International Journal of Ethnosport and Traditional Games, №2 (2) For references: Bakhrevskiy, Eugeniy. (2019) “History and actual image of oil wrestling”. International Journal of Ethnosport and Traditional Games, №2 (2), 12–36. DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.34685/HI.2020.75.15.002 HISTORY AND ACTUAL IMAGE OF OIL WRESTLING Eugeniy Bakhrevskiy PhD in philology, ORCID: 0000-0003-1246-3398 Russian Heritage Institute, Deputy Director; E-mail:
[email protected] RUSSIA Abstract Turkish “oil wrestling” (yağlı güreş) has a great popularity in Turkey, spread in some neighboring countries (Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania), in Western Europe and Japan there are amateur clubs of this wrestling. That is complex system of accompanying rituals and attributes, it is based on ancient folklore tradition, and in modern conditions it became an important symbol of Turkish national consciousness. An Oil wrestling long enough became a subject of scientific interest; there is a series of books on its history and a lot of papers. At the same time caring publicists note that still we don’t have a satisfactory scientific description of oil wrestling, neither in Turkish nor in other languages. The article presents the results of a study of historical development of oil wrestling, listed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. Symbolic and ritual elements of nowadays oil wrestling and Kırkpınar festival (ağa, cazgır, peşrev, kıspet etc.) were analyzed. Kırkpınar festival came into being in the end of the 19th century, in the period of wrestlers’ tekke system decay, when the well-known masters from Edirne and Constantinople began to participate to the local festival on Hıdırellez, after that it became very popular even on national level.