What are carols? ritual carols

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Cheerful passers-by, free treats, songs, dances and competitions… These are ritual carol songs: folk couplets that are sung on the eve of great holidays.

Koliada is glorified all over the world

Carols are widespread among both Belarusians and Ukrainians. In Russia, ritual carols are less common, and if they are, then they are “grapes”. These are glorious songs with the traditional refrain "grapes, my red-green". Ritual songs have been forced out of Russian culture by the strong influence of the church. However, in the east of Europe, these traditions are also found in Romania, and in the Czech Republic, and in Serbia, and even in Albania. Therefore, it is impossible to say that the tradition has Slavic roots.

Today, ethnohistorians claim that festive ritual chants date back to the traditions of the Greco-Roman Church. There, the New Year's holiday is called Kalende. This is the desired word, which then spread to the whole of Europe. In Romania - colinda, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia - koleda, in Slovenia - kolednica, in Serbia - kolenda, and in Albania - kolande. In France, the pronunciation of the word is different: there are also tsalenda, chalendes, charandes, in Provence they pronounce calendas. Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians call the holiday the same - "kolyada".

Caroling traditions

Besides the name,the festive complex of the solstice is quite similar in its rites. Folklorists have revealed in carols not only the cult of Christ, but also 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 when the sun turns from winter to summer. Each successive night will be shorter and the day longer.

However, for such a long history of their existence, both Slavic carols and holidays of other cultures have turned into a kind of mix. It is already difficult to separate religion from popular beliefs.

Agricultural magic, for example, sings of satiety, productivity, fertility. This also includes the cult of a happy marriage and family we alth. Russian folk carols were like that 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 explain what carols are in a different way.

Church carols instead of agricultural ones

Initially, Kolyada is a holiday of one day and one night. It is the church that decides to expand the ritual calendar from December 25 to January 6. It happened in the 6th century AD. This allowed the introduction of a host of new cults and ceremonies, thereby blurring the boundaries between pagan culture and the new faith.

New Year's ceremonies, songs and carols-poems, addressed to the invocation of the harvest, began to be performed more and more at Christmas time and on Epiphany evening. The entire period fromChristmas time before baptism is a ritual celebration, the boundaries between different cults are mixed. In this regard, for example, Ukrainian "shchedrivki" and Christmas carols lose the difference in construction.

On Kolyada they performed two verses of five lines, and on Epiphany - two four lines. It follows that it was the church that influenced the culture of different countries, impoverishing it. In addition to one Christmas theme, everyday songs, nursery rhymes and requests for the New Year sounded earlier. But the church intended to replace all these texts with church psalms. She succeeded in this in a number of countries where it is already difficult to understand what carols are and how they differ from Christmas carols.

Crowd

Children and young guys went out to the festivities. As a signal sign, all honest company took jewelry with them. Usually it was a gesture, at the end of which the star of Bethlehem shone. They said that Kolyada came from the star to the water. So, in a crowd, carolers came to the court and knocked so that the owner gave them sweets or money.

People believed that the next year depended on how they met 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 tended to come out funny and short.

These days, the whole life turned outward. Life became theatrical, and many carnival elements were introduced into it. People wore masks, put on costumesanimals, turned their clothes inside out and decorated their homes with straw.

Many foundations were denied, the concepts of "good" and "bad" changed places. Feasts, intoxicating feasts and fun were in full swing, treats were distributed here and there. 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.

Main carol motifs

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 Christmas stories, which were fed by church scriptures, folk verses thank the owner of the family, ex alt his house, family members. As in the Maslenitsa festivities, images were made for the generosity, which meant we alth, offspring and prosperity in marriage.

Words and poetry have a magical meaning here, as in other folk rituals, such as divination and incantations. Great importance was given to peasant concerns, household chores and the nature of the village. At the same time, real life was often idealized, filled with the desired we alth and magic spells:

"Our master is richShoveling money."

Thus, the lifestyle of the higher social strata of society was imperceptibly woven into the life of the peasants: boyars, merchants and princes. The images also affected the peasant life and other social aspects. For example, many of the boyar traditions were brought into the peasant wedding, as well as the words of marriage carols were adopted.

The peasants' carols also reflect the military system, which is more in line with the princely and retinue strata. It is also impossible to understand what carols are without knowing the myths and epics of the people.

Magic words

Legends in the form of songwriting, which later intertwined with the apocryphal stories of the life of Christ - this is the food that nourished the ritual verses. Biblical myths are woven into the peasant life. So, Saint Peter works behind the plow, and the Lord drives the oxen. Like carols, conspiracies were also created, where gods and saints closely coexist, enhancing the magical nature of the ritual.

"Give you, O Lord, On the field of nature, Threshing on the threshing floor".

Kolyada on the doorstep

In some Christmas songs, saints come to visit the host, and this brings prosperity to the house. The same meaning in other tunes is given to natural images of the month, sun, rain or rainbow, symbolizing different consequences.

So, for example, the Sun can enter into an argument with the 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 it will rise above all, illuminating the church domes.

The month symbolized the clarification of the situation, the bringing of knowledge. As it comes out on a dark night, it will illuminate the whole world.

"How will I wake up the dark night" - the clear moon sings.

Literary forms of carols

In form, 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 the pie -

We don't give the cow by the horns.

Don't give the gut -

We don't give the pig by the temple.

Don't give the blink - We are the host in Pinka."

Calendar-ritual carols

At the end of winter, Maslenitsa warmed the body and soul. Carols spread to the entire agrarian calendar. This is the time when people gathered together to take a break from the blizzards and cold, to wake up for a spring transformation.

Shrovetide 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, and failed to eradicate it, but distorted its meaning.

Cheese Weeks, forty-day fasts and Forgiveness Sunday appeared in the Orthodox calendar. At first, only the monks fasted, before which they ate well all week. Fasting was a 40-day hunger test, and before it began, all the ministers of the church gathered together and forgave each other.

During Maslenitsa in peasant life, it was customary to hold a bride and get married. They often went to visit, getting ready to look at people and show themselves.

The first three days are called the Narrow Maslenitsa, from the fourth the Wide begins. From this day, folk festivals begin, all household chores end.

People rockbonfires and dances. This day was also called Razgulyayem. On the seventh day they burned an effigy, and this ended Shrovetide. Shrovetide was called Avdotyushka, Izotyevna, Akulina Savvishna. She was ridiculed and scolded in every possible way. All week it was customary to sled down the mountain.

What are carols, it becomes clear from the calendar-ritual folklore of the Trinity cycle. For example, Lel from the play by A. N. Ostrovsky sings the Trinity carols “A cloud colluded with thunder.”

Spring carols - stoneflies - 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-sokotuha have a similar manner.

Draw, tap, Bring a brush!

Then ducks, Blow the pipes, Cockroaches -Into the drums!

Carols are connected with the natural cycle, upcoming agriculture. Folk songs are spells for the gods. People appealed to the forces of Mother Earth, the energy of the Sun, Water, Rain.

Peasants wanted livestock, a comfortable life, productivity. To neglect the rites meant to anger fate. Noisy fun by all the rules has become an obligation.

The owner of Kolyada

These ceremonies flowed into the first plowing, harvesting, hay sheaves. Year after year, in accordance with the calendar of arable work, the peasants performed these ritual traditions. Therefore, they are all easy to perform, easy to remember because of their poetic structure.

Kolyada in them is a character who walks around the yards andlooking for his owner. Whoever rules over Kolyada will have benefits and good luck from her. Carols - creatures that had to be tamed with songs, begged for help or called to account with reproaches.