Dopers usually know everything, but this might prove a challenge…
I am writing a historical story, and a girl turns 16 in 1928 or so in Sofia, Bulgaria. She has a sweet 16 party. I would like to know if there was/is any such custom in Sofia or Bulgaria.
Thanks for your help!
I’m pretty sure that sweet sixteen parties only happen in America and only recently at that.
It is my understanding that sweet sixteen parties are an almost exclusively American thing. I really doubt they have them today in Bulgaria, let alone back in the 20ies
They don’t even have then here in England, except for the occasional kid who wants to immitate Americans.
I am from Greece and the first time I heard about sweet sixteen was through MTV.
Aeschines, also note that the early 1900s was a very rough time period for Bulgaria and the Balkan region in general. A 16 year old girl wouldn’t have any party at all unless her parents were stinking rich.
This is indeed about a girl who was pretty rich, at least until she became an adult.
By the way, obviously the terms was not “sweet sixteen” per se. But would a girl’s 16th birthday be recognized in any way as significant? Would people have birthday parties for their children in the 1920s, etc.
Maybe you guys are taking the Sweet Sixteen thing too literally. The OP is probably interested in whatever “coming out” party or ritual or event would take place. As for S16 being uniquely American, the Latin American Quinceañera is very similar.
Is the family Christian, even just nominally? If the girl were just a little younger it could be a confirmationparty.
Interesting, thanks!
Bulgarian Christians are Eastern Orthodox, so Chrismation (confirmation) will occur at the time of baptism, not in the child’s teens.
I think part of the S16 significance in the USA is they are then old enough to drive… which is not the case in Bulgaria.
Ah, but how old did one have to be to drive in Bulgaria in 1928?!
I think what you’re looking for is a “debutante ball” and they definitely had débutantes in that part of the world before the Great War, but how soon afterward they felt up to the formal presentation is not something I can answer.
Not all of them. Orthodox was the dominant Christian religion by far, but Roman Catholicism was the second-largest denomination. The Catholics were numerous and powerful enough to run several schools, colleges, and hospitals throughout the country. So if you want to make your fictional girl a Catholic one celebrating a confirmation it certainly wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility (again, provided you made her a bit younger).
Oh, another possibility is Judaism; maybe she could be celebrating a Bat Mitzvah. I think Jews were about as numerous as Catholics at the time; according to Wikipedia the Jewish population in Bulgaria rose from 16,000 in 1920 to 48,565 in 1934, with over half of these living in Sofia. A few years before your story is set they had constructed one of the largest synagogues in Europe in the city centre (which I actually visited a few years ago).
But isn’t the big-party-style Bat Mitzvah a fairly recent and progressive phenomenon?
Just the Bat Mitzvah ceremony itself is a fairly recent phenomenon; the first one in America was in 1922. Wiki Link.
But Catholics don’t have confirmation at 14. They have split it into confirmation and first communion, and depending on region and historical time, it could be as early as age 8 and 11. Recently they started having it later, but reading pre-Vatican II manuals on how to teach children, they have the first ceremony in second grade.
I also don’t think that confirmation for a catholic family is such a big deal as in protestant ones at age 14, where lots of gifts are given and the teen is a religious adult.
If it’s not only a rich family, but from the upper class background, a debutante ball would be what the parents desired, but that’s rather different from sweet 16 today.
As for being old enough to do… , in the 1920s people were either adult later than today (21 years instead of 18) or much earlier - esp. girls in the Balkans, and socially not legally.