This is the End!

The Holidays are finally over in Ukraine. This may seem odd to Americans because they were concluded two weeks ago in the USA. So maybe I should give a little more detail.

While Christmas is celebrated in America on December 25^th, this is almost a non-event in Ukraine for two main reasons. Ukrainians have a tendency to be aware of the American Xmas but sometimes they are uncertain of the exact date. (I was given some Christmas wishes and or presents by some of my students.) Americans celebrate Christmas based on the calendar introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582. The Gregorian calendar replaced the old Julian calendar because of an eleven minute error that causes a three day difference every four centuries. A handful of countries adopted the new calendar at first and ultimately the rest of the world accepted it as well. The United Kingdom, including the American colonies, agreed to the change in 1752. At that time, 11 days had to be eliminated because of the accumulated difference. Russia and Greece were two of the countries that held out until the 20^th century. They eventually had to drop 13 days from their calendar. So the first reason that December 25^th is just another day on their calendar is because the church decided to still use the Julian calendar for Christmas which is about two weeks after the American one.

New Years is on the opposite end of the spectrum. The Russian Empire followed the Orthodox Church which was part of the Roman Catholic Church until it split into the western and eastern versions. However, after the revolution, the secular communist government wanted to eliminate religion from the country. Because of this, the population was unable to celebrate Christmas openly so New Years became the big Holiday of the Year. Ukrainians celebrate New Years with fireworks, exchanging presents, parties, champagne and lots of vodka. It is like Christmas, New Years and the Fourth of July wrapped into one night. It is strange because this season I saw Christmas tree lots established after December 25^th. But they were not selling Christmas trees; they were New Year trees!

On January 7^th Christmas is celebrated as a lower key event because it was suppressed under the Soviets. Many of the religious aspects are the same as in the west because they have the same origins.

The last (actually not true because Epiphany is on 1/19) holiday of the season is Old New Year on January 14^th which as you may have guessed is the New Year Holiday following the Julian calendar. They do have one odd tradition on this day. For the last two years I have had someone knock on my door and when I answered it there were two young boys. They come in and sing or chant in Ukrainian and then toss cracked wheat on the floor. I think this is called the Posevaniya ritual? I’m not sure what they are singing but the wheat must mean that I will have a good harvest in 2012. Since I’m not raising crops maybe this means I will have a child?  Last year I gave the boys some candy but this year I provided them with a little money. I vacuumed the carpet before they came over and now I trying to figure out an acceptable time to sweep up the wheat.

Posted by John