Ukraine

Name of Holiday: Velykden

Introduction

Easter, called Velykden (pronounced vuh-LICK-den; Great Day), is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's most important holiday. The celebrations combine modern innovations with ancient traditions to render the holiday one of the most enjoyable of the year. Ukraine is famous for its elaborately decorated Easter eggs.

History

Velykden, the Ukrainian word for Easter, was also the word used for the spring equinox. An equinox occurs when the length of the day's sunlight equals the length of the day's darkness. Before the arrival of Christianity, early Ukrainians acknowledged the spring equinox, which occurs around March 22, by celebrating the sun's defeat of "the unclean spirit." After Christianity, this became a celebration of Jesus' defeat of death and Satan with the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

Easter comes to Ukraine

Christianity was first introduced in Ukraine in 954 by the ruling princess Olga (c. 890–969), who was baptized under Greek influence and began teaching her people about her new faith. She was made the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's first saint for her efforts to spread Christianity. Her grandson Prince Vladimir I (c. 956–1015) converted his people to Christianity in 988, soon after he became a Christian. He was also made a saint.

Ukraine, then called Kievan Rus, had close political and economic ties to Greece and adopted the Eastern Orthodox Church doctrine. Easter became the most important religious holiday, as it was in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. Eastern Roman rulers once attended Good Friday services in the Ukrainian Orthodox churches. These services became known as the Royal Hours.

An egg for the czar

Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire from the late 1600s through the early 1900s. Near the end of this period, Russian goldsmith and jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé (1846–1920) created his famous Fabergé Easter eggs for the Russian czars (rulers). The eggs are encrusted with gold and jewels and are considered priceless works of art.

Easter under Communism

For much of the time when Ukraine was part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under Communist rule (1917–91), church holidays were abolished. Many people continued to celebrate them quietly in their homes, and priests continued to hold services in secret. Hundreds of church officials were imprisoned, exiled to Siberia, or killed for their devotion.

Renewed celebrations

After Ukraine became an independent democratic nation in August 1991, the Ukrainian people began to restore old traditions and returned to celebrating Easter and other religious holidays openly and with renewed enthusiasm. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is Ukraine's largest religious denomination, with some thirty-five million members. The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is second largest, with about five million members.

Folklore, Legends, Stories

Several Ukrainian legends arose to explain the origin of the beautifully decorated Easter eggs called pysanky (pronounced pe-SAHN-kee; the singular is pysanka). One says that, as Christ suffered on the cross, wherever a drop of his blood fell a red egg appeared on the ground. As his mother, Mary, wept for him at the cross, her tears landed on the red eggs and they became decorated with elaborate designs.

A second legend says that one winter long ago, the weather turned freezing cold so suddenly that birds fell from the sky because they were too cold to fly. Peasant farmers brought the birds into their homes and kept them warm through the winter. In spring, the farmers released them, and in a few days the birds brought back a beautiful decorated egg for each peasant who had saved their lives.

It was tradition for a young woman to drop a pysanka with her name on it into a stream, hoping it would be found by her future husband. The young man who found it was likely to come calling, and a match would often be made.

Bunny nests

There are several Ukrainian folk customs and legends that involve the Easter bunny. Children would make a warm nest outside for the Easter bunny, and line the nest with grass or moss. They sometimes put materials such as onion skins in the nest as well. These natural materials would be used by the Easter bunny to make the dyes that colored her eggs. The children also planted winter wheat in a container for the bunny to eat. On Easter Sunday morning, the children would find colored eggs in their nests. When young children colored eggs at home, they were sometimes told they were helping the Easter bunny so she would have enough eggs to deliver to all the children in the world.

Ukrainian Holy Week folklore

On Holy Thursday, called Thursday of Passion, Passion candles were lit in church for reading the Bible, the holy book of Christianity. The worshipers carried their lighted candles home from church after the midnight service and, with the flame from the candles, burned the shape of a small cross into the wooden beam over their doorways. The symbol was believed to have the power to protect the household. At other times of the year, the candles might be lit during a thunderstorm, an illness, or a death.

Customs, Traditions, Ceremonies

Many Ukrainians fast during the forty days of Lent, giving up meat and animal fats. During Holy Week, they also give up eggs, dairy foods, and oils. Some priests keep a total fast for part of Holy Week. Parishioners, including older children, may fast completely for part of each day. Fasting is a way of purifying the body and mind and preparing to celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ. Some people give up music and dancing as well as foods. To further prepare for Easter, Ukrainians thoroughly clean their houses during Lent.

Palm Sunday willows

On Palm Sunday, Ukrainians gently slap one another with pussy willows in a custom called God's Wounds. People deny having tapped another person, saying it was the willow itself that did the tapping.

Creating pysanky: A spiritual art

On Holy Thursday, custom calls for the making of pysanky, the intricately decorated Easter eggs that Ukraine is famous for. They were traditionally made by the women of the house at night, after the children had been put to bed. Women prepared the day before by fasting, refraining from gossip, and holding their temper. It was believed that a woman should be in a perfect spiritual state of mind before beginning to create pysanky.

The tradition is believed to have begun several hundred years before the time of Christ (c. 6 B.C.–c. A.D. 30) and has been passed down from mother to daughter for centuries. As a woman worked on a pysanka, she was said to transfer all the family's goodness into the design so that evil would be kept away from the house. Women sang songs as they worked to soothe the spirits of dead family members thought to be present in the night. They did not socialize but worked alone, asking God's blessing on each pysanka. This important tradition continues today and is practiced by Ukrainian women and those of Ukrainian descent all over the world.

Passion Friday and coloring krashanky

Good Friday is called Passion Friday in Ukraine. Special church services are held, and people visit the Holy Shroud (a representation of Jesus in death) at church. Many fast all day until the church service is over. Good Friday is also the day for baking Easter breads, called paska (pronounced POS-kuh) and babka (pronounced BOB-kuh).

Pysanky Symbols and Colors

The many designs and symbols used to decorate Ukrainian eggs, called pysanky, have special meanings. Flowers, fruits, trees, and leaves represent the rebirth of plant life after winter. A plant in a vase represents the Tree of Life as described in the Bible, the sacred book of Christianity. Cherries represent femininity and a wish for happiness and love. A fir tree branch means youth and eternal life. Grapes represent faithful love and good will; apples or plums are believed to bring wisdom and good health. Flowers such as tulips, sunflowers, and roses are symbols of happiness and springtime. Wheat represents a wish for good health.

Animals such as horses, fish, deer, and birds are drawn in abstract. Sometimes the artist depicts only claws, teeth, or horns. Chickens are a symbol of fertility. Deer, roosters, and oak leaves are symbols of masculinity and strength, and fish symbolize prosperity as well as Christ, the "fisher of men." Butterflies represent childhood and the journey of the soul to heaven.

Geometric designs and lines fill in spaces between symbols, so the whole egg seems to be covered. "Forty triangles" is one popular design, representing the forty days of Lent or the biblical story of Christ's forty days in the desert. Ladder, sieve, and basket shapes are also popular. A double line represents a path. A never-ending line, called the "meander," is said to trap evil spirits that brush against the egg—the spirits keep following the line forever. Dots are symbolic of the tears shed by Christ's mother, Mary.

The color red on pysanky symbolizes life, joy, passion, and hope. Yellow represents fertility, a good harvest, and prosperity. Green stands for spring and new plant life. Black and white together symbolize protection from evil and honor for the dead. An older person traditionally is given pysanky with many darker colors in honor of a long, rich life. Young people receive lighter-colored pysanky with fewer designs because they have just started out in life.

On Holy Saturday, families color Easter eggs called krashanky (pronounced krah-SHAN-kee), which are boiled and dyed in plain colors. They eat them after Easter Sunday church services to break the Lenten fast and use them in Easter games. People once threw the shells of krashanky into water in honor of the dead. Children rubbed their cheeks with red krashanky to make them look rosy and healthy.

Blessing the Easter baskets

On Easter eve, the night of Holy Saturday, people take baskets filled with pysanky, krashanky, Easter breads, and other traditional Easter foods to mass to be blessed before they are eaten the next day. The basket is lined with a woven and embroidered cloth called rushnyky (pronounced ROOSH-neck-ee) and covered with a second rushnyky. Each family places a lighted candle on top of their loaf of paska after the mass. The priest walks up and down, blessing the baskets by sprinkling them with holy water.

Khristos Voskres!

After the Saturday night mass, the priest says joyfully, "Khristos Voskres!" (pronounced KREES-tos VOS-kres; "Christ is risen!"), and the people respond, "Voistyno Voskres!" (pronounced vo-EES-tu-noh VOS-kres; "He is risen indeed!"). Then the parishioners turn to one another and repeat the greeting and response, often giving one another three kisses on the cheek. After the Easter baskets are blessed, family members and fellow parishioners exchange pysanky from their baskets, and each family gives a pysanka to the priest for performing the blessing. Then the people take their baskets home and arrange the table for Easter dinner the next day.

On Easter Sunday, church bells ring off and on all day. People go to church Sunday morning for Easter mass. Some stop to visit the cemetery and say "Khristos Voskres!" at the graves of deceased relatives. Families once put a little mound of soil with green blades of oat sprouts growing from it on the Easter Sunday dinner table. They had started the sprouts a few weeks earlier. This "little grave" served to remind the family of relatives who had died.

Later in the day on Easter Sunday, each community holds the year's biggest religious celebration, with dancing, feasting, concerts, and arts and crafts shows. In Ukraine's capital, Kiev, many celebrations are held on Easter Sunday in Sophiesvska Square, near the nation's oldest cathedral, Saint Sophia.

Water fight!

On the Monday after Easter, in some parts of Ukraine, men and boys once splashed women and girls with water, or even poured buckets of water over their heads. On Tuesday, the girls and women had their turn and soaked the men and boys. They often used water from melted snow; this icy cold drenching was supposed to be good for the complexion and bring good luck. It also brought young people together to socialize. Today, many young Ukrainians use super water pistols to soak their friends.

The Monday and Tuesday after Easter are also important days for children to visit their grandparents and godparents. Families pack baskets of food and pysanky (Easter eggs) when they go visiting. On Tuesday, some adults dance and party as a way of bidding Easter and Holy Week farewell for another year.

Clothing, Costumes

Most Ukrainians wear Western-style clothing today, but for folk dances and festivals women and girls wear the traditional skirt and blouse with colorful embroidery. Men and boys wear embroidered vests and shirts and trousers. Both women and men wear boots with their outfits. Ukrainians wear their best clothes to church for the Easter Sunday service.

Foods, Recipes

Paska, Easter bread, is the most symbolic Ukrainian Easter food. It is a wheel-shaped loaf of bread, often decorated with cross-shaped dough ornaments and little dough flowers and birds. It may also have religious words or phrases written in a circle on the smooth, flat top of the loaf.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, people took wagons to church for the blessing of Easter foods instead of baskets, because the loaves of Easter bread measured perhaps two feet across. The bread was taken to church wrapped in a large scarf. Families also roasted a whole pig for the feast. Today, churches may bless such a large loaf of paska for the whole parish during the Easter Sunday service.

Foods taken to midnight mass for blessing on Holy Saturday are in small enough portions to be carried in baskets. They represent the foods that will be eaten at the Easter Sunday feast. Foods to be blessed include paska, butter, baked cheese, horseradish, beet relish, and both krashanky and pysanky (Easter eggs).

Eggs are the first food eaten to break the Lenten fast. After mass on Easter Sunday, families gather around the table. The eldest person or the head of the household divides a blessed colored egg into several parts. With the words "Christ is risen!," he or she hands each family member a portion of egg. They respond, "Truly, he is risen!" Sharing the egg symbolizes family unity and a wish for a prosperous year.

Paska (Ukrainian Easter Bread)

Ingredients

About 15 cups plain, sifted flour
1 cup lukewarm water
1 package (1 tablespoon) yeast
1 tablespoon honey
3 cups milk, scalded and then cooled to lukewarm
1 cup sugar
6 beaten eggs
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon salt
1 beaten egg mixed with 2 tablespoons water for glaze

Directions

Dissolve honey and yeast in lukewarm water and let sit for 12 minutes, then combine in a large bowl with lukewarm milk and 5 cups of the flour, stirring until smooth.
Cover bowl with a towel and let dough sit in a warm place for about 20 minutes or until it has begun to rise and form bubbles.
Stir in the 6 beaten eggs, sugar, salt, and melted butter. Then begin adding more flour, about 2 cups at a time, stirring until the dough has a medium texture, not too soft but not too stiff.
Turn the dough out onto a floured bread board and knead, adding more flour and kneading until the dough is dry enough so it does not stick to your hands. You should use most of the flour, and the dough should be smooth and springy.
Return dough to the bowl and cover with the towel. Let rise until it is about twice its original size. Then punch it down with your fist and let it rise again.
Divide the dough into three equal portions, covering one with plastic wrap and setting it aside. Form the other two portions into balls and place in greased 9-inch round springform pans. Cover with towels and let rise to the top of each pan.
Unwrap the third portion of dough and divide it into four equal parts.
Shape each quarter into a rope about 20 inches long and lay 2 ropes in a cross shape on top of each loaf.
Trim the ends of the horizontal rope so it looks like a cross. Use scissors or a knife to cut 6-inch-long slits into each end of the ropes and twist the cut ends together to braid them.
Use the snipped-off pieces of dough to make small ornaments such as flowers, birds, and leaves and place them around the cross.
Brush the top of the loaf and the cross with the egg-and-water mixture.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, then lower heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 25 minutes or until done. If the tops of the loaves are becoming too brown, cover them with aluminum foil toward the end of baking time.
To serve, remove the loaves from the pans and let them cool.

Makes 2 loaves

Foods served for Easter Sunday dinner in Ukraine today include kovbasa (sausage), a soup called borsch (made with beef, beets, cabbage, sour cream, and herbs), ham or roast pork, cooked vegetable salads with vinaigrette dressing, pirozhki (a cheese and meat pastry), babka (meaning "old woman"; a coffee cake), paska (Easter bread), horseradish, beet relish, cheesecake, and pastries. The table is decorated with pussy willows, colored eggs, and spring greenery.

Arts, Crafts, Games

Ukrainians make two kinds of Easter eggs: krashanky, which are boiled eggs decorated with simple colors and designs, and pysanky, which are given as gifts and treasured for years. Pysanky are often considered works of art and are handed down from one generation to another. The art of decorating pysanky is called pysanka, meaning "written egg," from the Ukrainian verb pysaty, which means "to write." The eggs symbolize renewal at Easter through Christ's resurrection.

Pysanky were traditionally made for other religious and social occasions as well as for Easter. They are given away as gifts of friendship, love, and respect. Pysanky can be made from chicken, goose, quail, or even ostrich eggs.

Making pysanky

Most pysanky are made using the wax-resist, or batik (pronounced ba-TEEK), method. Before or after the egg is decorated, the egg yolk and white are blown out of the shell. This is done by making a small hole in the top and the bottom of the eggshell and blowing on one end so that the contents slowly run out.

A special writing instrument called the kistka (pronounced KIST-kuh) is used to apply wax to designs drawn lightly in pencil on the egg. A funnel attached to the kistka is filled with wax, which is kept flowing by passing the tip of the kistka through a flame every few minutes.

Pysanky are dipped in dyes of different colors, beginning with the lightest colors first and proceeding to black. With each dipping, the areas covered with wax remain the color of the egg before the dipping, because the dye cannot color through the wax. The colors used most are red, yellow or orange, green, blue, white, and black. Ukrainians once used natural plant dyes such as roots, tree bark, plant leaves, and animal skins to make the dyes. Most dyes used today are made from chemicals. With each dipping, wax is used to shield areas of the egg that are not to be colored at that time.

When the pysanka is complete, the entire egg is covered with hardened wax. The wax is removed by holding the egg near a flame and then wiping off the melted wax. The wax can be removed faster by putting all the pysanky into an oven (after the contents have been drained) just hot enough to melt the wax and then wiping off the eggs. When complete, pysanky are painted with shellac to preserve them. It takes about eight hours to make a pysanka—about six of those to draw the designs. Older pysanky are considered works of art and are often displayed in museums.

Ukrainian religious icons

Like Greece, Ukraine is famous for its religious paintings on wood panels, called icons. People worshiped and prayed to the icons and believed they had the power to work miracles. Many Ukrainian artists painted these icons as a way to seek forgiveness for their sins. The various paintings, completed from the tenth through the sixteenth centuries, were housed in churches, where people could see them regularly. Today, most of the paintings are exhibited in museums. Many artists did not sign their paintings because they believed the inspiration for them was owed to God. Legends tell of painters who received guidance from angels.

Embroidered cloths

Ukrainian women are famous for the beautiful, multicolored embroidery they do on the woven cloths called rushnyky, which are used to line and cover Easter baskets to be blessed in church on Holy Saturday. Rushnyky are also hung over religious icons to protect them.

Easter egg rolls

A popular Ukrainian Easter game is for children to use colored eggs like marbles. They roll the eggs around on the grass, trying to tap other players' eggs and crack them. Winners get to keep any egg they crack. In another Easter game, each player rolls an egg down a tilted board, aiming for another player's egg at the bottom. If a player's egg hits another egg, the player gets to keep both eggs.

Music, Dance

On Easter Sunday, in church courtyards and in the streets, Ukrainians celebrate by feasting and dancing hahilki (pronounced hah-HEEL-kee), traditional circle dances done to Ukrainian folk music. Today, hahilki is most often performed by girls who belong to youth organizations.

Traditional Ukrainian musical instruments are the bandura (pronounced ban-DOOR-ruh), a string instrument resembling a lute; the sopilka (pronounced so-PEEL-kuh), a type of flute; the trembita (pronounced trem-BEE-tuh), a hollow wooden tube wrapped with birch bark; and the tsymbaly (pronounced tsim-BAH-lee), a string instrument similar to a hammered dulcimer.

The Ukrainian composer Nikolai Diletsky (c. 1630–c. 1680) wrote classical Easter hymns that are still sung by choirs today in many parts of the world. He composed the music for a famous Easter piece, the Kanon of the Resurrection, written by Saint John of Damascus, who died in 749. The Russian Easter Festival Overture, written by Russian composer Nikolay A. Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908), is also a popular classical piece for Easter in Ukraine. An important part of Ukraine's Easter music is the chanting by priests in the churches.

Special Role of Children, Young Adults

Ukrainian children participate in Lenten fasting, help color eggs, play egg games, do folk dances, and attend church services with their families during the Easter season. Young children may make bunny nests and wait for the Easter bunny to bring colored eggs. Girls learn how to make pysanky from their mothers, a craft they will develop year after year as they grow up and will pass along to their own daughters.

On Easter Monday and Tuesday, children and young adults soak one another with water pistols, carrying on the old water-splashing tradition. Grandparents and godparents love getting an Easter visit from the children. In some areas, visiting continues through the entire week after Easter Sunday.

For More Information

Bassis, Vladimir. Ukraine. Milwaukee: Gareth Stevens, 1998.

Clay, Rebecca. Ukraine: A New Independence. New York: Benchmark Books, 1997.

Web sites

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Easter Sources

DuBois, Jill. Colombia. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1991, pp. 51, 71 80–81, 87–89, 111.

Griffin, Robert H., and Ann H. Shurgin, eds. The Folklore of World Holidays. 2nd ed. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 1999, pp. 227, 232, 238–40.

McKay, Susan. Spain. Milwaukee: Gareth Stevens, 1999, pp. 12–15.

Thompson, Sue Ellen, ed. Holiday Symbols 1998. Detroit, Mich.: Omnigraphics, 1998, pp. 106–12.

Tracz, Orysia Paszczak. "Ukrainian Easter Traditions: Velykden—Great Day." Ukrainian Weekly, April 23, 1995. [Online, Electric Library]

Wagstaff, Kathy. "Traditions Mark Holiest Season: Celebrations of Passover and Easter." Atlanta Journal and Constitution, March 25, 1999, pp. JQ01. [Online, Electric Library]

Webb, Lois Sinaiko. Holidays of the World Cookbook for Students. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1995, pp. 100, 235–36.

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