Yearly-Cycle Rituals
 

Spring Rituals

Maslenitsa (M.):
    M. is a week long holiday roughly equivalent to the Carnival in Brazil, Fasching in Germany and Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It is around the time of the old folk calendar New Year of Mar. 1. It allows for a period of license before the Great Fast, Lent, begins. It is called M., which means butter week, because during this festival, people do not eat meat. They do, however, consume a great deal of sour cream, butter, caviar, cheese, pickled and smoked fish. The primary ritual food of M. is blini, which are thin, small (4 inch) pancakes fried in butter. They are filled with cheese or fish and covered in sour cream and jam.
    Recall that the point of spring rituals is to celebrate the sun, which is regaining its strength. The blini is an excellent sun symbol--it is round and made of eggs, itself a symbol of the sun with its yellow yolk. In addition, it symbolizes a blending of the essences of life: grain from the earth, eggs from an animal, fish from the water, cooking over fire. Thus, blini not only represent the renewed power of the sun, but of animals as well. They are fed to animals to increase their fertility and productivity. On the last day of M. before Lent begins, blini were placed on their family’s graves, which indicates that the souls of the dead are returning from the land of the dead. A similar ritual occurs after Easter. They were also used by unmarried girls in a divination ritual to tell who they would marry. At sunrise, they put a blini on their head and walked outside. The first thing or person she saw would give her a clue as to who she would marry.
    The most important aspect of this holiday is overeating. This behavior exemplifies sympathetic magic, that is, if a person overeats now, s/he won’t be hungry later. It is most important that the priest overeats. He goes from house to house in the village, eating a meal at each one. He had to eat the fattiest food in the meal. Usually, he ended up in a wheelbarrow by the end. There was also another example of sympathetic magic, in which boys were allowed to push girls in swings. The higher they were pushed, the higher the crops would grow.
    M. also included had sexual license as part of a ritual drama. First, a M. dummy was made. He was usually made of straw, dressed in women’s clothes and wore a mask with a nose in the shape of a phallus. As the women carried him around the village, the married men and women sang sexually explicit songs and told obscene jokes. Lots of alcohol was consumed during this portion of the ritual. The men and women would get into a playful tug of war over the dummy. Finally, on the last day of M., Sunday, the dummy was destroyed, in a copy of a ritual sacrifice, by ripping it apart, burning it or drowning it.
    Once Lent begins, there were no rituals at all. Lent in the Orthodox tradition, means no meat, no oil, no dairy products. They ate beans, grains, what little veggies they had from the last harvest, usually pickled, and fish.

Easter (E.):
    Holy Week begins, as you know, with Palm Sunday. This is problematic in Russia, because they have no palm trees. They had Pussy Willow Sunday instead. The pussy willow was chosen, because not much is blooming at that time of year in Russia. However, the willow blooms earliest of all, so it was a good symbol of the spring vegetation. Another important characteristic of the willow that makes it a perfect symbol for vegetation fertility, is that if you cut a branch of a willow and stick in the ground, it will sprout roots and grow, unlike other trees. It also had characteristics of an animal, being fuzzy, so it was a good symbol for the birth of animals as well. In fact, infertile women used to eat the buds so that could conceive a child.
    The pussy willow branches were taken home after church, dried and placed over the icon. On the way home from church, young boys would wait with their pussy willow branches and chase girls, hitting their legs with the willows. This is a good example of a period of license, since the usual roles of public behavior and sexual propriety were abandoned, resulting in a release of tension between the sexes. Another ritual related to leaving church was to light a candle in church and try to walk home without it being blown out. Then a cross was burned on the front door to bring prosperity for the upcoming year.
    On Thursday of Holy Week, Russian traditionally had a spring cleaning ritual, in which all food left over from the previous year was thrown away. This was also done in Rome and may be a remnant of Indo-European agrarian practice. On this day, E. eggs were decorated. On Good Friday, the Russians went to church and lit a candle in memory of the dead. This light served to attract the souls of the dead, who returned to earth during the E. period. They also kissed the coffin of Christ, which was a shrouded picture of  box representing his coffin. They would confess their sins. They also made the two most important foods for the feast on E. sunday: kulich, a yeast-risen eggy cake cooked in a tubular shape and decorated with white frosting and fruit. Each person in the family had their own, large for the oldest people, small for children. This cake is a symbol of both animal (the eggs) and vegetable (the grain) fertility, baked in the shape of a phallus (human fertility). The second food was syrnaya paskha, which is made of a curd cheese (like cottage cheese with no liquid), fruit, eggs and sugar or honey in the shaped of a pyramid. It has the initials XB on it, which are the abbreviation for Christ is risen. This cheese dish was also a symbol of new growth and life: the fruit is a seed, representing new life, while the milk indicates the ties of kinship (remember that Russians say milkline, not bloodline). On Saturday, the priest blessed the food for the feast and the E. eggs. All of the food for the feast was brought to the church, even the salt. If it was not blessed, it could not be eaten. Some of this blessed food was left on the family’s graves. This was a day of total fasting. No food at all was consumed.
    E. service lasted from late evening to dawn. At midnight, the priest would lead everyone out of the church, and they walked around it three times saying, Christ is risen. While they were walking around, the altar boys were unshrouding the church, which had been covered to indicate Christ’s crucifixion. The uncovering of the icons, altar and flowers and lighting the candles indicates his resurrection. Once the service ended, the people broke their fast with the blessed food for the feast. This is the only ritual meal that includes sweet food, the paskha and the babka, with meat, usually sausage, lamb or ham. Leftovers from the blessed meal were either fed to animals or birds, thrown in running water, or buried. Since the meal had been blessed, they could not just put it in the trash or let it spoil.
    On the Sunday after E., St. Thomas’s Sunday, each family went to its grave site and had a picnic. During the week before the picnic, the graves were cleaned (usually women did this) and new flowers were put on them. The leftovers from the E. meal may also be eaten during this picnic. This ritual marks the fact that the ancestors’ souls have been on earth since before Lent and honors the ancestors. Extra food was left on the graves for the dead. The entire E. period is associated with honoring the ancestors and appeasing them with food on the graves, so that they will help the crops to grow. The dead were considered to have a close tie to the earth they were buried in. The bodies of the dead were seen as a sacrifice to the earth goddess, much like a ritual sacrifice of the god or of the dummy standing in for him.
    E. and the holidays surrounding it were primarily for married couples and the family.  Couples would visit their relatives during this period. They were allowed and encouraged to kiss publicly. Unmarried people were actually punished. Recall that girls were hit after church with willow branches. Unmarried boys had logs tied between their legs on the same day and had to run from married men.
    
Eggs:
    The most important symbol of E. was the egg. It symbolized the sun, as noted above, and animal fertility (women who wanted to conceive often ate eggs to help). It was also similar to a seed, since it held life within it. It was a magical food, used to cure various ills, when mixed raw with sugar or honey and drunk. Note that this breaks a standard for Russian food, since meat (or animal products) were usually not sweetened. Similarly, Russians did not eat raw protein, even milk. Thus, the rawness of the egg is special. The eggs decorated at this time dated back to 2000 B.C. and have been found in the foundations of houses from that period.
    The method of dyeing was particularly symbolic and represented the magic of the sun’s rebirth. The colors are put on from dark to light, like from darkness to light. You will see a film on the dyeing and waxing technique. Then they were inserted into fire to reveal the colors of the sun and new life. The same colors were used on the eggs as in embroidery, etc. and have the same symbolism. You will have a handout summarizing the symbolism of the designs and colors. The beeswax used in the process was particularly important, since the bee was an animal sacred to God and honey was the only product from earth that appears on his table.
    The eggs were not eaten. They were exchanged as gifts, and the givers wished prosperity, luck and fertility to the receivers, which would last as long as the egg did. Children rolled them (the longest roll got all the other eggs) or hit them against each other (the winner’s egg did not crack).
    Note that there were three apocryphal stories about Christ and eggs during his crucifixion ordeal. 1) stones were thrown at him which turned to eggs; 2) a woman with a basket of eggs gave him water; 3) Mary tried to trade eggs for Christ’s life. Pilate refused and the eggs rolled all over the world to spread the Christian message.

Summer Rituals

Semik (S.)/Troitsa (T.):  
    S., which means the seventh, was the 7th Thursday after E., T., or Trinity, was on Sunday. Since E. varied in its date, so too did this holiday. However, basically it was around the half way point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Unlike spring rituals, the summer rituals were clearly for unmarried people. They were also characterized by an even greater period of license and was almost exclusively pagan, despite the church service. The agrarian focus of the holiday is perhaps because there was no major religious holiday; perhaps because it was warmer and easier to celebrate; perhaps because it was closer to the actual agricultural growth period. Recall that summer months were those of peak fertility.
    On S., they baked cookies in the shapes of ladders and larks. The birds were a symbol of rebirth, resurrection and the soul. They were given to children, who tied them on strings and threw them into the air, sometimes off the roof of the house. The higher the cookies went, the more fertile the fields would be. These cookies were also fed to cattle to improve their fertility and health. On the same day the priest blessed cattle and the seeds which would be planted that year.
    S. was a day of female solidarity. Unmarried girls of marriageable age would go to the forest outside of the village. They hid from everyone and decorated a birch or willow tree with ribbons and the bird cookies. They tied weeping willow or birch branches into wreathes and used them to tell their fortune. They threw them into the water. If they floated up or downstream, that was the direction your husband would come from. If they floated in one place, without moving, you wouldn’t marry that year. If they sank, you would die that year. They also kissed each other through the wreaths and pledged eternal friendship to each other and good luck on finding a husband. They ate a meal of fried eggs under the decorated tree. In some cases, they would return to the tree on T. and cut it down, in a type of sacrifice.
    T. was a holiday to improve veggie fertility. They brought as many varieties of vegetation into the house (and the church) as was possible. Also, at dawn on T. people would gather dew and herbs that were to be used in medicine.
    This period was also called the rusalie, after the rusalka spirit. At this time of year, the rusalki would hold dances in the fields. As a result, it was dangerous to go to the fields at night, because they might trap you. Recall that the rusalka is an example of abundant fertility, since she was a pregnant woman who had drowned and was associated with water. This ritual takes advantage of that fertility, but also helps to deal with the fear of the rusalka.
    Two rituals connected with the rusalka were also performed, called provody rusalki, the leading of the rusalka. Much like on Maslenitsa, they made a male phallic dummy, dress in women’s clothes, out of straw on S. Another type of rusalka dummy was made out of a young willow tree dressed in women’s clothes. They held a ceremonial cutting of a tree, which already had buds on it, put it up in a field and danced around it, like a May pole. The dummy was carried from house to house, field to field to bring good fortune and fertility to each place. On T., it was destroyed (either by burning, drowning or ripping it apart).
    Another ritual associated with the rusalka was: a pubescent girl was named rusalka. She walked out the fields on the hands of the women in the village. She could not touch the ground. When she arrived in the fields, where the men were, she jumped down and chased them, trying to tickle them. She also scattered grain from the previous year. They chased her off and then she had to sneak home, so that no one would see her.
    Here we see a type of motif and variation in the spring and summer rituals. Both rituals had a sacrificial offering of some sort: the tree, the dummy and the girl. They generally had characteristics of both sexes: women’s clothes with a phallic nose; pubescent girl who is not of marriageable age has no clear sexual status. They were somehow destroyed: by fire, water, being torn apart, chased off (note that this contradicts Frazer, who said such sacrifices and destructive rituals were usually limited to the fall rituals, but the Russians had them also in the spring and, as we will see, in the summer). Thus, the Russians, perhaps because of their cold climate and concern for the success of crops, had sacrificial rituals and rituals related to the dead at all times of the year. There is also a motif and variation on laughter; these rituals have ritualized laughter as part of the period of license, as with the obscene joke telling as well as with the tickling.

Ivan Kupalo (IK.):
    Ivan Kupalo took place at the summer solstice. IK. is the holiday celebrating John the Baptist. The major symbols, unlike in the earlier rituals, are not magic to increase vegetation and animal fertility, but fire and sun magic, since this is the longest day of the year. Now the earth and sun are strong and we can celebrate them. The main celebration included the first hay cutting (which would then be cut every two weeks). Everyone gathering the fields for the cutting; men used scythes, women used sickles. The first stalk of hay cut was called the First Snop. It was dressed as a woman and its “beard” was braided by women. This beard was called the beard of Elijah (recall that he is the saint associated with Perun) or of Christ (see Semik for the gender ambiguity motif). The snop was saved. It was either used as a Christmas tree under the icon corner; left in the field and buried with bread, salt and some vodka the next year (in this case, it represented the life of the fields and was essential for them to be reborn); or the grain from it was baked into a loaf of bread at the end of the winter and after everyone ate a small piece, the remaining bread was scattered in the fields.
    There was also a dummy, Kostromo, during this ritual. Like the others, it was a straw dummy with exaggerated male sexual features, dressed in women’s clothing. The men and women would fight over it, making jokes about sex, insulting each other and laughing. It was also destroyed by fire or water.
    This was a period of license for unmarried people. It was designed to give them a great deal of freedom to rebel against social controls in an accepted way The unmarried people of marriageable age set bonfires after dark. They would jump over it, holding hands. If they didn’t let go of each other, they would marry. This bonfire was especially magical. If a child was sick, his clothes were burned in the bonfire to help with a cure. Animals were driven through the ashes to improve their health. The ashes were also used as medicine (they were either eaten by or rubbed on the body of the sick). They often burned nettles (a burning plant) in the bonfire. They also used nettles for healing purposes, by eating them, rubbing them or inhaling their smoke while burning.
    Since this was a transitional point of the year, it was highly magical. The young people, who got to stay out together all night (a serious break in normal sexual rules), would gather 12 different herbs at midnight. These herbs were especially powerful in magic and medicine. Women who could not have children would also roll in the dew in the fields to help conceive.
    Another legend associated with this day was that at midnight a special fern would bloom with a fiery flower. In that spot, there was buried treasure. The young people were also “looking” for this fern.
    On this day, one could not eat watermelon, because it was similar to the head of John the Baptist.
    Kids played a game that was a dramatic performance of crop cultivation and the dying and resurrected god theme. Everyone stood in a circle with one child in the center. That child imitated plowing, sowing, tending and harvesting, etc.. Those in the circle sang a song describing his activities. Then at the end, the child falls down and pretends to die, when the grain was harvested. Those in the circle sang him back to life. He jumped up and chose another person to be in the center. This is the second ritual in which children performed an important role in the ritual.

Fall Rituals

    Russian harvest rituals are much less extensive than rituals in the other three seasons. There is no major fall ritual, but only a series of minor ones. As we will see, the major ritual of the fall is the wedding, which overshadows all other rituals and serves both as a yearly cycle ritual for the entire community as well as a life cycle ritual for the bride and groom. The minor fall rituals are: Yablochnyi/Medovoy Spas; Ilya Den’ (St. Elijah’s Day); Yegrov Den’ (Saint Igor’s Day); Pokrov; Yarmorki.

Yablochnyi/Medovoy Spas:
    Spas means savior. Yablochnyi and medovoy mean apple and honey. This is a cross quarter holiday, approximately halfway between the summer solstice and the fall equinox. This day celebrates the wealth of the harvest. Spas marks the day when fruit and honey are ready to be gathered. The first fruits and honey picked on this day are brought to the church and blessed. The bee hives were also blessed on Spas.

Ilya Den’:
    Ilya (or Elijah), recall is the saint closely associated with Perun, the thunder god. Both he and Perun ride through the sky in a chariot, throwing thunderbolts. This day marks the official entrance into fall. After this day, swimming is not allowed. Ilya curses all those who swim after his feast day.
    
Yegrov Den’:
    This day is the one day on which the serfs (before serfdom ended) were allowed to move. Even after serfdom ended, it was the day on which workers and soldiers would leave their village to begin factory work or to begin their tours of duty. As such, it was a mournful holiday. Women lamented the departing men.

Pokrov:
    Pokrov is the Feast of the Protection of the Virgin. It marks the end of the harvest/fall and beginning of winter. At this point, the harvest is essentially over and the last fruits to ripen, the pumpkins, are picked on this day. In agrarian times, this holiday honored Mokosh, the goddess of the earth, who had provided her fruits, so that the people could survive.
    The Pokrov holiday also included the ritual of the Last Snop, which was even more prevalent than the First Snop ritual on Ivan Kupalo. The Last Snop was the last sheaf of wheat from a year’s harvest. It was not cut down, but was decorated with ribbons and left standing in the field, until the following spring, when it was plowed under. The Last Snop represented the field’s fertility and abundance. Its burial, a type of symbolic sacrifice, ensured that the field would bear more wheat the next year.

Yarmorki:
    An additional event which occurred in the fall were the yarmorki, the market fairs. They had a distinct ritual character, in which all the villagers would gather in the main village to sell their goods before winter set in. Yarmorki were essentially a celebration of the harvest. Wandering minstrels (we will discuss them when we study epic) with their trained bears as well as travelling puppeteers arrived to perform for the gathered villagers. In addition, livestock was blessed at the yarmorki. The fairs marked the official beginning of the wedding season, and the end of the year’s growing and work cycles.

Winter Rituals

    Recall that in the agrarian cycle, the winter solstice marked the death of an old year, which included the death of the sun god, and the birth of a new year, i.e., the rebirth of the sun god. The sun was at its weakest on the shortest day of the year, so rituals had to be performed, so that it could be reborn, get stronger and bring warmth in the spring. In the Christian period, much of this symbolism was subsumed into the Christmas and New Year’s rituals. Recall that the Russian yearly cycle holidays alternated between an emphasis on married and unmarried people. The ritual acts of summer and winter solstice holidays centered on unmarried people. The spring and fall holidays, i.e., weddings, focused on married people.

Christmas (C.):
    Recall that in the Orthodox calendar, Easter is the high point of the year, the peak of the year’s religious celebration. Nevertheless, C. in Russia is still a major ritual. Recall that Russian Christmas is 12 days behind ours, on January 6. Thus, it occurs after the traditional date of New Year’s in our calendar. However, the Russian peasants celebrated New Year’s 6 days later as well, so we will discuss the two holidays in that order.

The C. Feast:
    C. began with a 40 day fast, like Lent. Meat and milk products could not be eaten during this period. On Christmas Eve, as on Easter eve, one could not eat at all. At sunset, the youngest child in the family went out to look for the first star, called the star of Bethlehem. This star was not only a sign of Christ’s birth, but was also a sign of the rebirth of the sun god in pre-Christian times.
    Once the child saw the star, s/he returned to house and announced its arrival. Then the family began their feast. The feast was made up of 12 different dishes. Two dishes which were always included: a stewed fruit compote, sweetened with honey, over wheat berries and poppy seed milk (poppy seeds ground with warm water) with bread or crackers.

The Ancestors:
    The table was set for each member of the family, with one extra place for the ancestors. Recall that as at Easter time, the souls of dead return to the Earth for this holiday. Straw, representing the dead fields and bodies of the dead, was placed under the table. Other acts to acknowledge the presence of the ancestors were: leaving a plate of food on the window sill, so that they could share the feast; removing or covering all sharp objects, which spirits do not like; heating the bathhouse, called “warming the ancestors”, because the heat and light would attract the spirits out of the dark and cold of death.

The C. Tree:
    While the Russians now have a C. tree, recall that then they would use the First Snop as a tree. It was decorated and sat under the icon corner.

Kolyada:
    The major event of the C. celebration was kolyada, or carolling. Children carried a papier mache hollow star, lit with a candle from house to house. The star originally was round, to represent the sun, and then was transposed with the star of Bethlehem in the Christian period. As they went around the village, they would gather food. One person was designated to carry the bad, which was filled with sausages, pirozhki (fried stuffed dough like won tons), salt pork and other fatty items. Recall that this was after a 40 day fast, during which meat and dairy were not allowed, so that the fat and meat were a great treat, in addition to representing abundance and fertility for the upcoming year.
    The carols varied. They described the setting and what they saw at the house; then they threatened the owners, singing that they would harm the house, if they did not get some food; after they received their reward, they would sing good wishes for crops, cattle and people (in that order).

New Year’s (NY):
    Like the C. holiday, NY included a great deal of conspicuous consumption to ensure plenty in the upcoming year. At NY, there was feast, which centered around pork. There was no preliminary fast before this feast, which was called shchedraya kutya, the generous binge. A pig was slaughtered and roasted. It was necessary to eat as much of the pig as possible. What was not consumed was made into sausage, ham, pickled pig’s feet, etc. The entire pig had to be used in some product.

Gifts:
    Gifts were exchanged on NY and not on C. Grandfather Frost, a thin, old, bearded winter spirit, accompanied by his daughter, the beautiful Snow Maiden Snegurichka, brought gifts to children on NY Eve. Fir trees were decorated for NY, and gifts were placed beneath it. There was also a belief in an old woman who brought presents to children at this time of year.

Shchedriviki/Mumming:
    Shchedriviki, meaning generous ones, were the songs sung by groups of mummers between the C. and NY period, with the height of the singing on NY itself. They were similar to the C. carols, but were much more secular in content, with no references to Christ’s birth. Mummers were young unmarried men who dressed in bird and animal costumes, especially as birds or bears, or as women. They carried sabres and carved phalluses on sticks. They also went from house to house singing songs, collecting food and trying to touch women with their sticks. Mumming was essentially an erotic game designed to impart fertility. They often wore bells to ward off evil spirits, at this darkest time of the year when the dead, both good and evil, walked the earth.

Fortunetelling:
    At this transitional time of the year, the doorways into other worlds were easy to penetrate. For that reason, the souls of the ancestors and other spirits were on the earth. In addition, one could more easily read the future at this time of year. There were several types of fortunetelling that occurred at or around midnight on NY Eve:
    1) girls of marriageable age went out to the bathhouse or barn and stick their hand between a the wooden logs. It they felt the furry part of the barn or bath spirit’s hand, it meant they would marry that year. If they felt the skin, it meant they would die. If nothing happened, they would not marry that year;
    2) they also burned paper or melted wax and read the ashes or shapes, which predicted their future;
    3) they slept on a log and whomever they dreamed of would be their husband;
    4) they tossed a shoe up in the air and where it landed indicated from which direction their husband would come;
    5) they baked a cake with various tokens in it. The token they received told their future for the next year. A coin indicated wealth; a ring meant marriage; coal meant death, etc.

NY Plays:
    At NY, there were both professional and amateur dramatic performances, including:
    1) Professional puppeteers performed both religious and slapstick plays. The slapstick plays were basic comedies, for amusement alone. The religious plays were more symbolic and significant. One such play, Tsar Maximillian tells the story of a pagan tsar who kills his Christian son, Adolf. The father laments, while Adolf is buried by two incompetent grave diggers, who are blind, clumsy and nearly deaf. This particular scene is like slapstick, full of jokes and sexual puns. Finally, one of these men stumbles, sticks his thumb into Adolph’s mouth and he comes back to life. The play ends in a celebration and conversion of the father.
    2) mock funeral play. The actors come to a house carrying a coffin with a “dead” man inside. They stage a funeral for this man. In a reversal of the normal funeral, a man dressed as a woman laments. The funeral service is conducted by a woman dressed as a priest. The laments are humorous and full of erotic references, generally indicating that the man died while having intercourse. At the end of the funeral, the corpse jumps out of the coffin and runs away;
    3) xozhdenie s kozoy, walking with a goat. The villagers led a goat or a person dressed as a goat around the village and through the fields to make them fertile and prosperous;
    4) blacksmith play. One man, wearing only a leather apron, plays the part of the blacksmith. He stands by a huge “forge” constructed for the play and makes new body parts for those who have body parts of inadequate size, especially those with small butts.
Epiphany:
    Epiphany, six days after NY, is the last major holiday of the winter period and marks the end of mumming for the year. On this day, the priest and a wandering minstrel led a procession to the river or lake. A cross the size of an adult was cut into the ice. A crucifix was thrown into the hole, and the young men dived in to retrieve it. The priest blessed the water, took some water from the hole and blessed those present with the holy water. This water was collected and saved to be used in potions to heal or to increase crop, animal and human fertility.