Wedding Ceremony of Prekmurje Slovenes in the General Slavic Background. 2. Characters and Ritual Attributes

Abstract

Firstly, the Prekmurje wedding rite shows close cultural and linguistic connections of this Slavic region with the neighbouring Croatian and, to a lesser extent, with other South Slavic ones. And the further east in this area, the lower the degree of the convergence. Secondly, there are even closer and more distinct connections with the traditional culture of Slovakia and partly of Moravia. These parallels are not limited to the south-eastern regions of Slovakia closest to Slovenia, but also extend further in the north and east division by the Slovak Carpathian region and Western Ukraine. Separate, sometimes even more geographically distant correspondences, mostly sporadic, single or point-like, link the marginal Slovenian tradition of Prekmurje with some other archaic marginal or enclavian Slavic traditions – Sorbian, Slovincian-Kashubian, Burgenland Croatian, Southern Bulgarian (Rhodopian, Thracian), Northern Russian.