Busójárás

Masks against the Turks — or winter

The Busójárás, “busó-walking”, is the carnival of the Šokci, a Croatian community living in the town of Mohács in southern Hungary. The busós — traditionally men — wear frightening wooden masks and big woolly cloaks. UNESCO inscribed the festivities on its Representative List in 2009, noting that although the tradition began with the town’s Croatian minority, the busó has become an emblem of the whole city.

Locals tell two legends. In the more popular one, people who had fled Mohács during Ottoman rule were told by an old man to carve weapons and terrifying masks and wait for a masked knight; on a stormy night they returned to town making as much noise as they could, and the Turks, thinking demons were attacking, fled before sunrise. In the older story, the busós are chasing away not the Turks but winter itself.

Six days of carnival

The festivities start on Thursday, followed by the Little Farsang on Friday and the great Farsang Sunday, and end on Shrove Tuesday with the burial of carnival. More than five hundred busós cross the Danube in rowing boats and march through the city beside horse-drawn and motorised fantasy vehicles; a coffin symbolising winter is burned on a bonfire in the main square. There is also a children’s costume contest, a display of mask carvers and other craftspeople, and music and feasting throughout the town, with guest busó groups from neighbouring countries.