Funny passers-by, free treats, songs, dances and contests ... These are ritual carol songs: folk couplets that are sung on the eve of great holidays.
Kolyada is praised all over the world
Christmas carols are widespread among both Belarusians and Ukrainians. In Russia, ritual carols are less common, and if there are, then - “grapes”. These are great songs in which the traditional refrain is "grape, my red-green."
Ritual songs were supplanted from Russian culture by the strong influence of the church. However, in eastern Europe, these traditions are found in Romania, and in the Czech Republic, and in Serbia, and even in Albania. Therefore, it cannot be said that tradition has Slavic roots.
Today, ethnic historians claim that festive ritual chants date back to the traditions of the Greco-Roman church. There, the New Year holiday is called Calende. This is the search word, which then spread to all of Europe.
In Romania, colinda, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, koleda, in Slovenia, kolednica, in Serbia, kolenda, and in Albania, kolande. In France, different pronunciation of the word: there are tsalenda, chalendes, charandes, in Provence pronounce calendas. Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians call the holiday the same - “carol”.
Carol tradition
In addition to the name, the festive solstice complex is quite similar in its rites. Folklorists revealed in carols not only the cult of Christ, but also the more ancient pagan elements that originate in agrarian magic. Thus, despite the fact that Kolyada is celebrated on the day of the Nativity of Christ, it originally has a different meaning. This is the day the sun turns from winter to summer. Each next night will be shorter and the day longer.
However, over such a long history of its existence, both Slavic carols and holidays of other cultures have transformed into a kind of mix. It is already difficult to separate religion from popular beliefs.
Agricultural magic, for example, celebrates satiety, productivity, fertility. This also includes the cult of a happy marriage and the wealth of the family. Russian folk carols were so until the church began to suppress such values. To do this, they used the method of direct prohibitions and competition in the form of their celebrations and new traditions. So, the church began to interpret ceremonies in a new way and to explain in different ways what carols are.
Church Carols instead of agricultural
Initially, Kolyada is a celebration of one day and one night. It is the church that makes the decision to expand the ritual calendar from December 25 to January 6. It happened in the 6th century AD. This allowed the introduction of many new cults and ceremonies, thereby blurring the boundaries between pagan culture and the new faith.
New Year ceremonies, songs and carols-verses, aimed at calling the harvest, began to be performed more and more at Christmas time and on the Epiphany evening. The whole period from Christmas time to baptism is a ritual celebration, the boundaries between different cults are mixed. In this regard, for example, Ukrainian “generosities” and Christmas carols lose the difference in construction.
Two verses of five lines were performed at Koliada, and two four-verses at Epiphany. It follows that it was the church that influenced the culture of different countries, impoverishing it. In addition to one Christmas theme, household songs, nursery rhymes and requests for the New Year were previously heard. But the church intended to replace all these texts with church psalms. She succeeded in a number of countries where it is already difficult to understand what carols are and how they differ from Christmas carols.
Gurba
Children and young children went out for walks. As a signal sign, the whole honest company took jewelry with them. Usually it was a gesture at the end of which a star of Bethlehem shone . They said that Kolyada came from a star to water. So, in a crowd, carollers came to the yard and knocked so that the owner would give them sweets or money.
People believed that the next year depends on how they meet the solstice. Therefore, these days everyone tried to walk and have fun, sincerely wished each other happiness and good luck. Carols verses were best suited for such wishes. They usually came out funny and short.
These days, all life turned over. Life became theatrical, and many carnival elements were introduced into it. People wore masks, put on animal costumes, turned clothes inside out and decorated the house with straw.
Many foundations were denied, the concepts of "good" and "bad" were interchanged.
Feasts, hoppy feasts and fun were boiling all around, here and there was a treat. Priests were forbidden to attend such events, as there was a temptation to plunge into the abyss of the other side of life and disgrace their dignity.
The main motives of carols
Slavic ritual verses were studied by A. A. Potebnya and A. N. Veselovsky. They found a connection between Balkan chants and Ukrainian carols.
In addition to the Christmas stories that were fed by the church scriptures, folk verses thank the owner of the family, magnify his house, family members. As in the Shrovetide festivities, portions made images that meant wealth, offspring and wealth in marriage.
Words and poetry have a magical meaning here, as in other folk rituals, such as fortune telling and conspiracies. Great importance was given to peasant cares, landlords' troubles and the nature of the village. At the same time, real life was often idealized, filled with the desired wealth and magic spells:
"Our master is rich
Rows money with a shovel. "
Thus, the way of the higher social strata of society: boyars, merchants and princes was imperceptibly interwoven into the life of peasants. The images affected both peasant life and other social aspects. For example, a lot of the boyar traditions were brought into the peasant wedding, and the words of the marriage carols were also adopted.
The peasants in carols also reflects the military system, which is more consistent with the princely and retinue strata. It is also impossible to understand what carols are without knowledge of myths and the epic of the people.
Magic words
Legends in the form of songwriting, which subsequently intertwined with the apocryphal plots of the life of Christ, are food that fed ritual verses. Biblical myths are woven into peasant life. So, St. Peter works behind a plow, and the Lord drives the oxen. Like carols, conspiracies were created where the gods and saints closely adjoined, reinforcing the magical nature of the ritual.
"Give you Lord
On the field of natures
Ground on the threshing floor. "
Doorstep on the doorstep
In some holy songs, saints come to visit the host, and this brings prosperity to the house. The same meaning in other tunes is given to the natural images of the month, the sun, rain or rainbow, symbolizing different consequences.
So, for example, the Sun may enter into an argument with Rain. If the peasants needed the latter for the harvest, then the victory remained with him. In another case, the sun will symbolize joy for the owner and then ascend above all, illuminating the church poppies.
The month symbolized clarification of the situation, bringing knowledge. As it comes out on a dark night, it will illuminate the whole world.
“As I bark the dark night,” sings a clear month.
Literary forms of carols
In the form of ritual songs can be epic, and epics, and fairy tales, and spiritual verses, and conspiracies, and lyrical, and wedding, and ritual songs. In addition, carols-riddles or threats in a comic form are often found:
"Don’t give me the pie -
We are a cow by the horns.
Do not give the gut -
We are a pig for a temple.
Do not give a blink -
We are the master in kick. "
Ritual calendar carols
At the end of winter, Pancake week warmed the body and soul. Christmas carols spread to the entire agricultural calendar. This is the time when people gathered together to take a break from the blizzards and cold, to wake up for the spring transformation.
Pancake week is a pagan ancient holiday, which, like a root, permeates the entire history of the Slavs. He personified the rebirth of life, and in the pre-church period the holiday was traditionally celebrated on the day of the equinox.
The church made the holiday legal, having failed to eradicate it, but distorted its meaning.
The Cheese Weeks, forty-day fasts, and Forgiveness Sunday arose in the Orthodox calendar. At first, only the monks fasted, before which they ate nourishing all week. Fasting was a test of hunger for 40 days, and before starting it, all the ministers of the church gathered together and forgave each other.
During Shrovetide, it was customary in peasant life to conduct weddings and get married. Often went to visit, getting ready to see people and show themselves.
The first three days are called Narrow Shrovetide, with the fourth begins Broad.
From this day, festivities begin, all economic affairs end.
People light bonfires and dance. This day is also called Walking. On the seventh day, a scarecrow was burned, and this ended Pancake Week. Shrovetide was clicked by Avdotyushka, Izotievna, Akulina Savvishna. She was ridiculed and scolded in every way. All week it was decided to ride a sled from the mountain.
What is carols, it becomes clear from the calendar and ritual folklore of the Trinity cycle. For example, Lel from the play by A. N. Ostrovsky sings the Trinity carols "The cloud conspired with thunder."
Spring carols - spring flies - clicked from the hillocks and roofs. So people parted with winter and called summer. In the work of Korney Chukovsky, the lines about the fly-tsokotuha have a similar manner.
Rosary, tap dance,
Bring on the brush!
Then the ducks
Blow the pipes
Cockroaches -
To the drums!
Christmas carols are associated with the natural cycle, the upcoming agriculture. Folk songs are spells for the gods. People appealed to the forces of Mother Earth, the energy of the Sun, Water, Rain.
The peasants wanted an offspring of livestock, a comfortable life, and productivity. Neglecting rituals meant angering fate. Noisy fun by all the rules has become an obligation.
Kolyada Master
These rites flowed into the first plowing, in harvesting, harvesting sheaves of hay.
Year after year, in accordance with the arable farming calendar, peasants performed these ritual traditions. Therefore, they are all simple to perform, easy to remember because of their poetic structure.
Kolyada in them is a character who walks around the yards and searches for his master. Whoever rules Kolyada will have good and luck from her. Carols are creatures that needed to be tamed by songs, begged for help or called to account with reproaches.