When Maslenitsa takes place How to celebrate the holiday these days Why is Maslenitsa called that? History of the celebration Maslenitsa week Holiday traditions
When is Maslenitsa?
The celebration is held annually during the week before Lent. The celebration does not have an exact start date. To calculate this, you need to subtract 56 days from the date of Easter – which corresponds to May 5 in 2024, i.e. Maslenitsa will start on Monday, March 11 and last until March 17 (It will be Sunday). And on March 18, Clean Monday will come, when the countdown to Lent will begin.
How to celebrate the holiday these days
Most often, modern people limit themselves to baking pancakes and going to public celebrations, which are held in almost all settlements of Russia. One of the central venues in Moscow where festive events will be held from March 11 to 17, 2024 will be Red Square.
During Maslenitsa week, believers must give up meat to prepare for Lent. Currently, only dairy products, eggs and fish can be consumed from animal foods. If you wish, you can also observe other holiday traditions (we will discuss them below) – in particular, skiing down the mountain and going to your mother-in-law’s for pancakes.
Why is Maslenitsa called that?
There is no clear opinion about the origin of the name Maslenitsa. In the Orthodox Church, it was called Cheese Week or Meat Week: in the week before Lent, the consumption of cheese and other dairy products is encouraged, but meat is prohibited. In the book “Wide Maslenitsa” Taisiya Levkina writes that the holiday received its usual name for the same reason:
“The name ‘Maslenitsa’ arose because this week, according to Orthodox tradition, meat has already been excluded from food, but dairy products can still be consumed – so they bake pancakes with butter.”
It is also believed that the celebration was called Maslenitsa because people tried to appease spring and “oil” it. Another version says that in the spring cows begin to give milk, from which butter is churned, which is considered a symbol of prosperity. That’s why oil has become an important feature of the week before bidding farewell to winter.
History of celebration
Folklorist Vladimir Propp concluded in his book “Russian Agricultural Holidays” that Maslenitsa originated in pre-Christian times as an agricultural rite for the fertility of the soil in the upcoming planting season. According to him, this opens a cycle of other agricultural holidays – Semik, Trinity, Ivan Kupala and “Kostroma’s funeral”.
In ancient times, it was believed that dead bodies in the soil could affect the fertility of the soil. While pancakes were left on the windows as a funeral meal and carried to the graves, on Forgiveness Sunday people went to the cemetery to “say goodbye”.
It is believed that Maslenitsa is celebrated for two weeks: seven days before and seven days after the equinox. However, with the adoption of Christianity, this period was reduced to one week and tied to the church calendar – the date of celebration began to depend on Lent. Since then, Maslenitsa has been perceived as a reason to have fun and eat before a long fast. The scarecrow, previously associated with the power of fertility, also began to symbolize winter.
Nevertheless, the connection between Maslenitsa and agriculture continued into the 19th century. People arranged fist fights, believing that the strength of the participants was transferred to wheat, only tall men danced round dances so that “the flax was long”, and newlyweds were also honored during Maslenitsa week for the transfer of reproductive powers. to the Earth.
Maslenitsa week
The week before Lent is divided into Narrow and Broad Maslenitsa. In the first three days, Dar Maslenitsa takes place – according to tradition, you can do household chores from Monday to Wednesday. And the period from Thursday to Sunday is called Wide Maslenitsa, when heavy physical work stops.
On certain days, people went to visit each other, went downhill, got married, and held mass celebrations. The structure of Maslenitsa week looked like this:
- Monday – “Meeting”. On this day, people began to make scarecrows from Maslenitsa and bake pancakes, the first of which were given to the poor.
- Tuesday – “I’m flirting.” Many Maslenitsa traditions revolved around matchmaking, so young people could take a closer look at each other and get married after Lent. On Tuesday they went sledding, chatting and eating pancakes.
- Wednesday – “Gurmand.” On the third day of the week, the son-in-law came to his mother-in-law to eat pancakes – this is how he won over his daughter’s chosen one.
- Thursday – “Going for a walk.” With the onset of broad Maslenitsa, people completed their household chores and began to celebrate en masse: horse riding, various competitions and holidays. On Thursday, it was also customary to storm a pre-built snow town.
- Friday – “Mother-in-law’s night.” Her mother-in-law came to visit her son-in-law for a return visit, and her daughter was in charge of baking pancakes that day.
- Saturday – “Meetings of brothers-in-law.” Newly married girls invited their sisters-in-law (their husband’s sisters) and other relatives of their husbands to visit.
- Sunday – “To see.” On the last day of Maslenitsa week, people asked each other for forgiveness for everything they were wrong about. They visited the cemetery, commemorated the dead, went to the bathhouse and got rid of leftover holiday meals before Lent. The culmination of the holiday was the ceremonial burning of the Maslenitsa statue, which often symbolizes the farewell of winter and the welcome of spring.
holiday traditions
Food and drink
During Maslenitsa, they ate and drank a lot – before, people were constantly busy with physical labor and large amounts of food were not available on ordinary days. By gorging themselves, the villagers “modeled” a future well-fed life and commemorated their departed ancestors with pancakes to support them through the planting season. Breastfeeding or fraternization was also common: people gathered together to brew beer and other alcohol and drank them at banquets “for high flax,” “for the birth of cattle,” and for other purposes.
Since Monday, women have been baking pancakes, cottage cheese pancakes and other pastries every day. Fish fritters, fish soup and scrambled eggs were also popular.
Riding
During Maslenitsa, it was customary to visit each other for treats and to visit distant relatives in other villages. Until the 19th century, it was believed that moving “in the sun” would increase daylight hours and bring spring closer.
An integral part of the holiday was collective horseback riding: from Thursday, young people dressed beautifully, decorated the horses’ harnesses with ribbons, sat in the sleigh and went for a ride around the neighborhood, singing songs. On the evening of Forgiveness Sunday, the festivities ended abruptly – the end of Maslenitsa was symbolized by the ringing of the bell. This is reported in the “Ethnographic Bureau” records of the late 19th century:
“Horseback riding, like the festivities that visit all the young people in the village, takes place only during the day and ends suddenly, as if on a signal. The signal is the first strike of the bell for Vespers. Everyone literally rushes out of the village and is often driven out as if it were being set on fire, so that in just 5-10 minutes not a soul is left in the village and silence reigns, like during Lent.
slide downhill
Ice mountains were built in every village, which were actively used on Maslenitsa: it was customary for young people who had not yet married to meet there. If a man rolled down the mountain with a girl in his arms, he had the right to kiss her. Horsemanship was also associated with the future harvest: “The further you go, the longer the flax grows.”
People rode specially made “ice boats” filled with water, frozen baskets and skins. Sometimes a group of people would slide down the mountain on the benches, and especially brave men would slide down.
fist fights
Ritual fights were encouraged on Maslenitsa – people measured their strength so that “a mighty harvest would be born.” There were also rules: you could fight only with your bare hands, without using improvised means. Intentionally inflicting serious injuries, taking revenge for some kind of insult, beating the “liar” and “slandering” (a person injured to the point of bleeding) were prohibited. Often people collide “wall to wall” on the ice of the river. One of the types of fighting was “match” – everyone chose an opponent by height and strength until victory or defeat, and then “matched” with a new one.
Capture the snow city
At the beginning of the 18th century, this entertainment was invented in Siberia and then spread to other regions. In memory of the capture of new lands, the Cossacks decided to carry out a “historical reconstruction”: before Maslenitsa, a snow fortress with gates from logs and snow was built on the river. Most often, participants on foot defended the fortress, and those on horseback attacked it. Over time, this entertainment has been modified and simplified.
Farewell to Maslenitsa
Ethnographer Sergei Maksimov wrote in his book “The Dirty, the Unknown and the Power of the Cross” that in the middle of the Maslenitsa week, a large straw statue of Maslenitsa was greeted with songs, carried on a sleigh and rolled down a hill:
“(Carnival) usually starts on Thursday, during Shrovetide week. Boys and girls make a stuffed animal out of straw, dress it in a women’s outfit, buy it together, and then put a bottle of vodka in one hand and a pancake in the other. This is the heroine of the Russian carnival “Madame Maslenitsa”.
On Forgiveness Sunday, Maslenitsa was celebrated noisily. This ritual was a funeral ceremony symbolizing farewell to winter and the old year. For a long time, the most common way to send off Maslenitsa was and remains the burning of an effigy (it had also been buried or dismembered before). That this ritual was performed in the Moscow region at the beginning of the 20th century is described in AB Zernova’s book “Materials for Agricultural Magic in the Dmitrov Region”:
“On Forgiveness on Sunday evening in Fedorovskoye, young people of both sexes decorate their sleds and harnesses with ribbons and braids. Maslenitsa, dressed in a human-sized and festive girl’s dress, is put on a harnessed horse. Young people sit on a sled and ride around the village singing until it gets dark. “Late in the evening, the Maslenitsa train leaves for the winter, and a bonfire is being prepared here to light Maslenitsa.”
It is stated that Maslenitsa was burned outside residential areas and the ashes were scattered on the fields to obtain a better harvest.