a group of customs and rituals centered around female miming figures clad in white. Slovenian ethnographer Niko Kuret (1906–1995) believes that female mimers clad in white and featuring during the winter season first appeared in European folk tradition in the eighth century at points where Bavarian and Slavic ethnic elements came in contact with each other, and that such figures became increasingly common along the Moravian and Czech areas. Kuret considers it likely that it was the surviving traditions of antiquity that became amalgamated here during the Middle Ages with the persons of the Christian saints and other noted figures. Kuret's investigative approach, which was fully in keeping with the academic paradigm of his time, inspired a range of summary works. It was based on Kuret's studies that Zoltán Ujváry summarized the characteristic traits of female mid-winter mimers clad in white in the 1980's (Ujváry 1983; 1988). Ujváry points out that the festivities relating to saints and the legend associated with them are not necessarily related to the mimers that embody them or the actions they perform during the custom. He also states that even in the cases where religious customs are displayed (warning children not to miss their prayers), we are not talking about the dramatization of the legend of the saint as much as about a catechizing presence. Associating the masked mimers clad in white with any particular calendar day, such as the days of Lucy, Barbara, Michael or Martin or even Christmas, merely indicates that the custom had become fixed somewhere in the row of festive days and that it matters little in examining its functionality exactly which calendar day this is. Speaking of the transmission of the custom, Ujváry declares that we cannot speak of a direct inter-ethnic connection so much as of the emergence of parallels (Ujváry 2007:206–218; Kuret 1955:211–212). András Krupa remembers the Barbara Procession held on Barbara's name-day (4th December) as a noteworthy custom element of the Christmas festive cycle of Hungary's Slovaks. There are two villages in Hungary's Pilis Hill region where the Barbara Procession has survived among ethnic Slovaks: at Piliscsév and Kesztölc (Krupa 2007:272–273). Here the women dress up into strange costumes both on Barbara's and on Lucy's day, impersonating a figure referred to as Barborka. The Barborka clad herself in robes and bandaged her face in a see-through gauze fabric (skrupka). In her hand she held a spoon. She would go around the village late in the evening, scaring the children and, in a more playful manner, even the men. This is how the women of Kesztölc used to dress up. However, during the day, before they set out on their tour as Barboka, the women in both villages used to go out to the cellars to party. This was purely the amusement of the women and young girls – no men were allowed to attend. Should one of the men venture to try and peek in on them, the women would catch him and undress him mercilessly, until he was quite naked. Often, young, unmarried men or the women's husbands would test their luck and sneak round the cellars just the same, but if they were spotted, they would flee at lightning speed, to escape foul humiliation. The women used to return from the cellars late in the evening and set out on their tour as Barborka. At Kesztölc, people merely preserve the memory of these women's parties, but at Piliscsév the ritual was performed even as late as the 1980's.” (Krupa 2007:273) It is important to emphasize that according to Krupa, „the traces of the custom lead to the North” – he names Nitra and Trenčín Counties and a line of villages along the middle section of the river Váh where the custom of the Barbara was alive until WWI and had the wooden spoon as its central requisite (Krupa 2007:273).
Anna Ács has also tried to find answers to questions concerning the origin of the Barbara Procession and points out the numerous ways in which the Barbara custom of Horvátkimle differs from the Lucy's day rites and from other rites that have been associated with this calendar day among other groups of Hungary's Croats (Ács 1994:347).
Kincső Verebélyi lays down as fact that masked mime rituals customarily take place in the winter season (carnival time), and also points out that “the winter season is the season for play” (Verebélyi 2007:19–20). The goal of the playing that manifests itself in this mime is “to conjure up a world that is different from everyday life” – these Luca and Barbara figures allow people “to come in touch with the world of the demonic”. These white robed figures, the author claims, “embody not winter, but people's fears”. At the same time, the Barbara figures belong among the gift-giving and not the scary monster figures (Verebélyi 2007:24).
Tekla Dömötör points out the changes in the function of these rites. “A whole line of originally religious/magical rites have by now turned into customs that aim to entertain or to delight by the aesthetic quality or have received some other social function.” She also points out that in Catholic villages elements of religion and popular belief have become intermingled, “because, just to be on the safe side, people would use a couple of prayers or religious objects (e.g. icons) to accompany any kind of magical action” (Dömötör 1980:294–296).
Ethnographic exploration of the Barbara Procession, associated with the eve of St. Barbara's day (3rd December) began in the second half of the 1960's. The first ethnographers to collect material in the village were Tekla Dömötör (1914–1987) and Ernő Eperjessy (1929–2022) in 1965 and 1966. The joint collecting work of the two researchers in 1966 and the resulting rich photographic material are to be found in Tekla Dömötör's legacy in the Archives of the Institute of Ethnology of the HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities.8
Who was Barbara?
JGy: “… it’s actually… an old sort of custom… my father sometimes tells me about it… We learnt it from them. When my mother was still a young girl, grandmother used to tell it. Grandmother was 87 when she died. So we know a great deal from her, all the things she used to tell us, about when she was a young girl, you see. Also about Barbara. She used to dress up, naturally in white, to cover up all, top and bottom, in case we go anywhere where people might recognize us, because if they do, they will instantly start shouting, ‘we know it was you!’ So this is what they do, they dress up all in white, cover their face, as if with a veil, making sure that Barbara can still see out. And to make sure that the children don’t recognize her. And a long dress, preferably a long dress. I have dressed up, too, quite a few times, I wear a white dress and white shoes… and yes, it’s quite long, you could say that, it comes almost to my ankles. So as I walked down the street, the dress was almost dragging on the ground. And white gloves, a rolling pin or rather a wooden spoon, and first of all we take candy with us. And of course then it’s the children, ‘Will you be good?’ and ‘Don’t forget to pray!’ They do pray. When they get a little bit bigger they are not so obedient any more. Only when they are quite small. These ones. So I say to them, if you are good and you obey your parents, and that they would be given candy, and that Barbara will come more often if you are not good or if you are naughty.”
Tekla Dömötör recollected this collecting work as follows. “The miming on St. Barbara's day is known in the South Slavic villages of Hungary. The Barbara figure appears in similar clothing here as the Luca does elsewhere. In December 1966 I had the occasion to see the Barbara miming of the village of Horvátkimle (Győr-Sopron County). Barbara appeared in pure white, her face covered over with a white veil and holding a wooden spoon in her hand. In the same village, Luca is also dressed all in white when she visits people's houses, but instead of a wooden spoon she holds a rolling pin in her hand. Aetiological legends about Luca as a controlling and punishing figure are known all over the country, while accounts of Barbara in a similar role occur among the South Slavs of this country (Dömötör 1974:70).
Proceedings of the research appeared in Tekla Dömötör's book Magyar népszokások [Hungarian folk customs Dömötör 1972:4], and a photograph extracted from one of the recordings made at Hotvátkimle was also published in a paper in German and in Switzerland (Dömötör 1967:151, Abb. 40–41).
“May God grant a good evening to the people in this house!
Barbara is waiting out in the courtyard.
Open your doors and be sure to let her in,
for she brings you good luck and takes trouble away.”12
Next, Barbara would be admitted into the kitchen and then the children, encouraged by her and their parents, would recite the Lord's prayer and the Hail Mary in Hungarian, on their knees. After the prayer each child will kiss Barbara's rolling pin and then they get their presents. Members of the procession leave the house with the following prayer, which also reveals that this custom has a function, besides its educational and moral role, of averting disease and malefice: “You stay with God and be good! Be sure to obey your Mother! May you be left here with good fortune and good health! We are now moving on from here.”13 (Eperjessy 1968:583–584).
“Barbara set out on her way around sunset, holding arms with her companion. True to her role she was not allowed to speak, only to hum from time to time. (…) Her companion stayed outside, while Barbara stopped near the door in the kitchen. The parents lured the children out of their hiding places and said, “Here is Barbara, pray to her!”14 Barbara bent down and if the children did not want to kneel down for the prayer, she would tap the ground in front of her to get them to kneel. The children had to pray the Lord’s Prayer or the Hail Mary, or often both. They would keep their eyes on Barbara who stood before them with hands folded together, holding up the wooden spoon ornamented with ribbons. (…) After the prayer Barbara would stroke the children’s faces and make a few gentle knocks on their teeth with her wooden spoon. Occasionally the adults would ask Barbara, “Will you please tap my back? It’s been hurting for days.”15 They would get her to knock on other painful body-parts, too (bone growths etc.), in the hope of recovery. Next, Barbara would be handing out gifts.” (Ács 1994:349–350).
The extremely detailed (five page) description that Ács offers of the custom also explains that Ferenc Németh, born in 1948, had learnt the introductory and farewell formula in the 1950's from an old woman from Horvátkimle called Mrs. Pál Burcz. In this context Anna Ács notes, “In the pre-WWI years the introductory rhymes would be chanted outside people's doors by the two big girls accompanying Barbara, without any other hello or good-bye ever being uttered. Mrs Burcz could no longer recall the tunes that went with these formulas. By now, the texts themselves have also ceased to be a part of this custom (Ács 1994:348).
Importantly, Ács also states, “another significant difference is that the Croats of Kimle, perhaps because it has no Hungarian villages in its close vicinity, did not adopt the Hungarian folk customs associated with Luca's day [Lucy's day]. Nor does the Barbara custom include any elements of fertility magic – we have only one piece of data of that nature, dating to the beginning of our century. Back then the Barbaras used to go around the village carrying a bag full of seeds and scatter a small handful on the floor of the house upon departure. The Barbara custom of Kimle has nothing to do with the kotyolás custom, there is no welcome-formula, magician or “wish-you-luck” rhyme. The two texts collected by Ferenc Németh and published by Ernő Eperjessy form the only exception (Ács 1994:347). Results of these three collectors were compared meticulously by József Horváth (Horváth J. ed. 1999:125–128), and he also pointed out some peculiarities of the use of terminology.
Ernő Eperjessy refers to the custom as a “Barbara Day miming custom,” Tekla Dömötör calls it “Barbara-mime,” Anna Ács as “Borbálázás,” while local usage usually refers to it as the “Barbara Procession”. It is thanks to them, therefore, that the Barbara Procession of Kimle has found its way to the country's “tradition map”.
The Barbara Procession in the daily papers and the press in general
Simultaneously with the collecting and research work, news of the Barbara Procession also appeared in the daily press. As we have mentioned, the year 1966 was a noted year in the life of the village – this was when the two villages Horvátkimle and Magyarkimle, lying on either bank of the Moson-Danube, became unified under the name Kimle (Bognár 2020:289–308). In the article in the county paper which informed the public of the unification of the two villages the authors also commemorated the Barbara Procession. They stated, “Of all the communities of this multi-lingual village, the past of the Croatians is the most interesting. They constitute the majority of the population and have retained their language and some of their customs even after 400 years. A custom unknown to others in the region is that of the Barbara Procession – indeed, Croats in other parts of the country have not retained it, either. On the eve of Barbara's day, young women clad in white, face veiled, would go from house to house holding a wooden spoon in their hands and taking gifts to the little children. Naughty children will be spanked with the wooden spoon. Even the oldest members of the community cannot recall the origin of this folk custom”.16 Influenced by country-wide interest in collection, a group of authors, consisting mostly of local schoolteachers (Franciska Burkus, Júlia Cseh and István Ludván), as well as of the secretary of the Executive Committee of the Village Council, everybody's “Mr Secretary” (Adolf Takács) summarized the results of the increasingly professionalized research efforts into local history carried out at Kimle. This writing, titled “We Continue Our Life Together” also meant an opportunity for the newly united village to develop its new self-definition and show its values to the outside world. The writing, produced for what is known as a “Know Your Country” contest, received the jury's award and was therefore published in the national daily Magyar Nemzet.17
A further result of research in the “Know Your Country” line was a dissertation written in 1969 by Mrs János Stipkovits, Mária Novits (Mici teta) in which the author offers a comprehensive description of the folk customs of Horvátkimle, including the Barbara Procession. (An excerpt of the revised version of the dissertation is available in Stipkovits 1999:229–247.)
One factor that contributed significantly to the custom of the Barbara Procession at Horvátkimle becoming widely known was that a journalist called József Joó, working for the county paper, developed a committed interest in the subject and in the community of the village in general. The opening lines of his 1979 article run as follows, “May health and good fortune stay here, grant these people, Barbara, all that is written in the sky! All of us are marveling, Frici18 has turned into quite a young woman; he built himself fake breasts out of paper, his waist is lean, he could go straight to the altar, any lad would be proud to swear to stay faithful for life. Aunt Julka dons her gloves. A folk custom is starting at Kimle, the ceremony of the Barbara Procession. »This is how people used to do it in the olden days, it is only right that we should continue« - claims fifty-year-old Imre Gyergyói, aunt Julka's younger brother. Soltvadkerti pours white wine into the wine-glasses and puts a record on the record-player of a Croatian kolo song. The singer chants that he has only just got married, but has already received a threshing from his wife.19 Joó describes the elements of the custom and analyses St. Barbara's cult, the beliefs and rites of fertility magic and work prohibition that are mentioned in the relevant scholarly literature. Besides the first-ever male Barbara, he also recalls the fact that in the previous year (1978) the Barbara Procession began with the Barbaras of Kimle boarding a bus. A revised version of this article was published in the periodical Szabad Föld.20 Reports on the enlivening interest in local lore repeatedly mention the Barbara custom.21 Altogether, we can safely establish that reports in the daily press contributed significantly to the custom gaining national renown.22
Renewal of the Barbara Procession at Horvátkimle
By 1988 József Joó was publishing a pained farewell to the custom in his article Hagyományok nyomában. Sirató Borbáláért [In Search for Traditions. A Wake for Barbara].
“It would make me so happy if there were Barbaras going about Kimle tomorrow night. Sadly, there are many doubts and many questions surrounding this Croatian folk custom and, as I found out this Wednesday morning, we cannot even hang on to the hope that old aunty Julka Gyergyói (a retired lady who had seen seventy-four autumns and is a devoted preserver of old traditions) will clad herself in white down to the toe, cover her face in the fitting white tulle, tie ribbons on her wooden spoon and stuff her white bag with candy. When I spoke to her about the matter, she quietly murmured, “Not me, not anymore.” Her resolved seemed firm. But then who? The custom seems to be failing. (…) Aunty Julka says that last year it was young Erzsike Bodó who went round the houses. But then she got married and left the village.23 Ferenc Németh, the male Barbara, moved to live in Austria in 1985 (“defected,” as they say); Júlia Gyergyói passed away in 1991.
Anna Ács finished her article with a question that reflects profound respect for her former informant Júlia Gyergyói, “Are we to accept that a custom so characteristic of this ethnic community has gone irrevocably extinct? We cannot know for sure – who can divine the future? But the signs certainly point this way.” (Ács 1994:352). Luckily, this is not what happened! In the early 1990's local nursery-school teachers from Kimle renewed the custom as a dramatic play, where the children say the introductory rhyme in both Hungarian and Croatian, and then ask the question whether the Barbaras might come in. After the entry of the Barbaras those present will collectively pray the Lord's Prayer, then the Barbaras will tap the shoulders of the participants one by one, “to make sure they stay healthy,” and hand out candies. The knowledge that Barbaras don't speak has also survived (Fig. 1). In the first few years the Barbaras handed out puppets “to make sure that all year was Barbara”. The dramatic play ended with the farewell formula published in Ethnographia in both Croatian and Hungarian.
The Barbara rite performed at Kimle in the early 1990's (source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LecMXrFSqc 2:39) (accessed June 20, 2023)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
During all of this time the milieu has also changed – the Barbaras and their companions moved from the nursery-school to the school building, where they visited the staff, a class of children and even the school kitchen. All of this was fitted around working days – the Barbara Procession has been moved to the morning of the working day closest to December 3rd. It was also around this time that the Barbara custom also appeared at Magyarkimle, because the little Barbaras from Horvátkimle and their companions also visited the local nursery-school, the Mayor's Office, the Cooperative Office and the Old People's Home.24 The Barbara custom performed by small children is alive to this day25 – besides, children from primary school have also begun to perform the ritual, following the same scenario.26
A further change in the history of the Barbara Procession came about when Ferenc Németh returned from Austria to Kimle and became head of the re-organized dance ensemble.27
It was also around this time that the expectation emerged that the rite should be performable. The first stage performance took place at Kimle in the early 2000's, to be followed by one in Austria,28 one at a cultural gathering at Mosonmagyaróvár29 and one at a county level ethnic minorities event.30 The tradition became re-interpreted each time this traditional element, isolated from the total past of the community, was put on stage.
In 2017, the Barbara Procession became included in the county level equivalent of the “Hungaricum” movement, the Value Inventory of Győr-Moson-Sopron County (Fig. 2). This means that the village community has once again committed to represent itself via a Croatian custom, the Barbara Procession, of all ethnic traditions of the village. (Indicative of the broad range of heritage elements included in the official heritage procedure are the following elements, also included in the county inventory at the same time as Barbara's Procession: the secondary school of Csermajor; the Erebe Islands; the Hungarian saber, Hungarian saber-fighting and Borsody's fencing system; the pickled fish of Szigetköz and the recipe of Kapuvár liver böllér style.) The reasoning attached to the elements in the county inventory are replete with the toposes of previous custom descriptions: “The Barbara Procession is a miming custom unique in Europe and has only survived here at Kimle.” Barbara goes around the streets of the village on December 3rd to bring good health and fortune to the inhabitants of the houses. Barbara – a young woman clad in a skirt, a men's shirt, a headscarf and a shoulder shawl, tights, gloves, with face veiled over, holds a wooden spoon ornate with white ribbons. Instead of talking she merely gestures, thus it is her companion, usually a young lad, who asks for admittance into the house – usually in Croatian. She greets the inhabitants of the house and invites the children for prayer. She knocks on their teeth with her wooden spoon to make sure they stay healthy and taps on aching body-parts of the inmates in hope of recovery. Upon her departure the children promise that they would be good, then Barbara gives them candies. Next, she scatters seeds on the floor to guarantee a good harvest for the ensuing year. It is the companions who say goodbye to the inmates of the house, wishing them good health, a good harvest and good luck”.31 Acquiring the County Inventory award and the fact that the custom also came to be listed in the “Register of Best Practices” of public culture further enhanced the role of the Barbara Procession in the self-representation of this community.
Report in the county paper about the Barbara rite being admitted in the County Values Inventory (Kisalföld 71(234):9. October 5, 2016)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Another achievement associated with Ferenc Németh is the launching of Barbara Evenings from 2015 onwards, regularly reported by the press. The very first occasion was the scene of a special event – they organized the “first European Barbara Beauty Contest” (Fig. 3).32 In 2017, three women dressed up as Barbara (Fig. 4), and besides the county paper even the ethnic minorities branch of ORF offered a report (Fig. 5).33 In the article they connect the Barbara custom with St. Barbara's cult and report that one Marija Vecsei became the winner of the beauty contest. According to the account of the Barbara Evenings of 2018 offered in the county paper, “The Barbara Procession is one of the most significant traditions of the Croatian community which has survived, unique in the whole of Europe, at Kimle alone. It is no accident that it was included in the County Value Inventory. (…) Today even nursery school children and schoolchildren participate in the Barbara Procession, making sure that the custom goes on to survive and may even find its way to the heritage inventory.34
Barbara beauty contest. (Kisalföld 72(283):8. December 5, 2017.)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Report in the local paper about the Barbara Evening of 2018 (Kimlei Hírmondó 21(1):11. April 11, 2019)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
ORF account about the Barbara Procession (Source: https://volksgruppen.orf.at/v2/hrvati/stories/2812594)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
The 2019 Barbara Evening was also a combined folk dance gathering. The local press called it “a truly international event”.35 The lantern appeared as a new prop of the custom – probably a borrowing from the St. Martin's Day Procession held at Magyarkimle (Fig. 6). November 26th 2022 saw the sixth “traditional” Barbara Evening held at Kimle. The bilingual invitation card included an invite in verse authored by Ferenc Németh which offered an inventory of the most important elements of this Croatian language custom (Fig. 7a–c). At the outset of the evening Ferenc Németh described the most significant traits of the Barbara Procession and showed some film footage to commemorate the most important individuals and turning points in the history of the Barbara Procesion at Horvátkimle. A total of thirteen Barbaras showed off during the evening, ten of them being current, three former inhabitants of Kimle (Fig. 8). This was followed by a costume show with participants from Mosonmagyaróvár, Bezenye, Jandorf, Cunovo, Neudorf and Kimle, during which particular attention was paid to items of clothing in the old style (“jako staro”) (Fig. 9). Visitors to the Barbara Evening were welcomed with a fully dressed Barbara Doll, a lantern and a jug for donations (Fig. 10). In 2022 Barbara featured on national radio channel Dankó Rádió, while characteristics of the custom were summarized by ethnographic researcher Katalin Juhász.36 The following recording was made on the morrow of the 2022 Barbara Evening, featuring a Barbara see as decoration in front of a house (Fig. 11). In the local Visitors' Centre Barbara awaits visitors in the form of a photo point (Fig. 12).
Barbara with lanterns (Source: https://volksgruppen.orf.at/v2/hrvati/stories/2812594)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Invitation card and program of the Barbara Evening of 2022 in Hungarian
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Invitation in verse written in Croatian to the Barbara Evening of 2022
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Extract from the Croatian text of the invitation for the Barbara Evening of 2022
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Barbaras dressing up. Kimle, Hungary, 2022. (Photo by Levente Szilágyi)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Ferenc Németh presenting costumes from Kimle. Kimle, Hungary, 2022. (Photo by Levente Szilágyi)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Barbara doll dressed up in fitting costume and a jug for donations. Kimle, Hungary, 2022. (Photo by Levente Szilágyi)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Barbara doll as a front garden decoration. Kimle, Hungary, 2022. (Photo by the author)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Photo point at the visitors' center at Kimle. Kimle, Hungary, 2022. (Photo by the author)
Citation: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 2025; 10.1556/022.2024.00013
Ferenc Németh – a collector of traditions, organizer, performer, director and author
Ferenc Németh's innovations concerning the Barbara Procession date not only to the period after he moved back from Austria. As we had seen, he was the first male Barbara in the late 1970's. He claimed that he had dressed up no more than two or three times, “only when there was nobody else to do it”. On these occasions he could access “confidential” information which never reached the collectors or they remained tactfully silent about it. E.g. “Barbara had to be a women who had never been ill”. White clothes, the symbol of chastity and the exclusion of menstruating women indicates the formerly more emphatic magical character of the custom. The fact that now a man could dress up as Barbara, or that of the Barbaras boarding a bus, or the more general air of “fooling around” that the relevant accounts show or the relativization of regulatory factors all point to the fact that the custom has lost its magical force. Today, nobody believes any longer that it really contributes to health magic – it has quite simply become a playful event, a source of amusement associated with people's Croatian identity. In the 1960's Ferenc Németh worked in Budapest where he met Ernő Eperjessy. The latter, influenced by these conversations, later visited Kimle together with Tekla Dömötör. It was Ernő Eperjessy who asked Ferenc Németh at the time whether there was any kind of a rhyme associated with the Barbara Procession (“that people used to say?”). Németh remembers this today as follows. “You know how it is, every ethnographer wants more, they want it to be interesting, so they get noticed, even things that never existed. There was never a rhyme at Kimle, I dare say that right out now, I've told many people – that Croatian text was written by me, in Croatian, I wrote it down and told Ernő, God rest him, that this is what people used to say. I thought, the people from Kimle would be in the paper, what a big thing that is, so yes, there is also a verse. There was never a rhyme, and I am willing to admit this, because, you see, folk customs change and you can add that this has changed, because people now say a rhyme that was never there before. But when was that, you see, at least fifty years ago if not more, you get it, don't you? And they will have to accept this. But when was this? Fifty years ago if not more, you know what I mean. People will have to accept this. (…) For a long time I didn't tell anyone that I had made up that little rhyme myself, but there were people who said in the 70's that they could remember their grandmother used to say it just like that. (…) Later I realized something, I realized that I'd used a word in this ditty which people at Kimle don't use… so later I replaced that to make sure it's a real Kimle text. I had a tune humming in my head and it was to that that I wrote this ditty. It was never sung until I staged it at Kimle and then it was sung”.37
It is my conviction that the line of innovations that have taken place, or the fact that the custom that was recorded was the result, even in the 1960's, of a kind of “representational selection” in no way lessen the value of the relating ethnographic research or of the custom itself, since both of them have fulfilled their function (Balogh – Fülemile 2020:27; Eitler 2023:11). The local community can consider itself fortunate, since the collections that took place in the second half of the 1960's were later repeated by Anna Ács and her extended field work yielded answers to practically all of the questions concerning the custom and its functions, particularly the matter of the welcoming and farewell formula.
Concluding reflections – is ethnography saving customs?
Writing about the wedding customs of Western Hungary's Croatians, Rezső Szegedy paid particular attention to the performance of the Wedding at Cana, and what is called the green wreath (Szegedy 1921). These are no longer existing customs at Horvátkimle.38 It is also he who described that it was the custom at Croatian weddings in Western Hungary to sing the song about the wedding at Cana because it was believed that “cheerful merry-making is dear even to the Lord” (Szegedy 1921:63).
Rezső Szegedy's concern, quoted in the introduction, that “characteristic” traditions would disappear, and his approach whereby ethnographers collect in order to salvage whatever is salvageable (by documentation) are seen today as belonging in many respects to an outdated paradigm, since assumptions about the temporal limitations of memory are based on fact, as are the doubts, in our case, concerning the knowledge of our informants and the “authenticity” of the knowledge they pass on.
Without disputing the fact that only the emergence of a, preferably early, written source could bring about a real breakthrough in the research of the Barbara Procession, we may safely declare that the example from Kimle supports the notion that ethnography can play a part in salvaging and preserving traditions. The collection work carried out by ethnographers at Kimle has had an impact on the life of the community which is still active today – it documented a custom and that way contributed to the survival not only of the custom itself, but also of the community, or at least provided a significant resource in that direction. By describing this custom, ethnography has contributed to its survival, indeed, as we have seen, it even influenced the content of the custom through its choice of what to record as the “official” canonized custom. When the Barbara Procession was revived in dramatic form in the early 1990's, a pivotal role was played by the welcoming and concluding formulas which Ernő Eperjessy published in his 1968 paper in Ethnographia “by courtesy Ferenc Németh's kind disclosure”. Naturally, indispensable roles were played by those who kept the custom alive or, as we have seen, shaped it – first and foremost Júlia Gyergyói and Ferenc Németh. It would be important from the point of view of local remembrance to collect the names of all those who dressed up as Barbara from year to year.
One more thing we need to be aware of is that Barbara was not the only mute female mid-winter mime figure at Horvákimle. A figure referred to as Santa Clause's Mother used to go about on December 7th. (Mikulina májka would also don a white outfit, she would wear a holy icon featuring Mary with the Baby Jesus hung around her neck on a white ribbon and carry a rolling pin in her basket.) She was followed by Luca (Lucija) on December 12th (Dömötör 1967:153).39 All three female mimers were still known to go about the village in the post-WWII years, but Anna Ács claims that this grew increasingly infrequent. “After the end of the 1960's no one dressed up as Santa Clause's mother or as Luca any more – these two customs petered out of local usage within the culture of the Croats” (Ács 1994:352). By contrast, as we have seen, the Barbara recorded by ethnographers at Kimle is still doing her job to this day – she “brings good fortune and carries trouble away” for the community that retains her cult, and that way contributes significantly to the preservation of the Croatian identity. As regards the ethnographers of the early 21st century, they can declare that in this case the transformation of the “original” custom has contributed to the survival not only of the custom itself, but also to that of the community. In the case of the example from Kimle, exploration by ethnographic scholarship was a pre-requisite for appearance in the press, just as for the organization of community events associated with the Barbara Procession which isolate the custom from its original context. By now, these numbered Barbara Evenings have become Croatian community events of determining significance. I am convinced that if the Barbara Procession ever becomes a “Hungaricum”,40 then arguments in the proposal for this title will need to include the fact that this is a custom of Burgenland Croats salvaged by Hungarian ethnography. Naturally, even regardless of this I would consider it important for the long history of this custom element, which runs right up to our present time, to become part of the circulation of international scholarship. Most recently it was professor from Split who wrote a comprehensive paper about the cult of St. Barbara among the Croats in 2015, but his data from Gradišće only mentioned a Barbara Branch (Dragić 2015).41 The example from Kimle proves that by selecting an element (a custom) from the past of a community, ethnography not only safeguards and strengthens tradition, but also provides resources and opportunity for the community sustaining that tradition to strengthen the community (cf. Appadurai 2001:3–31). The codification of the custom practice of the Barbara Procession by ethnographic scholarship has contributed, both on the individual and the collective level, to the preservation of a Croatian custom and Croatian identity, despite the fact that the content and origin of the salvaged custom (its authenticity) are far from clear. The history of the Barbara Procession after 1900 is the history of a resilient42 custom practice. Stepping over a more than one hundred year long dispute about the extinction of the Burgenland Croats as an ethnic entity, we may as well record that we are accounting here of a custom that belongs to a resilient community which had immigrated here almost half a millennium ago, and that keeping alive the custom of the Barbara Procession has contributed to the resilience of this community.
Acknowledgments
The present paper was written with the support of the program ELKH No. 57004. Social and Cultural Resilience in the Carpathian Basin. Institute of Ethnology, Research Centre for the Humanities, and the Rural History Research Group of BTK-NEB.
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Ujváry, Zoltán 1988 Játék és maszk IV. Dramatikus népszokások [Play and Masque. Dramatic Folk Customs]. Debrecen: Kossuth Lajos Tudományegyetem Néprajzi Tanszék.
Ujváry, Zoltán 2007 Kultusz, színjáték, hiedelem [Cult, Stage-Play and Belief]. Miskolc: Herman Ottó Múzeum.
Urosevics, Danilo 1969 A magyarországi délszlávok története [The History of South Slavs in Hungary]. Budapest: Hazafias Népfront Országos Tanácsa – Magyarországi Délszlávok Demokratikus Szövetsége.
Verebélyi, Kincső 2007 Maszk és maskara [Masque and Costume]. In Pócs, Éva (ed.) Maszk, átváltozás, beavatás. Vallásetnológiai fogalmak tudományközi megközelítésben, 15–28. Budapest: Balassi.
Sources
MTA–BTK NTI VII. 7.e. Tekla Dömötör’s legacy. Archive of the Institute of Ethnology of the Research Centre for the Humanities.
KSH (Központi Statisztikai Hivatal) [Central Statistics Bureau]. 1912 A Magyar Szent Korona országainak 1910. évi népszámlálása. Első rész. A népesség főbb adatai községek és népesebb puszták, telepek szerint [Census of the Countries of the Holy Crown of Hungary from the year of 1910. The Chief data of the population according to villages and populous settlements]. Budapest.
Szabina Bognár is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities. Since 2012, she has been the research centre’s legal officer. She publishes regularly in the fields of social ethnography, social history, local history, and legal ethnography. She is also a founding member and scientific secretary of the Tárkány Szücs Ernő Legal Cultural Historical and Legal Ethnographic Research Group, established in 2011 (http://jogineprajz.hu). She is part-time assistant professor in the Department of Social Studies, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Education, and Regional Development at the University of Pécs.
For more on the settling of the Croatians see Huszár Attiláné Fábiánkovits 2016:179–185; Kolnhofer 2008; Pálffy et al. 1999.
Horváth József agrees with Felix Tobler's conclusion which claims that „the first Croatian settlers probably arrived at what was to become Horvátkimle in 1547 or ’48” (Horváth J. ed. 1999:18, 116; Tobler 1979:53–69).
Vicar, poet and scholar, Mate Mersich Miloradić was among the leaders of the rejuvenation movement of the Croatian population and took an active part in their literary movement. His poetry is highly rated by Croatian literary historians (Sokcsevits 2021:55). Most recently, Michael Hirschler published a review paper on Merisch's scholarly work in Latin (Hirschler 2017:37–63). In the present paper we refer to Mate Mersich Miloradić by his literary pseudonym which means “he who creates with joy.”
Szarka, László: Hol van Gradistye? [Where is Gradistye?] Kisalföld 59(193):4. August 18, 2004.
In his volume (A magyarországi délszlávok története [The History of the Hungary's South Slavs]) published in 1969, Daniló Urosevics traces the history of Hungary's South Slavs (Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) from their settlement in the Middle Ages to the middle of the 20th century. Urosevics draws on contemporary statistics in an attempt to answer just how many “South Slavs” were living in Hungary. He finds that according to the 1960 census they numbered 38 thousand; while a strictly confidential internal report by the Central Statistics Bureau from 1955 titled A nemzeti kisebbségek száma és helyzete [The Number and Situation of National Minorities] puts it at 80 thousand; and the 1963 report of the National Minorities Department of the Ministry of Culture also estimated the South Slav population to number between 80 and 100 thousand. Just how cautious we need to be in using census data becomes clear if we compare the figures of the 1949 and 1960 census as quoted by Urosevics. Accordingly, the number of the Croatian population was 9946 in 1949 and this grew more than two-and-a-half fold by 1960 to 25,262 (Urosevics 1969:12–13). The absurdity of the figure may be shown via a simple calculation. Were the Croats successful at maintaining such a two-and-a-half fold growth every ten years, by the year 2020 there would have been more than six million Croats living in Hungary. The census data concerning national minorities, and the choice of nationalities offered by the census forms were certainly the tools in the hands of political instrumentalization of the period.
The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party was the state party operating with the support and under the supervision of the Soviet Union and was the sole agent of political power in Hungary between 1956 and 1989.
Miloradić’s poem Kommunište was published in January 1919, in Naše Novine. In it he draws attention to the dangers of communism, referring to the communists as devils and to communism as the terrible lie of Lucifer. In an essay on the role that Croatians played in 1918–19, László Kővágó wriing in 1964, characterised the poem as a “bloody-mouthed, inciting, anti-Semitic and anti-communist utterance” (Horváth J. ed. 1999:184). In Miloradić’s village of birth, a place called Frankenau which was annexed to Austria under the Trianon Treaty, a statue was erected in his honor in 1961 (the sculptor was world famous Ivan Meštrović). It was in the same period that József Préts, a priest with Austrian connections who was vicar of Horvátkimle for a mere three years from 1964 to 1966, tried, in co-operation with the local youth, to revive Miloradić’s's cult at Kimle. As part of this, after the Holy Mass on October 15th 1965, he solemnly laid a wreath at the tomb memorial of Mersich. In September 1965 local press reported on preparations for the memorial service. The article reveals that the journalist had visited Kimle, and at the council office the “madam secretary” did not know the poet's name, but she did refer him on to the organizers. The journalist states that Mersich was born at Fraknó (in actual fact he was born at Frankenau, a good 40 km further off) and, speaking about his poems, he states, “the text is not much better than that of Hungarian composed songs. Slightly sentimental and peppered with clichés.” The line “The Lad is a Carnation when he is Sweet” is, to quote the journalist, “a fragment from a light situational song.” The “bright-eyed youth” that the journalist went to see, chief organizer Ferenc Németh, revealed that the following year, i.e. 1966, they were hoping to invite Austrian visitors to the commemoration (Maros, László: Horvátkimle költőt ünnepel. „Szekfű” a legény, ha kedves. Kisalföld 10(226):6. September 25, 1965). In 1966, in possession of the permission of the local Council Secretary, they did indeed invite the Austrian visitors. The latter set out with six sets of mass vestments and 150 prayer books. At the border most of the prayer books were confiscated, with the claim that each individual was only allowed to bring one prayer book. The mass was to be followed by the performance of a tambourine orchestra, but the performance was unexpectedly banned, with the claim that it required a county level permission which was never sought. The next day, Ferenc Németh was taken to Mosonmagyaróvár to be interrogated. The Austrian guests paid a visit to the vicarage and then set off for home – at the border they were duly restored the confiscated prayer books. József Préts defected the same year, among adventurous circumstances. After this incident formal commemorations were no longer held at Kimle. (Information by courtesy of Ferenc Németh.)
MTA–BTK NTI VII. 7.e. F95–116.: Horvátkimle (Luca) 1966–69; MTA–BTK NTI VII. 7.e. F201–203 (Barbara). It is not actually clear how many times and exactly when Tekla Dömötör and Ernő Eperjessy did field work at Horvátkimle. József Horváth offers the following points of orientation, “In Tekla Dömötör's book A magyar nép hiedelemvilága [The Belief World of the Hungarian People] the black-and-white illustration in Figure No. 7. has the caption “Luca-mimer. Horvátkimle. 1965” and according to the list of figures the photograph was taken by Tekla Dömötör. The German language edition of the same book (Volksglaube und Aberglaube der Ungarn; Budapest, Corvina, 1981); includes a figure 7 featuring a black-and-white photograph with the caption ‘Luzienspiel. Horvátkimle. 1975.[!].’ The list of figures at the end of the volume (p. 298) confirms the date and names the author as „Photo by Tekla Dömötör.” If we move on to another book titled A népszokások költészete [The Poetry of Folk Customs] (Budapest, Akadémiai, 1974), the illustrations at the end of the volume include an item captioned ‘5. The impersonated Lucy mimer questions the children (Horvátkimle, 1966),’ while the “List of illustrations” on p. 254 states that this is a “photograph by Tekla Dömötör in 1966.” József Horváth also helped clarify that Péter Korniss extensively photographed folk customs at Horvátkimle in 1969 and these images first appeared in Tekla Dömötör's book Magyar népszokások [Hungarian Folk Customs].
Informants were János Gyergyói (84 years), Júlia Gyergyói, Mrs. Márk Németh, Pál Stipkovits and Zoltán Vojtek. Of the informants János Gyergyói offered a story about Jellasich which speaks to the pro-Hungarian sentiments of the people living here (p. 1); as well as a short story stating that “during the Turkish times” young women were in jeopardy (p. 2). It was also János Gyergyói who talked about millers (p. 3), watermen (baszormándli) (p. 4), firemen (p. 5) and boszorkány (pp. 6–9). He related anecdotes in which robber chief Rinaldo Rinaldini gave a poor woman a gift from his loot from the ware of a rich Jew (p. 11); about Józsi Savanyó who would rob the rich lords and distribute the proceeds in the village (p. 12); about the card diviner who scared a woman (p. 13); about customs related to Lucy's day and about Lucy's chair (p. 24 and 2 pages numbered 36); about the Christmas table (pp. 36–41); about New Year and Carnival (pp. 42–43); about the Baby Jesus's sweetbread (Jézuska-kalács; pp. 44–45); about the sanctification of foodstuffs at Easter (p. 46); about Lucy's Wheat (p. 47); about standing guard during the midnight mass (pp. 48–49); and about the wild rose branch used against boszorkány [witches] (p. 50). Júlia Gyergyói offered collectors the story of the mermaids who sang beautifully (ribinja ženska) (pp. 14–15); the Barbara custom (pp. 27–29); as well as about customs related to St. Michael's day (pp. 30–33) and to Christmas (p. 34). Mrs. Márk Németh, Júlia Gyergyói és Pál Stipkovics jointly talked about the mora (pp. 15–16); about the man with no head; about the rose-branch of St. George's day (p. 17); the rainmaker and other belief figures (pp. 18–20); about Miklulás [Sain Michael, Santa Clause] and the krampusz (pp. 21–22).
The record testifies that video recordings have been made of the Wedding at Cana and the Christmas carols, but these are only alluded to in the written notes.
Grandmother to Júlia Gyergyói (1914–1991), born in 1863 as Franciska Stokinger, Mrs. Ignác Gyergyovits by her married name.
“Dober večer Bog daj, Voga stana je ljudi! Barbara je jur vani na dvori. Vrata otvorite i nuter puščajte, Sriču će vam doniest, A nevolju odniest” “Istennel maradjatok és jók legyetek! Anyátoknak szót fogadjatok! Szerencse és egészség maradjon itt nektek! Mi innét most elmegyünk tovább.” [You stay with God and be good! Be sure to obey your mother! May good luck and health stay with you all here! We are now moving on.] (Eperjessy 1968:583).
“Zbogom ostanite, I dobri budite, I vašoj majkici, Jako se marite! Srića i zdravlje, Ti ovde ostani, A mi idemo odavljen, Sad dalje” (Eperjessy 1968:584).
Burkus, Franciska – Cseh, Júlia – Károlyi, László – Ludván, István – Takács, Adolf: Életünket együtt folytatjuk [We Continue Our Life Together]. Kisalföld 12(206):7. September 24, 1967.
Burkus, Franciska – Cseh, Júlia – Károlyi, László – Ludván, István – Takács, Adolf: Életünket együtt folytatjuk [We Continue Our Life Together]. Magyar Nemzet 24(3):5. January 5, 1968.
Misspelling of the name Franci. Sz. B.
Joó, József: Kimlei Borbálák [Barbaras of Kimle]. Kisalföld 35(287):7. December 8, 1979.
Joó, József: Barbara. Szabad Föld 41(16):12. April 20, 1985.
For instance, „Upon reaching our destination we were received by Júlia Gyergyói in her home. She is a member of the Seniors' Club, an enthusiastic preserver of Croatian traditions and a recurring Barbara of the custom of the Barbara Procession, who dons her white dress on 4th [sic!] of December each year and goes around the houses with her wooden spoon. She was also the source of the Croatian shroud, tablecloth and dresses… “I am a kind of explorer,” she says. “I go around the houses and encourage people to contribute their old things to the collection. Then at the club we record these old stories on tape, once from the Hungarian side, the next time from our side.”
Hámor, Vilmos: Padlásról a pincébe? Kimle kincse [From the Attic to the Cellar? Kimle's Treasures]. Kisalföld 38(49):7. February 27, 1982.
E.g. „Kimle, a village in the Szigetköz region inhabited by Croatians, is the home of a tradition performed on Barbara's day and known as the Barbara Procession, which has been long lost in other regions of the country. Barbara, dressed all in white, will not even show her face to the little ones and hides her features behind a white veil. Her companions are adolescent boys who ask for admittance into family homes and interrogate the children about their good and naughty doings. Barbara listens to them without speaking a word and only makes slight and mystifying hums to convey the message that she cannot be tricked. Then a whole range of surprises and gifts surface from her wicker basket. Mikulás-járás [St. Michael's Procession].” Délmagyarország 73(287):3. December 6, 1983.
Joó, József: Hagyományok nyomában. Sirató Borbáláért [In Search for Traditions. A Wake for Barbara]. Kisalföld 43(287):5. December 2, 1988. Continuing the article the author writes, „To make things worse, Franci is also absent, working in Austria. Franci and she used to go about together, their helper would knock on many doors, saying, “There are Barbaras in the yard, let them in, for they bring you luck! And round they went, so as to bring people good, to carry harm and malediction away from the house and to let the children know through their signs that they must be good and obedient, and to tap on their teeth and their back to make sure that the teeth never decay, their back never slouches. “Health and joy! – Sve najbojega, zdravlja i veselja zeljim! “, goes on Júlia Gyergyói. “I have started to give away parts of my costume, I don't take out my white blouse any more, nor the veil or the gloves.” She folds her hands like someone who doesn't really believe that the custom will be around for very long to remind us of the saint. Who can see into the future? The days rush past rapidly, Barbara will certainly not tangle the spinning women's yarn, and they feel that the extinction of this Kimle tradition is a painful loss. If only they were wrong! For man is like this – he cannot live without hope.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LecMXrFSqc (accessed June 20, 2023).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d8QluXIuh4 (accessed June 20, 2023).
http://kimlesuli.blogspot.com/2010/12/borbala-jaras.html (accessed June 20, 2023).
In previous years, Ferenc Németh also participated in the establishment and running of the Croatian dance group in Vienna. Ensemble ANNO ’93 celebrated the 30th anniversary of its existence on 10th November 2023, with a gala attended by 850 guests. Information by courtesy of Ferenc Németh. For more information see: http://www.anno93.at/
In 2003 in Borisdorf.
December 1, 2006. Organized by Pisztráng Kör [Trout Circle] at Mosonmagyaróvár.
Mészely, Réka: Féltik hagyományaikat a nemzetiségek is [Ethnic Minorities Also Concerned about their Traditions]. Kisalföld 71(220):9. September 19, 2016. „’I grew up in a family which observed its Croatian traditions closely. According to my estimate there are still about 400 people at Horvátkimle who speak the Burgenland Croatian dialect. Many of the young people still understand it, but no longer speak it – mostly due to mixed marriages,’ explains founder, choreographer and head of KUD Konoplje dance ensemble, Franci Németh who, born locally, has spent many years researching the history of the Barbara tradition. They have also performed the ritual at one of their shows, since they are hoping that this custom, along with the 124-year-old lime tree standing next to the church at Horvátkimle, as well as the lime-tree alley leading to the local churchyard (factually a chestnut alley – Sz. B.) may find its way to the County Value Inventory. The County Day of Ethnic Minorities served as the occasion for the presentation, for the first time, of the Award for the Service of Győr-Moson-Sopron County – in the ethnic minorities section the award was granted on this occasion to Géza Völgyi. The awardee works actively for the survival of the Burgenland Croatian community and the preservation of their language and identity.”
Mészely, Réka: Ecetes hal és böllérmáj [Pickled Fish and Böllér Liver]. Kisalföld 71(234):9. October 5, 2016.
Szépségverseny [Beauty Contest]. Kisalföld 70(279):8. November 28, 2015. „At 6 PM today, ensemble KUD Konoplje is holding the first-ever Barbara Beauty Contest in the Culture Center in honor of the Barbara mime custom which is unique in Europe. The most inventive and beautiful Barbara outfit will receive an award, the picnic and ball will include a Croatian dance house.”
https://volksgruppen.orf.at/v2/hrvati/stories/2812594 (accessed June 20, 2023).
Barbara-járás [the Barbara Procession]. Kisalföld 73(282):8. December 5, 2018.
https://www.kisalfold.hu/tudosito/2019/12/borbala-est-kimlen-fotok (accessed June 20, 2023). „A few days ago the Culture Center of Kimle hosted yet another truly international event. The local Croatian population welcomed all those interested on the Saturday before the start of Advent to a presentation of the Barbara ritual – a tradition, part of the County Value Inventory, which is alive to this day at Kimle and is unique in the whole of Europe. The last few years have seen many noted events including a Barbara Beauty Contest, but each year the organizers also tie in the event with some kind of innovation. This year it was the reunion of former folk dancers.”
https://mediaklikk.hu/cikk/2022/12/05/tudta-e-a-het-jeles-napjai-december-4-borbala (accessed June 20, 2023).
Extract from an interview with Ferenc Németh (Kimle, April 15, 2023).
According to notes, during their collecting tour of 1966, Tekla Dömötör and Ernő Eperjessy recorded the Wedding at Cana. Ferenc Németh, who dedicated his life to keeping alive the Barbara rite and other local traditions, has preserved a green wreath which he has had restored.
„Im Dorfe Kimle (Komitat Győr-Sopron) gab es bei den kroatischen Familien im Jahre 1966 Barbara-, Luzien und Nikolaus-Vermummungen; sogar die ‘Mutter des Nikolaus’ erschien als eine selbständige Maskenfigur” (Dömötör 1967:153).
A Hungaricum is a national tradition of outstanding value, the highest rank within the inventories of national values.
Levente Szilágyi and myself have made video footage and photographs about the Barbara Procession. Our field work film is available on the YouTube Channel of the Research Centre for the Humanities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy4sf4OIBw8. (accessed December 4, 2023)
Based on a definition by Vera Békés, „Resilience is a consubstantial concept: it refers, without further analysis and at one and the same time, to the threshold interval of the inner stability of systems and their capacity to adapt to (“survive in” or “cope with”) changing external circumstances. Resilience is a dynamic and holistic alternative to concepts such as ‘resistance,’ ‘inertia,’ ‘malleability’ and ‘stability’, which envisions an ability to survive in a flexible and adaptable manner, but which does not include the semantic element of rigidity inherent in the concept of ‘resistance;’ or the ‘changeability to any arbitrary shape’ usually entailed in malleability, nor the ‘heavy, lumbering’ trait usually associated with inertia, nor does it contain the customary meaning of stability – indeed is the opposite of these (Békés 2002:218).
