The festival also hosts exhibitions every year, creating a link between visual arts and music.Continue reading
On Saturday, the Museum of Ethnography will present the traditions, superstitions, and curiosities of the carnival season.
Carnival season lasts from Epiphany (January 6) to Ash Wednesday (March 5 in 2025). In traditional rural culture, this period was a time of celebration, liberation, and fewer physically demanding workdays, writes the Museum’s website. On February 22, 2025, they offer a wide range of programs for families and visitors of all generations to explore the traditions of the most exhilarating season of the year.
In the morning, families can enjoy the Carnival MÉTA Matinee, while in the evening, the Los Andinos concert will take place—preceded by the story of how a stunning Bolivian carnival costume recently found its way into the museum. A spotlight will be cast on the Busó traditions, featured in the museum’s permanent exhibition.
Visitors will also have the opportunity to try their hand at carving a Busó mask in the MÉTA space.
A masked busó. Photo: Facebook/Mohácsi busójárás hivatalos oldala
Through presentations and guided tours, visitors can gain fascinating insights into the carnival season, including age-old customs surrounding masquerade attire. They can learn about what transforms a costume into a ritual outfit, and how courtship, matchmaking, and marriage tie into this period.
Alongside unique ethnographic films, the museum will screen Lajos Boglár’s 1967 documentary Women’s Carnival in Mátraalmás, which caused such an uproar upon its release that local women never dared to hold the event again.
Visitors can also immerse themselves in the joys of a traditional pig slaughter, enjoy the dramatized puppet play Truka, the Dancing Goat, and listen to live zither music in the museum’s temporary exhibition “May the Zithers Sing Merrily!”.
Detailed programs are available on the museum’s website.
Via Museum of Ethnography, Featured photo via Facebook/Néprajzi Múzeum