Russian style Shrovetide: “Dancing, costume parties at nights and theaters twice a day – the out loud and untiring hospitality is everywhere”

Shortly before massive Shrovetide (in Russian tradition - Maslenitsa festival or the Pancake Week), which in 2017 is celebrated from the 20th to the 26th of February, the Presidential Library is inviting to review the digital copies of rare books on Russian cultural tradition: Everyday life of the Russian people by A. V. Tereshchenko (1848), How the Russian people used to and are use to celebrate Christmas, New year, Epiphany and Shrovetide (Maslenitsa) by I. N. Bozheryanov (1894), and other books.

An ancestress of the modern Maslenitsa was a pagan Komoeditsa (means “to eat dough balls”). Up to the XVI century in Russia the Holy Day of the Vernal Equinox, which is considered the beginning of the new year on the solar calendar of the ancient Slavs, was celebrated. They worshiped nature and worshiped the Sun as a deity, which provides vitality to all living creatures. Therefore, in the spring holiday of Komoeditsa people used to bake flat stove cakes symbolizing the sun - round, yellow and hot. First baked pancake was sacrificed for the sacred Slavic beast - a bear (in Old Slavonic - Komu). So, the saying “the first pancake for komus” i.e. bears, ascends from here.

With the adoption of Christianity the tradition evolved somewhat.

“The beginning of introduction of modern Maslenitsa carnival we adopt with the Christian Faith, - Tereshchenko says in a fascinating “Everyday life of the Russian people” book, the electronic copy of which is in open access on the Presidential Library website. - Foreign writers were the first, who informed us about the details and a significance of carnival amusements, which came down to us almost in the same shape. As in the old days, so now the main carnival meal is pancakes. During the whole week pancakes is baked out of buckwheat or wheat flour, in rich houses pancakes served with liquid caviar. In Little Russia - the Ukraine - they bake the same pancakes, and, moreover, prepare dumplings. …Offering mixed on butter pancakes and vodka gave birth to the saying: life is just entire Maslenitsa.”

Foreigners, who happened to be in Russia 200 years ago, wondered at the ability of Russians partying on Pancake Week 24 hours a day. Patriarch Adrian attempted to cancel the holiday, but only managed to quite it on the eighth day. Nevertheless, getting on a wave of mass celebration, the other nations of Europe were immerging into it sometimes recklessly. For example, the critic M. M. Bakhtin in his work entitled “Creative work of Francois Rabelais and popular culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance” points and compares: “Carnival is not for contemplation, it is for living in it. While carnival takes place, there is no other life for anybody, but the carnival. There is no way out, nowhere to go, because the carnival does not know the spatial boundaries. During the carnival, you can only live by its rules, i.e. the rules of the carnival freedom. Carnival has a universal character, a special state of the world, its revival and renewal, in which are all involved.” In spite of the difference of mentality, there are many similarities in the general jubilation and dive into a holiday that Italians show during the carnival and Russian at Maslenitsa.

Tereshchenko also investigated the class distinctions that the holiday reveals: “Every class feasted in their own way: some spend time in masking, dances and noisy feasts; others, with less stringent requirements on luxury and social propriety, ride the icy slopes on a small sleds-scooters or splints; swinging on a diverse swings and having fun Russian style, “like a pig in clover”.”

Foreigners had their eyes on Shrove Tuesday in a shape of Maslenitsa, as recorded in the book of I. N. Bozheryanov How the Russian people used to and are use to celebrate Christmas, New year, Epiphany and Shrovetide (Maslenitsa): the author quotes the words of the French writer Jules Janin: “Carnival, probably born in the north, she is the daughter of frost. A man saw her hiding behind a snowdrift, and a legislator called her to help a man in the most severe and miserable time of the year, and here is she with fat, rosy cheeks, with wily eye, not with a smile on her lips, but with laughter. She made one forget about the winter, warmed a chilling blood in his veins, grabbed his hand and started dancing with him up to a faint.”

Combining pagan and Christian traditions, public Maslenitsa since ancient times and is still celebrated in Russia on a large scale, as it is ancient and bright holiday, which unites those, who spend these days in preparation for the Easter Fast, and those, who are having fun and participating in mass festivities due to the tradition.