Spring Calendar Rituals of the Medieval Ukrainians in Comparative Context

Abstract

The article deals with the manifestations of the phenomena of substratum origin in Ukrainian culture, which appeared as a result of the interaction of the Slavic ancestors of the Ukrainians with the Iranian-speaking nomads of the steppe. Thanks to it, the Ukrainians have a lot in common in their spiritual and material culture with the Ossetians, who are the direct descendants of the Sarmatians and Alans, as well as with the Persians, Tajiks, Kurds, and Pamirs. In particular, closeness can be traced in the spring calendar rituals. Ukrainian customs of the Velykden holiday, identified with Easter under Christianity, have a lot in common with the celebration of Nowruz holiday, which is the key for the Iranian world. This is especially evident when the data on medieval Ukrainian rituals is included. The French engineer and cartographer Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan in his famous Description of Ukraine (1650) recorded the archaic moments of the Easter celebration. They relate to the obligatory exchange of colored and painted eggs for the holiday, as well as the ritual sprinkling of water on the Pouring Monday after Easter. The calendar rites and customs of the Ukrainians described by Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan find exact correspondences in the New Year rituals of Iran recorded by the Europeans. The French jeweler Jean Chardin in 1686 and the Dutch artist and traveler Cornelis de Bruyn in 1704 recorded the Persian custom of giving painted or gilded eggs on Novruz, which was connected with ancient Iranian ideas about the egg as the root cause of all living things, and the Venetian Pietro della Valle, during his stay in Iran in 1617-1627, had the opportunity to observe the rite of pouring water on a special holiday after Nowruz. The Persians, Tajiks, Vakhans, Ishkashims, Shugnans, Kurds, and Ossetians followed these customs and rites, which have parallels with Ukrainian ones, in later times. The Ukrainian folklore image of the lord of evil chained in Hell, who is angered by the existence of Easter eggs, also finds correspondence in Persian Zoroastrianism and the pagan religion of the Ossetians.