photo: Kalin Serapionov
Vlachugane
The Depth of the Water
Exhibition by Martina Vacheva
Curated by Vladiya Mihaylova
08.03. – 07.04.2024
Toplocentrala Gallery – Cube
Martina Vacheva has been preparing the exhibition ‘Vlachugane’ for two years. The included works are thought of as a cycle through which the author enters the deep world of images of traditional rituals and their present transformation.
The time after Christmas to St. Jordan’s Day/Holy Epiphany in the holiday calendar is particularly dynamic and controversial. This is the time of dirty days, of Voditsi/Waters and winter carnival games, when the New Year and new life are cosmically ‘born’ and the community is recreated.
In her works, Martina Vacheva shows the special dynamics of this period of the year in the horizon of extremes, of destruction of the supports of the world and their reconstruction. Hierarchies change and rearrange – above and below, good and bad, new and old, male and female, beyond and within become intertwined, and violence becomes an element of the structuring of the new beginning, of the restoration of order.
Vlachugane comes from the verb ‘to drag’ and is a word that traditionally refers to the initial violent act of coercive baptism, and subsequently washing, bathing, immersion against the person’s will. This is a deed that resonates with past practices of stealing the maiden, as well as any other compulsion to perform a certain action that is regulated and allowed in the ritual. Does this really mean restoration of order or is it related to a new, monstrous hierarchy, to the dogmatism of tradition and its reproduction. Are we turning a deaf ear to the drums of violence? ….
The rich, ironically grotesque, somewhat naive, but also deeply analytical visual language in Martina Vacheva’s paintings penetrates the cracks of contemporary society, revealing stereotypes and their roots far back in time. With the ability to speak simultaneously through dense, saturated painting and through a detailed insight into symbolism, text and characters, the artist presents us with numerous micro-plots and bright character types that are present in Bulgarian society.
The lower world and the upper world are intertwined, the mire of the swamp, a masquerade stuck to the bodies of the ‘heroes’ of today in corruption, choosiness, artificiality and falseness that cannot be washed away and/or recreated. They are the focus of an ever-hanging horizon of (auto)violence that oppresses society, poisons the community, and stigmatizes the bodies themselves. Without moralizing or taking a position, the artist offers us an analytical, courageous look at the present of strength and weakness, of violence and submission and their destructive power in the human world.
Vladiya Mihaylova
Man Dance, 2022
210 x 300 cm , acrylic on canvas over massive wood, woodcarving
The main composition in the triptych depicts a realistic scene from a notorious “male ring dance”, happening all over Bulgaria, but mostly on the Tundzha River in Kalofer. The male ring dance is a fictional tradition that originated in the 90s and has become extremely popular in recent years. It takes place every year on January 6 – the Orthodox Christian holiday Yordanov den (Epiphany), also known as Voditsi, Vodokrustchi, Male’s vodtsi. On the same day, the birthday of the Bulgarian revolutionary Hristo Botev, born in Kalofer, is celebrated.
A typical scene from this fictional “Male Ring Dance” ritual is the drunken beyond recognition men in fake folk costumes, immersed in the icy waters of the river, playing a folk ring dance to the sounds of bagpipes and drums. Participants sing songs and wave the national flag or simply chant “Bulgarians, heroes! “ The local priest throws a cross into the river, which the “brave men of Mother Bulgaria” search for, and retrieve from the ice-cold water. This is the most common scene to be seen on Yordanov den (Epiphany) in recent years as it has become increasingly associated with the holiday itself. Local participants even go so far as to claim that the men’s dance is a tradition “since time immemorial”, which is a pure fiction.
According to researchers of Bulgarian ethnography, Yordanov den has been associated for many years with the performance of many rites with water baptized for health and fertility. And “Voditsi” in general, apart from the church custom of sanctifying the water in the river passing through the village or the village well, are also connected with the custom of the participants douching each other with water or bathing in the river, also known as “bathers” or “waders”. The bathing of the members of the community, called “huskane”, is done on Yordanov den or on Ivanov den (St. John’s Day): that is why Yordanov den is called male’s voditsi, and St. John’s Day – female’s voditsi. In addition to the mass bathing, sinkage, all the icons are also taken from the house to the river and after the Great water sanctification they are immersed in the water. Throwing a cross into the water by a priest to be retrieved by the bachelors as a competition between them is also a common practice.
On the subject, however, there is no mention anywhere of a performance of a “male ring dance”. Another interesting fact is that on the same day in the town of Kalofer, the celebration of the emblematic Bulgarian revolutionary Hristo Botev is held, and it is probably defined by many people as a revolutionary ring dance. The male ring dance is a fiction, soaked with patriotism and dressed in a pseudo-folk costume. The face of this pseudo-patriotism is aggressively “encouraged” machismo. The holiday is certainly deprived of its Christian identity and has become a metaphor for the state of Bulgarian society in the 21st century and beyond. It is no coincidence that over the past decade, the media on Yordanov den (Epiphany) have increasingly reported participants in mass brawls, brutally torn clothes, wounded men, broken crosses and obvious inter-ethnic tensions, which completely deprive the holiday of its Christian meaning. But going back in time, the parties active during the mass bathing were allowed even harsher measures. Hence the impunity for forced bathing of community members – yet the ritual performance of prescriptions ensures health and purification:
These elements of history, religion, tradition, pop culture, and commercial aesthetics all came together to form a new tradition supported by the church. The tradition of machismo reinforces a group archetype where one is obsessed with the past and any contemporary (modern) pro-European idea seems like an aggressive threat to their convictions. In recent years, at the background of global populist movements and resurgent archetypes of nationalism, this scene is equally timely and resonant in the contemporary moment. And the Triptych, large and overwhelming with its scale and grandeur, is just as much a metaphor for the burning, proud “Bulgarian Masculinity”, self-centred with all its arrogance, shallowness and misunderstood principles, summarized in one grotesque portrait.
Martina Vacheva
Silent Water, 2023 – 2024
268 x159cm, acrylic on canvas, solid wood, wood carving
At its core, the work “Silent Water” is interconnected with the entire cycle of works inspired by Bulgarian traditional rites, distinctive for the winter calendar circle of holidays and rituals (“Dirty Days”, “Voditsi“).
Just as there are “Male voditsi” at Epiphany (Saint Jordan’s Day), so there are “Female voditsi” at Ivanov’s day (Saint John’s Day). On that day, already in the dark of dawn, fresh water will be brought from the well or from the river, preferably running water. They will pour it into a large vessel to perform the bathing for health, outside in the open air. On that day, Water Maids sing Water Maiden songs and also perform the “Sovoynitsa” ritual, in which the girls sprinkle silence or undrinked water on the housewives and the home.
At the time of Voditsi, the belief that water has enhanced magical powers was preserved. Today, modern fantasy, due to lack of knowledge, has created a mass product for women, resembling a cheap recipe for magic or the so-called “silent water”. The water that every woman can pour into a container (if possible not plastic) and “keep it silent” at night. When this happens, a wish is directed at it, and it can hear and fulfil. This is also the main plot line in the painting “The Silent Water”, which is cut in the middle by a depicted well, whose water listens to wishes, but also plunges deeper and deeper into the problems of our society.
The upper part of the work is a reverie of superficial dreams and fantasies, without weight and without consistence, which at any moment can burst like bubbles in the unprincipled inflatable pink world. Their ambitions reach no further than the profession of “brand me” and how to work as a “rich man”.
In the lower part are the underground cries for help as if from the other world. They are buried deep in a home built of aggression and fear. On the one hand, they are oppressed by their “strong” half, the common devout Christian, a pseudo-patriot, modelling faces with impunity, accepting himself as God the Creator.
On the other hand at this home is the rich housewife taken hold of another rich man who is quickly chewed up and spat out.
This is the toxic picture that screams more and more brightly with its aggression and superficial depravity, to which we seem to be immune and accustomed, and the “silent water” of a goldfish, becomes a metaphor for the silence, fear and detachment of society.
In our country, the cases of violence are large-scale, which somehow has become a kind of normality, and the judiciary remains “silent” and always spares the aggressors.
Already a few years ago Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Church did not adopt the Istanbul Convention. In a statement of the Holy Synod, it is said that the document threatens the future of Christian civilization and is a prerequisite for a moral decay of society. According to the Bishops, the foreign value system embedded in the Convention opposes the fundamental understanding of the Bulgarian people about faith, morality, dignity, breeding and family.
Martina Vacheva
The Banquet of the Pagans, 2023
Acrylic on canvas, 161 x 190 cm
“The Banquet of the Pagans” is a picture inspired by the folk beliefs and rituals of the so-called “Dirty Days” (Also known as kocker, “bugani” days, “karakondjo” days, unbaptized days, enemy nights, unbaptized days, “pobožnik”, and “gluite” days). Pagans are evil, impure spirits and prototypical beings of the karakondjos, the buganis. The name is probably a loanword from the Greek language, as only the prefix passed through Turkish: “kara”, which means “black”, + concolos: monster. With the Greeks it was called καλικάντζαρος (“kalikantdzaros”) or παγανό (“pagano”).
According to a popular belief, pagans (karakondjos) wander through the so-called “Dirty Days” in the border period between the old and the new astronomical year (from Christmas Eve, December 24 to Epiphany, January 6). During these days, there are customs that are established by popular belief, as it is considered a dirty and dangerous period, and there are many prohibitions like beliefs to prevent future misfortunes.
The dirty days end on the 5th of January, when the pagans are driven out by water baptisms. On that day, they baptize the water and the priest goes with his cross to sprinkle the houses. Until that day, the unclean spirits of pagans (karakondjos) walk around, until that day the masked “Jamals”, “Startsi”, “Koledartsi”, “Kukeri” also go around. On that day, one drinks from the baptized water to drive away the unclean spirits.
Inspired by this context, I recreate the modern “Dirty Days” or “The Banquet of the Pagans” triumphing and reigning in new depths of our social swamp.
The absolute takeover and spread of the Mafia, lack of laws and judicial power, the destruction and erasure of culture and cultural values and education at the expense of an increasingly aggressive mafia model of behaviour and getting rich fast in a dishonest way as a formula for Success. These are like diseases caused by Dirty Days that have taken over the environment in which we find ourselves like an epidemic. This is the swamp that has been dug for so long and is now reaching its bottom. As in the dirty days, here reside all kinds of monsters and demons, toxic-coloured creatures that parasitize in the mud of lack of principles, lawlessness, and violence. Happily, they celebrate their Banquet of Decay and stink, of the rotten present, an epidemic of mediocrity and chalga, obliterating the efforts of spiritual and cultural progress. Now rule arrogance, aggression, vulgarity as the highest form of behaviour with examples in political life as well as in society.
Children proudly carry the slogan “Goodbye education, Goodbye culture!” High school graduates who have just finished school declare their future visions of life “I’m going to be a trickster, I’m going to be a millionaire, I’m going to be a mobster! “, and the girl declares “I will become the boss’s wife”.
And the priest glorifies Bulgaria as it once has been during its golden age, bordering on 3 seas, here and now he proudly declares “Bulgaria on 3 swamps”. This is the sad vision and agony of the ever trampled and raped intelligentsia. It is their sadness, anger, and unrelenting constant struggle with the ever-deepening mediocrity swamp. This is a Pyre; this is the burning of Culture like a witch threatening the comfort of Mediocrity. Culture considered worthless; lack of elementary education; remade history and post-communist mug culture pays off on a scale of distorted real modern medieval zombies. Extreme pseudo-patriots who, together with their leader, stuck the largest Bulgarian flag, which made the Guinness Book of World Records, as a symbol of the erectile Bulgarian national spirit.
Martina Vacheva
Lilies of the valley, 2024
105 х 73 х 44 сm, ceramics, copper pot, branches, water, mud
“Lilies of the valley” (Maiden’s tears) represents a bent female figure weeping and dipping her head into a cauldron full of her tears. Branches and thorns emerge from it, looking like an abandoned waterhole cooked in a cauldron. It is as if her head has been soaked with household immobility, and she is in a posture of prayer to the “silent water”, which will perhaps give her the recipe for a new beginning. Her consciousness is a motionless silent swamp with a face without hope, without identity. She has merged with him like the living dead, inhabiting the zone of silence and oblivion, and the “dirty days” never seem to have left her.
How many times do we have to dive into silent water to heal the sick society of the dirty present?
Martina Vacheva
Vlachugar, 2024
120 x 60 x 70 сm, ceramic, wooden barrel, artificial hair
“This is how Kisimov describes the “vlacuchos”: They take place “on the day of Baptism”. They are “sanctified custom”, therefore incorporated/assimilated to the church calendar and ritualism. On the day of Epiphany, after a church holiday or after the priest has baptized and sprinkled the water, groups of people gather in neighbourhoods, i.e. on a territorial basis and wait for passers-by to “baptize” them in the river voluntarily or by force. (Kisimov 1900: 44-45).“
Already at the beginning of the description, Kisimov hurries to clarify the etymology of the custom, discovering its roots in the time of the First Bulgarian Kingdom – the “vlachugane” (“wetting”) is equated with Christian baptism and is a reminiscence of the first, mass baptism under Prince Boris I Michail. The typological definition of the custom as “folk-religious” (Kisimov 1900: 44) suggests how Kisimov sees its essence and purpose – as a ritual equivalent of baptism. The vlachugane is the recurring act of a nation-wide break with paganism and acceptance of the new God. Gerov’s dictionary recognizes as the predominant meaning of the lexeme “vlachugam”: ‘I unite, create followers’ (Gerov 1975: 139-140), in the sense of following someone in undertaking something and thereby emphasizing the ubiquity of the performed nationwide act.
“This amusing, if somewhat rough custom was not without tragic scenes. Many times the ambitious characters have caused fights, which numerous times have ended in battle and bloodshed; there have been cases of injury with a weapon and murder (emphasis is mine – D.A.), cases not considered punishable and, as such, not subject to any punishment.” (Kisimov 1900: 45).
Kisimov does not emphasize the violent element sneaking into the semantics of the name of the custom, but we are obliged to note it – “dragging” implies a certain amount of violence on the part of the “bather/baptizer” or at least reluctance on the part of the “bathed/baptized”.
In addition, another ritual practice can be pointed out, this time from the wedding ritual circle, where the semantics of the word “dragging” implies the forcible appropriation of the bride (Ethnography 1985: 192): ‘dragged, – from to drag’: dragged maidens – maidens taken by force, maidens stolen and married to someone against their will.’ (Gerov 1978: 55-56). In his dictionary, Nayden Gerov indicates 8 meanings of the lexeme “Drag”, and their arrangement is indicative of the dominant use of the concept and needs no comment: ‘1) drag, howl something on the ground behind me 2) forcefully drag someone (emphasis is mine – D.A.) to walk with me 3) lead after me 4) bring 5) carry 6) drive, tow 7) drag out, prolong, continue ???? bear , endure, undergo.’ (Gerov 1975: 139-140).
Glorified “violence”, mastery over them. Bathers forcibly douse people with water (Gabrovski 1989: 19). On the last day of Voditsi (Epiphany), the men steal (or rather kidnap) the grandmother (old woman) from the women. Stealing as a sacral act is also known in other ordinances – stealing the bride for the wedding, stealing the Kuker grandmother, stealing things from the owner’s yard at Christmas and “Surva”, etc.
Sources: TWO FOLK CUSTOMS DESCRIBED IN THE MEMOIRS OF PANDELI KISIMOV Desislava Andreeva