Kukeri – the Bulgarian ritual of masks that drive away evil

Every winter or at the beginning of spring, participants dressed in fur costumes, wearing enormous masks and heavy bells, would move through villages dancing and creating powerful noise to drive away evil spirits and the old energies of the year that was ending.

Their movements were intense, sometimes chaotic, sometimes perfectly synchronized. The sound of the bells echoed through the streets like a rupture between worlds. It was not merely a performance. It was a form of collective purification.

Folklorists and anthropologists who have studied the Kukeri tradition and other Balkan rituals have observed that many of these practices combine pre-Christian elements, ritual agriculture, and symbols of death and rebirth.
The mask did not simply hide the person. It temporarily transformed them into a symbol of the force that protects the community.

Anthropologist Victor Turner described such rituals as rites of passage in which the ordinary order of the world is suspended so that people can re-enter a new cycle of life.

Perhaps this is why the Kukeri ritual remains so powerful even today. Behind the masks and the noise lies a very ancient human need: the desire to push away fear, chaos, and darkness in order to make space for a new beginning.

In many villages across Bulgaria, Kukeri festivals are still held every year, keeping alive one of the most spectacular ritual traditions in the Balkans.

👉 Is there a ritual, festival, or tradition that makes you feel the energy of a new beginning?

👉 If you could leave something behind before a new beginning, what would you choose to release?

👉 What ritual or tradition from your childhood most reminds you of the feeling of renewal?