What is a carol? Folk Carols

On the expanses of the post-Soviet space in everyday speech and the media, one can often hear the words "Russian carols" and "carols texts", the use of which is timed to specific calendar dates.

So what is a Christmas carol? How often is it performed in modern Russia? What specific text have calendar carols in Russian?

Kolyadovalnye ceremonies in the context of Russian and Ukrainian cultures

The carols were originally majestic ritual songs dedicated to the Sun, performed in the process of ritual processions to their homes. Their origin is lost in the ages. By their appearance these roundabout rites appear to be due to Ukrainian folk traditions and signs associated with the winter sunrise - one of the three main annual holidays, along with the spring equinox and the summer solstice celebrated by the ancestors of modern Ukrainians.

Specific features of bypass rites

Actually, the change in the playing time, fullness and ideology of the carol-song began to take place under the energetic influence of the Orthodox Church. She sought to destroy the agrarian - pagan - part of the rituals. Therefore, over time, the Kolyad process as a traditional procession for certain time periods was divided into several typological branches by the time of the celebration (Christmas, Epiphany, New Year), characters (laity, clergymen) and the characters of the texts-the appointment of a carol-song. So, it could be thanksgiving hymns and church hymns, glorifying Christ.

Due to the especially strong pressure of the Orthodox Church on the traditional Russian culture, folk carols almost disappeared from the ritual accompaniment of the annual cycle. However, up to the present, a certain part of the circumvention has come. They also replaced traditional song-carols with improvised texts.

The theme of songs-carols from some ethnographic groups of Russians

As already noted above, the text of the carol was magically blessed by the owner of the house for luck, the fecundity of the cattle. The ritual fulfilled predetermined the wealth of the harvest and the profit in material goods. However, songs-carols are divided into several types, the text of which has different semantic nuances.

In oats, the economic theme of the wish is clearly traced, supported by executive requirements. In generics, Christmas carols retain the text of the requirement, but the main meaning is the owner's spell on luck. For grapes is characterized by everyday and romantic lyrics, often revealing the theme of anguish of the bride and groom and tuning the listener in a friendly way in the family.

Ovens as one of the Russian caroling ceremonies

So, Russians have several types of ritual detour of houses, related to each other, but present in different territories of Russia. In the Volga region, some middle and southern oblasts (Tambov, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, Voronezh, Tula), Christmas carols are held at Ovseni - on New Year's Eve or in the New Year itself, and the process of caroling is called, respectively, an ovary. Texts of oats are not different from the texts of other types of carols, but they have a refrain "Avsene, avsen!" Or "Oh, oatsen!". Speeches of this type can be demonstrated by the example:

The bridge was paved,
Covered with cloth,
Nails were killed.
Ai, Avsen, ah, Avsene!
Who, who to go to
Over that bridge?
There to go Avsene.
Ai, Avsen, ah, Avsene!

Thus, to the question of what a Christmas carol is after acquainting itself with carrying out this action on the territory of the Volga region, middle and southern oblasts of Russia, one can formulate a response indicating the praising-preserving character of this action as a ritual of a peculiar spell of the owners and their home for luck , But subject to their friendly attitude towards fellow villagers.

Shchedrovki - Mythological Kolyadolnye Songs

Close on the nature of the content and direction of the participants in the southern Russian territories are generous, having choruses "Generous / good evening!".

The allocation of the main plots of the bounty, in view of the large number of late ideological stratifications, is very difficult, it is only known that they had religious-mystical subjects with the addition of ordinary folk texts about the lives of saints. With the help of this joining, it was planned to strengthen the magical component of the generous text:

Schedrovochka generous,
Under the window slept.
Chi ram, chi sheep,
Serve the blanca,
Do not bite, do not break,
And for the whole give.
Generous evening, oh, good evening.

A few words about carols of grapes

The northern Russians have ritual actions, also timed to the Christmas Eve and New Year, but having in the refrain "Vine, red-green!". The grapes were a symbol of wealth and love for the Slavs, so these songs were sung in the homes of single and newly married people. If in the texts of the oats and lavers the story line of songs and jokes consisted of evangelical and mythological themes, the grapes represent romantic allegories, the texts of which for girls and boys were different. One can give an example of such a ritual text:

We walked and walked
By Holy Russia.

We were joking and joking
Lord's courtyard.

Master's yard
At twelve versts,

And the moon was on
Ivanushka,

You will marry
We will marvel.

The grammatical construction of the Christmas carol texts and the features of their use

What is the carol from the point of view of the semantic and grammatical turnover? The folk ritual texts that have come down to us consist mainly of a ten-syllable verse, divided into two five-syllable hemistichs. Russian and Ukrainian generics most often consist of an eight-syllable verse with a four-syllable hemistich. It seems most likely that, strictly according to certain dates - Christmas, New Year, Easter, confined earlier to pagan holidays, under the pressure of the Orthodox Church, the bypass rituals moved one time interval and contributed to a mixture of their textual and ideological components. In favor of this theory also speak the facts of carrying out in some regions grapes for Easter.

The role of mummers in caroling ceremonies

What is a carol without the optional presence of mummers who set the tone for the game mood of the bypass process? In what order did they visit the homes of villagers and neighbors? Carrying out the text of the carols, the procession usually moved through the houses of the village from west to east - skipping someone's house was a bad omen and a great insult. In ritual rituals, people often played three groups of images - unclean or otherworldly power, animals or people of another ethnicity. In the element of exposure there are hints of friendly relations with people of other nationalities, reflections of the surrounding living beings and fear of the otherworldly force dispersed during the Svyatok by the host of Christ. Therefore, the Slavs had a common practice of communion of mummers after a circumvention ritual, or forcing them to swim in an ice hole in order to purify themselves of the contamination acquired during the process of filming. Children usually did not get along, but traveled to homes.

Costumes and attributes of mummers

Costumes ryazhenyh, designed to depict animals and evil spirits, most often represented sheepskin coats, turned outward. Further added parts of the body and attributes, reinforcing similarities - sticks and branches for bird beaks, birchbark masks and wooden horns, tails-sweeps of otherworldly beings and so on. When depicting the four wealthy merchants in ladies' and men's clothes, boys and girls rallied, portraying gypsies or araps - smeared their faces with soot. For greater intimidation, the carolingians stood on stilts and portrayed the hump on their backs.

Kolyadovalnaya kitchen

During Christmas time, special dishes are prepared, most of which are baked goods. For example, such dishes are carols (wickets) - small boxes of a mixture of rye and wheat flour 5 by 5 centimeters, filled with minced meat, jam or other stuffing.

Modern Bypass Rites

What is a Christmas carol in modern Russian realities? Does it exist today? Modern Russian carols, unlike the old Russian and Ukrainian, which, like many centuries ago, were held from sunset to sunrise, begin as usual early in the morning. If earlier this process was of a magical nature, and with the arrival of mummers, little comic scenes were played, then in the modern version the meaning of the roundabout ritual is reduced to a festive game, during which, as the Christmas carols are executed, the christians and mummers receive from the owners of the house some kind of yummy - Pies, sweets and other goodies.

In modern rituals, carols are performed, the text of which is either sufficiently distorted by translating a genuine poem into modern language, or is completely improvised. Such songs can be easily found. How can you know the original, real Christmas carols? The text of any of them may have been preserved in the memory of our grandmothers or grandfathers. It is worth telling them about such rituals. Often they can tell a lot of interesting things. Songs-carols, the text of which everyone knew before - from small to large, today you can listen to the recording. Some of them are recorded in real "field" conditions, others are theatrical production. An example of such improvisation is the following text of the carol in Russian:

Good evening to kind people!
Let the merry holiday be!
Merry Christmas, congratulations!
We wish you happiness and joy!
Generous evening, good evening!
Good people for health!

After these words, it is possible to either continue the wishes of the household or read the following ritual texts. In any case, the congratulation so decorated, supplemented with the appropriate attributes of the holiday, will make it unforgettable for the addressee and will please with originality in the choice of national color.