Categories: Liga Seikste-Deksne

Well, from the point of view of folklore, Shrovetide traditions are connected with masks’ activities, with disguising, with various amusements connected with masquerading. As for my childhood, as well as in later years, the Shrovetide celebration had never been paid much attention. But now, I am afraid to say, that in every other civil parish, or rather in a very large part of the municipalities of Gulbene region and the neighbourhood, in very many cultural houses, for some reason, carnivals are always organized on the first Sunday of February though it does not really coincide with the time of Shrovetide. The carnival resembles a regular countryside dancing party, to which people come wearing masks. Of course, for those who are wearing masks the entrance is free. The masks are evaluated and the masks’ parades take place. People take the preparations for this event extremely seriously. The masks are of a very high quality also nowadays, but unfortunately, this quality is gradually disappearing, perhaps because people no longer have time, no initiative to do their utmost, they just want it be as easy as possible.

But in my childhood it was one of those events, to which also children were allowed to go, since that was a very great show indeed, because people were preparing for the carnival for a year and even more than a year. There were very many elaborated papier mache masks, and the other, so to say, very traditional material was various cropper straws. For example, the mask “Rye woman” – it is a woman, whose wig and the whole princess dress is made up from approximately centimetre long bits of straw. You can imagine how extremely time-consuming, difficult and niggling the process of producing such a costume is.

Let’s say, nowadays, the awards for the best masks are often quite significant and imply some financial means, at that time, the first prize might have been a bottle of champagne and the others’ recognition. That was very important for people, perhaps, to compensate for everyday dullness, or maybe to compensate for the fact that in that everyday life it was not possible to show, mark one’s attire, then, maybe, those skills to make a great mask costume were demonstrated.

Researcher: Dr. philol. Valentīns Lukaševičs, Daugavpils Universitāte