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The masked rite of Croatian Baranja

Willow-wood masks, sheepskin cloaks, and the thundering of cowbells through the villages of Baranja. Each winter, the buše rise to drive away the cold — a Šokci tradition rooted in the Croatian Danube plains, passed down through generations as a living act of identity and defiance.

“The mask does not hide the face — it reveals what winter fears.”