Folk Customs
Ukrainian folk customs and rites were rituals connected with the calendar and with the course of human life. They were often accompanied by religious ceremonies, incantations, folk songs, dances, and dramatic plays. Life cycle rituals mark birth, marriage, and death. Many of these customs are ancient and have blended in many cases with Christian rites. They can be divided into three categories:
- familial customs and rites - which consist of birth, wedding, and burial rites
- seasonal-productive customs and rites - which are tied to farming, herding, and hunting tasks
- communal customs and rites - which mark certain events in the life of the community
Folk customs have undergone many changes in Ukraine as modern culture was introduced. Under the Soviets, folk customs were unsuccessfully suppressed. Believers still practiced the Christian customs, and some people in the country even revived the ancient customs and rites. Many Christian rites have been revived in post-Soviet Ukraine after 1991, especially in western oblasts.
Read more about this topic: Ukrainian Folklore
Famous quotes containing the words folk and/or customs:
“the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye—
So priketh hem nature in hir corages—
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“Is a civilization naturally backward because it is different? Outside of cannibalism, which can be matched in this country, at least, by lynching, there is no vice and no degradation in native African customs which can begin to touch the horrors thrust upon them by white masters. Drunkenness, terrible diseases, immorality, all these things have been gifts of European civilization.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)