The main Easter traditions in Russia

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Easter, or the Bright Resurrection of Christ, is the main Orthodox holiday. In Russia, both this day and the entire subsequent week were spent cheerfully: they cooked traditional Easter dishes - cakes, cottage cheese Easter, painted eggs, danced in circles, swung on a swing, went around the house with congratulations. We remember how Easter was celebrated in the old days.

Games

The meeting of the Bright Resurrection of Christ included not only a solemn divine service in the church, but also folk festivities. After fasting for many days and giving up entertainment, the celebration took place widely - with round dances, games, and songs. Easter in Russia was celebrated from 3 to 7 days, and in some regions - even before Trinity (celebrated 50 days after Easter).

A favorite pastime for Easter was rolling eggs, or "wheelies". Each region has its own rules of the game. For example, in the Pskov region, a player would roll a colored egg down an inclined wooden plank or a non-steep hill and try to knock down the other eggs below with it. If the participant achieved the goal, then he took the beaten egg for himself and continued the game. If he missed, the next one came into play, and the unsuccessfully rolled egg remained. Often they used wooden skillfully painted eggs, sometimes whole sets of such eggs were made especially for this entertainment. Wheelchair is still played in some regions.

Also on Easter they put carousels and large swings, in the Pskov region they were called "swings". It was believed that the future harvest depends on the swing on them. That is why they swayed most often from Easter to Trinity, just during the active growth of wheat. There was also a belief that a swing helps to quickly find a husband or wife. In the Russian villages of the Udmurt Republic, this belief was preserved in Easter songs and ditties that sang during the swing: “Red egg! / Tell the groom. / You won’t say it - / We will upload you”,“There is a swing on the mountain, / I’ll go swing. / This summer I’ll take a walk, / In winter I’ll get married”,“We’ll upload it, we’ll get it, / I’ll take it for myself.”

Among the most popular was the fun known as "in the eagle", "in the toss". It was most often played for money. The easiest way to play: one of the participants tossed a coin, and when it fell to the ground, the second had to guess without looking which side it fell up. The obverse (heads) always meant a win, the reverse (tails) - a loss. Therefore, the game got its name - "in the eagle". In some villages, it has survived to this day, for example, in the village of Kadyshevo, Ulyanovsk region.

Songs

Before the revolution, Easter songs were passed down from generation to generation. With the advent of Soviet power in families, this tradition almost disappeared, but folklore ensembles at the clubs often knew and sang them.

The main Easter chant - the troparion "Christ is risen from the dead" - was sung during the church service. But in some villages it sounded not only in the temple. For example, in the Smolensk region they performed their own folk version of the troparion. It was called "crying out for Christ." The women who sang it did not spare their voices. "They shouted Christ" in any setting - at work, on the street, during festivities and festive feasts.

In some regions, words from oneself were added to the canonical text of the troparion. They asked God about the main things: health, prosperity, a good harvest. Such songs were sung in the Bezhetsk district of the Tver region. Here, for a long time, the tradition of going around the village with the icon of the Mother of God has been preserved for a long time - the villagers believed that this was how they protected themselves from all sorts of troubles.

In the Pskov region, girls and women sang songs on the very first day of Easter, and in the Yaminsky Cossack farm in the Volgograd region wide festivities began later - on the first Sunday after Easter (Krasnaya Gorka), and ended on Trinity. Celebration began here, as a rule, in the afternoon. The Cossacks gathered together on two opposite sides of the farm, laid tables and sang songs - "lyuleyki" - so they were called because of the chorus "oh, lyuli, lyuli". Then we moved to the center of the farm and laid a common table in the street.

Dances and round dances

With the end of Lent, the ban on dancing was also lifted. Round dances were an integral part of the Easter festivities, which were led to special songs. In the village of Stropitsy, Kursk region, they drove tanks - special round dances of two types: circular and longitudinal. Circles were like a theatrical performance. The dancers sang story songs and played different roles in them. Longitudinal tanks operated on the principle of a stream. These dances were performed only once a year, on Krasnaya Gorka.

In the Bryansk region, round dances were called karagods. In the first two days of the celebration of Easter, they were special: they were attended by men who were reincarnated as elders. To do this, they put on old clothes, tousled their hair, smeared their faces with mud. The "elders" stood inside the karagoda and danced, while the girls and women "walked to the song" around them. Today karagodes can be seen at village and school holidays - the round dance tradition is passed on to the new generation.

During the Easter festivities in the villages of the Belgorod region, they performed a dance with a crossroads. It was based on the same round dance, but it was complemented by a cross - a dance in which several people beat out two or three different rhythms with their heels, as if crossing each other. Currently, this dance is performed by folk groups at rural festivals and festivities.

Easter table

The morning meal after strict Lent was an important moment in the celebration of Easter. On ordinary days, people ate rye bread, vegetables, cereals, and for the holiday they always baked sweet cakes from white flour, cooked Easter cottage cheese and painted eggs. These dishes were consecrated in the temple during the service and brought home.

It was believed that the eggs consecrated in the temple had special miraculous and healing properties. During the meal, the father of the family peeled the first egg, cut it and distributed a piece to each household. Throughout the Easter week, eggs were presented to relatives, neighbors and acquaintances, guests were treated to, and distributed to beggars.

Basically, the festive table did not differ much from region to region. Easter cakes, Easter, eggs, pies, meat dishes were put on it. But in some places, Easter food was very unusual. For example, in Tatarstan, among the Kukmor Udmurts, goose porridge was considered the main dish. In addition to her, women cooked unleavened cakes in the morning, an omelet baked in the oven and small balls of steep pastry dough, fried in a pan, and then oiled.

The differences in the celebration of Easter in this region are explained by the fact that the Christian holiday coincides in time with the local one - Akashkoy. It symbolizes the beginning of spring and the agricultural year. According to the Akashka ritual, family members read prayers before meals, sing special drinking songs, visit paternal relatives, and symbolically sow a field. Today this holiday is celebrated not for a week, as before, but for one or two days.

Easter week traditions

For a whole week after Easter, in many villages people walked around the courtyards and congratulated the owners on the holiday. The tramps, so called those who went from house to house, sang special dragging songs. It was believed that such a visit brings luck and prosperity to the owners, and it was customary to thank for it with something edible or money. In the Pskov region, the owners presented the dragons with colored eggs, homemade sausage, bacon, pies, butter, cheese, honey. In some villages, only women were "dragged along", in others - only men, and in some there were whole Easter artels of drag workers.

In the Kostroma region, on the first Sunday after Easter, they walked around the courtyards of the newlyweds. This ceremony was called "Vyunets". In the morning, the children called out to the newly-made spouses under the windows and sang the song "Young lad". Boys and girls came to call out to the newlyweds in the middle of the day, and adults - in the afternoon. The crawlers-vyunishniki sang at first on the porch, then they were invited into the house and treated at the table.

The Kukmor Udmurts also had a custom reminiscent of traditional Russian bypass rites. Young girls and boys, riding on festively decorated horses, drove into every courtyard and sang to the owners the call "Uray!", Calling them out into the street. Later, everyone sat down at a hundred, and guests were treated to a festive meal.