What are carols? Ritual carols

Funny passers-by, free treats, songs, dances and competitions ... These are ritual songs-carols: folk verses that are sung on the eve of great holidays.

Throughout the world glorify Kolyada

Carols are widely distributed among Belarusians and Ukrainians. In Russia, ritual Christmas carols are less common, and if there is, then - "grapes". These are majestic songs, which have traditional choruses "grapes, red-green mine."
Ritual songs are forced out of Russian culture by the strong influence of the church. However, in the east of Europe, these traditions are 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 argue that festive ritual songs go back to the traditions of the Greco-Roman church. There the New Year holiday is called Calende. This is the desired 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, the different pronunciation of the word: there are also tsalenda, chalendes, charandes, in Provence, calendas are pronounced. Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians call the holiday the same - "kolyada."

Traditions of caroling

In addition to the name, the festive complex of the solstice is much like their rituals. Folklorists have revealed in carols not only the cult of Christ, but also the more ancient pagan elements that originate in agrarian magic. Thus, in spite of the fact that Kolyada is celebrated on the day of the Nativity of Christ, it originally has a different meaning. This is the day of the turning of the sun from winter to summer. Each next night will be shorter, and the day will be longer.

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

Agrarian magic, for example, sings satiety, yield, fertility. This also includes the cult of a happy marriage and wealth of the family. Russian folk carols were such until the church began to suppress such values. For this, the method of direct prohibitions and competition in the form of their celebrations and new traditions were used. So, the church began to interpret the ceremonies in a new way and to explain in a different way what carols are.

Church carols instead of agrarian

Initially, Kolyada is a holiday 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 a mass of new cults and ceremonies, thereby eroding the boundaries between pagan culture and a new faith.

New Year rituals, songs and carols-verses directed at evoking the harvest, increasingly began to be performed on Christmas holidays and on the Epiphany evening. The entire period from Christmas to baptism is a ritual celebration, mixed boundaries between different cults. In this regard, for example, Ukrainian "shedrivki" and Christmas carols lose their distinction in construction.

Two verses of five lines were performed for Kolyada, and two quatrains for Baptism. It follows that it was the church that influenced the culture of different countries, having depleted it. In addition to one Christmas theme, previously there were everyday songs, nursery rhymes and requests for the New Year. But the church intended to replace all these texts with church psalms. She succeeded in a number of countries, where they already hardly understand what carols are and how they differ from Christmas songs.

Gurba

Children and young children went out for a walk. As a signal sign the whole honest company took with itself an ornament. Usually it was a gesture at the end of which the Bethlehem star shone . It was said that Kolyada came from the star and up to the water. So, the crowd, kolyadovschiki came to the court and knocked, so that the owner would give them candy or money.

People believed that the next year will depend on how they meet the sun. Therefore, these days everyone tried to walk and have fun, sincerely wished each other happiness and good luck. Christmas carol-verses were suitable for such wishes best. They, as a rule, left cheerful and short.

These days the whole way of life turned over. Life was becoming theatrical, and many carnival elements were introduced into it. People wore masks, put on the costumes of animals, turned inside out clothes and decorated the dwelling with straw.
Many foundations were denied, the concepts of "good" and "bad" changed places.
All around the feasts were boiling, drunken feasts and fun, here and there the treat was distributed. Priests were forbidden to attend such events, because it was tempting to plunge into the abyss of the reverse side of life and disgrace their order.

The main motifs of carols

Slavonic ritual verses were studied by AA Potebnya and AN Veselovsky. They found a connection between Balkan hymns and Ukrainian carols.

In addition to the Christmas stories, which were fed with church writings, folk verses thank the owner of the family, exalt his house, family members. As in the Shrovetide festivities, images were made for the Shchedrivka, which meant wealth, litter and prosperity in marriage.

Words and poetry have a magical meaning here, as in other folk rituals, such as fortune-telling and conspiracy. Great importance was given to peasant cares, household chores and the nature of the village. At the same time, real life was often idealized, filled with the desired wealth and magic spells:

"Our owner is rich
He pinches money with a shovel. "

Thus, in the way of life of the peasants, the way of the higher social strata of society: the boyars, merchants and princes was invisibly interwoven. The images also touched on muzhik life and other social aspects. For example, a peasant wedding brought a lot of boyar traditions, and also adopted the words of marriage carols.

The peasants in carols also reflect the military system, which more closely corresponds to the princely and combat groups. It is also impossible to understand what carols are, without knowledge of the myths and epic of the people.

Magic Words

Legends in the form of song creativity, which subsequently intertwined with the apocryphal stories of the life of Christ - this is food that fed ritual verses. Biblical myths are woven into peasant life. So, St. Peter works for the plow, and the Lord drives the oxen. Like carols, conspiracies were created, where gods and saints closely adjoin, strengthening the magical nature of the ritual.

"Give you, Lord,
On the field of nature,
On the threshing floor it is ground. "

Kolyada on the threshold

In some holy songs the saints come to the master's house, and this brings well-being to the house. The same meaning in other tunes gives the natural images of the month, the sun, rain or rainbow, symbolizing different consequences.

So, for example, the Sun can enter into a dispute with the Rain. If the peasants need the last for the harvest, then the victory remained for him. In another case, the sun will symbolize the joy for the master and then will rise above all, illuminating the church makings.

The month symbolized the clarification of the situation, the bringing of knowledge. As it will go out in a dark night, the whole world will light up.

"I'll skate the dark in a dark place," sings a clear month.

Literature forms of Christmas carols

In form, ritual songs can be epic, epic, and fairy tales, and spiritual verses, and conspiracies, and lyric, and wedding, and ritual songs. In addition, there are often carols-riddles or threats in a comic form:

"Do not give a pie -
We cow for the horns.
Do not give a gut -
We're a pig for the temple.
Do not give blink -
We are the master of the kick. "

Calendar and ceremonial carols

At the end of winter, she warmed the body and soul of Maslenitsa. Carols spread to the whole agrarian calendar. This is the time when people gathered together to rest from the blizzard and the cold, to awaken for the spring transformation.

Maslenitsa is a pagan ancient holiday, which, as a root, permeates the entire history of the Slavs. He embodied the rebirth of life, and during the pre-church period the feast was traditionally celebrated on the day of the equinox.

The church made the holiday legitimate, and not being able to eradicate it, but distorted its meaning.

In the Orthodox calendar there were "Cheese Seats", forty-day posts and Forgiveness Sunday. Only monks fasted at first, before eating nourishing all week long. Fasting was a famine test for 40 days, and before starting it, all the ministers of the church gathered together and forgave each other.

During the Shrovetide in the peasant way of life, it was customary to hold bridesmanships and woo. Often went to visit, preparing for people to see and show themselves.
The first three days are called the Shrove Carnival, the fourth begins Shirokaya.
From this day, people's festivities begin, all economic affairs end.

People light campfires and dance dances. This day was also called Razgulay. On the seventh day the effigy was burned, and this was the end of Shrovetide. Shrovetide clicked Avdotyushka, Isotyevna, Akulina Savvishna. She was ridiculed and scolded in every possible way. The whole week it was decided to ride the mountain on a sled.

What is carols, it becomes clear and from the calendar-ritual folklore of the Trinity cycle. For example, Lel from the play of A. N. Ostrovsky sings the Trinity carols "The cloud with the thunder was negotiating".

Spring carols - vesnyanki - clicked from the hillocks and roofs. So people parted with the winter and called the summer. In the work of Korney Chukovsky, the lines about Mukha-tsokotuhu have a similar manner.

Dashes, dummies,
Bring it on the brush!
Then the ducks,
Blow into the pipes,
Cockroaches -
In the drums!

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, yield. To neglect rituals meant to anger fate. Noisy fun by all rules became an obligation.

The owner of Christmas carols

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

Kolyada in them - a character who walks around the yard and is looking for his master. Whoever rules over Kolyada, he will have good things and good luck from her. Christmas carols are creatures that have to be tamed with songs, ask for help, or call to account reproaches.