An Invariant Model and Main Ideas of the Love Song “His Beloved Is Marrying Someone Else”

Authors:

Pages: 73-90
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/OAZN3326

Abstract:

The article discusses a popular Bulgarian folk song about the love pain of a young man who was invited as a brother-in-law or as the best man to the wedding of his beloved with another man (usually a brother, cousin or neighbor). The main ideas are achieved after the analysis of the stable formulas and clichés in the perspective of the comparative-typological, cultural-anthropological and structural-semiotic researches. The chronotope of the invariant text is related to a spring lunisolar calendar transition, when an additional (intercalary) lunar month is inserted in every third year. This model was known both during the old Bulgarian paganism and until the final imposition of Christianity and the formation of the Bulgarian folklore (9th – 10th century). The hero of the song is a personification of the Priest-Poet, who describes the ideas of the mytho-ritual scheme of the calendar transition through the “socio-anthropological code” – presents the cosmic disorder at the end of the cycle as a personal tragedy.

Keywords:

Bulgarian folk love song; myth; ritual; lunisolar calendar; transition “from myth to poetry“; ballad

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