SLFK 214, March 30, 2004 Last lecture talked about recurring motifs sacrifice Return of ancestors = the dead Add fertility With Easter, this is less noticeable because of the dominance of organized religion Easter, in the Orthodox Church is the biggest Church holiday Still, there is a sacrifice element, actually incorporated into Church rite Return of the dead is at Provody, Radunitsa as in the video a week ago Folk elements at Easter: Egg contests Gifts of eggs and/or paskha to all Visiting of relatives After Easter, commemoration of the dead, which is what they saw in the video This is supposed to happen on Tuesday, but most people, because of the demands of a modern work schedule, shift to the following Sunday, or Doubting Thomas Sunday Christ comes back from the dead and proves to Thomas that he is indeed Christ Folk holiday is that the dead, all dead, the ancestors rather than any specific deceased, come back You visit them, bring food for them and for yourself with eat with them Recall the graveyards again with the family plots Benches in the plots for random visits with you ancestors Picnic tables and benches for holiday visits as on Provody the event right after Easter Ascension Many other smaller festivals of the dead the three Dedy in November Notice that the interaction with the dead is through food If the special ancestors (red death variety) are supposed to take care of food for the living Then way to interact with all ancestors is through food Food is vehicle of social interaction and solidarity Society of the living is one of mutual nurturance You help neighbors on each other’s plots Society of the dead is of mutual nurturance Except for bad dead who feed on the living as ghouls All transitions interactions across boundaries, whether of time or of space is through food Greeting stranger Going to visit the dead Soviet manipulation of where you eat, with whom To instill appropriate personality, create Soviet man Russians and Ukrainians are not the only ones with fertility and sacrifice and commemoration of the dead as part of their rites, including important church ritual such as Easter American material has sacrifice and return of/interaction with the dead And fertility magic Easter bunny, mistletoe And you “sacrifice” the bunny And the Christmas tree And have dead return at Halloween If you see a shift of one season, this becomes esp. apparent Halloween is festival of the dead, return of same Russia it is Christmas Christmas is church holiday, CENTRAL holiday, and interaction with relatives Russia it is Easter Spring does not get that much attention, except perhaps preparation for wedding Russia that is summer Summer is wedding season Russia it is fall But still lots of ancient imagery Looked at Santa as vegetation fertility magic last time Football as fertility rite according to Dundes Back to Russia After Easter, there are no holidays It is planting season and you don’t have time for festivals In Russia and Ukraine, next celebration is tied to Easter 7 weeks after and it is called Troitsa or Trinity Sunday In west is also called Pentecost Important female solidarity day The ritual with the birch The sacrifice that occurs is like the one in the video with the grannies singing erotic songs Female effigy with exaggerated parts carried through village Dismembered and thrown in river The week before Trinity Sunday is also called Rusalka week and Zelenye Sviata as opposed to plain Sviata in the winter Fortune telling The willow trees tied in a circle/wreath Burying the tip of a willow branch in the soil with a covered hand Wreaths made of assorted flowers sent floating down the river for fortune telling Will the wreath sink or not Where will it float and where will it touch the bank Marriage predictions Extensive use of the covered hand as in weddings Other actions a little girl plays the rusalka and taken out to the field on people’s hands as I showed in connection with springtime Assorted rusalka beliefs documented in legends Fortune-telling at this time of year is sending wreaths floating down a body of water to determine where you will go when you marry Stories that go with this vodianoi claims the wreath set floating on the water Boy goes to see the girls dance, hoping to see his beloved Sees the rusalki dance instead it is past dark when he gets there, or he stays too long One looks like his girlfriend only she seems transparent and there seems to be a dark lump in the place where her heart should be Boy does manage to successfully marry one of these girls puts a cross about her neck But they are too in love to be careful At one point her hair dries out and she dies Big festival not tied to Easter is Ivan Kupalo Already showed the sacrifice element there in pictures This is a fire and water festival Supposed to commemorate the solstice Water aspect of festival (and sacrifice by water) already done Fire festival aspect of Kupalo jumping over bonfires at midnight Alone for good health and good luck In couples to strengthen bond and lead to marriage To fortune tell will couple marry or not Burning clothing of sick children in fire Leading cattle through the ashes Blooming fern on Ivan Kupalo and the cursed nature of treasure Please note multiple liminality: time, place, type of plant Sacrificing of “heads” Other sacrifices like clothing items What treasure turns into The various klad spirits Attitudes toward treasure and implications for Russian participation in the world economic scene Dealing with a market economy and marketing in general Symbolism of fern treasure is in the land/soil Accessible through plants But do not take directly from soil and do not take too much Ivan Kupalo and vegetation First snop (sheaf) rituals The snop is often dressed as a woman tie to stuff in first part of course Goddess worship?? First dew of Ivan Kupalo and herbs US fire festival at mid-summer, right around the solstice This is a secular and political festival, but still uses the same imagery It is almost like the human mind is hard-wired for this imagery If you look at relationship between US and Russian calendars, very similar, only shifted by one season So that what happens in US in summer is characteristic of Russian fall US fall (Halloween) bears a great deal of resemblance to Russian Christmas Christmas in US is biggest holiday and in Russia it is Easter Fall is the season perhaps most bereft of holidays Harvest some harvest songs Pokrov is a church holiday (Oct. 1) Fall is the big season of weddings Although life and year are separate cycles, they do intersect Life cycle and yearly cycle do intersect and overlap: Debutante parades at Christmas Various courtship acts throughout Marriage in the fall Marriage has vegetation fertility element Bride can bring rain if there is a drought Sacrifice of the parents and decking them out in plants beforehand Recalls other sacrifices throughout the year and cult of ancestors Dearth of festival in the fall also allows the introduction of externally motivated, political rites like the Nov. 7 parade I showed Kind of symmetrical structure to year Married couples spring and fall Tell about koloda on Maslenitsa Unmarried couples at the 2 solstices Men dominate the festivities in winter and women in summer In addition to the festivals that have to do with man and human interaction with nature There are special icon festivals These are not life cycle festivals They occur always at the same time each year And they are the celebration of a place Every village has a saint Perhaps like every unit of space has its own place spirit Show Snopot video To me this is life and year/human and nature intersection of a different sort As the village saint himself has a great many similarities to place spirits So the festival of the village saint is much like the commemoration of ancestors as a group at certain times (religious festivals) of the year Recall dead person remember as that specific person for 1 year from the date of death And the commemoration dates determined by the date of death After that date of death does not matter Deceased remembered not as a specific individual, but as part of the category of ancestors Did this in connection with ancestor cult and red death and possible remnants of same. My idea of Russian and East Slavic worldview Man and nature are one Man lives on earth, dies and is buried Body TRANSFORMED by the earth and becomes grain and other crops (but special focus on grain) Eaten and is transformed into the human body This is the path of the body From flesh > soil > grain > food > flesh Soul is probably a new notion and comes with Christianity Lots of people comment on lack of notions of Heaven and Hell among the Slavs They have them as a result of Christianity, but things get all confused More idea that the dead go into a world underground Get transformed after one year (long enough for the body to decay) Then enter general category of ancestors Soul, whether it is the Christian idea, or the indigenous “ancestors” notion Seems to live under the soil for a while Travel up the world tree and sit in the branches of the world tree To enter the body of a newborn baby Analogy between the transformative powers of Mother Earth and the stove Takes dough and makes bread Please note that the stove is made out of dirt (as in clay) And, of course, similar powers of woman who transforms food(?) into babies Remember Gimbutas view of pregnancy The fertile field designs on the tummies of women Interesting inclusiveness and exclusiveness among the Slavs Man and nature are one A kind of almost cosmic unity By the same token, lack of unity with fellow man the fear of strangers Like the balance of structure and anti-structure in ritual