How was New Year celebrated in the Middle Ages?

Few people are aware that Ukrainians should have marked the feast of St. Simeon the Stylite the other day. Our forefathers considered this feast the beginning of the New Year, both in religious and economic terms. In the distant past this event featured a majestic ceremony of the resumption of light known as the “candle’s marriage.”

Legend has it that the finest spectacle took place on Kyiv’s Contract Square. (This feast was observed as recently as the early part of the 20th century.) Early in the evening the square would fill up with guild members carrying their standards, maces, and gonfalons. During the procession they would sing the hymns of their guild and church chants. Every fraternity carried its own large wax candle. At midnight, the whole square was lit up with a host of torches and candles. Then throngs of people would take to the streets.

“That opera singer sang OK, and then he says, ‘Do you have some salo (fatback), ladies and gentlemen?’ Can you imagine: he sang an aria for a hunk of salo?!” a Cossack said, doubling up with laughter.

“See, boys? That’s the way the nobility sells itself for salo!” another said in response.

This fragment of a conversation among some men dressed in Cossack garb left some people who were chatting over a glass of wine in stitches. The conversation did not take place in a 16th-century steppe but during the Dream Country festival, organized on Sept. 17 by the indefatigable Oleh Skrypka. The theme of this year’s festival was Medieval Autumn at Kyiv’s St. Sophia Cathedral.

“This is an artistic experiment. Nobody has ever done this before. This is a totally unknown period. Even if somebody used to hold aristocratic soirees, it was in the French, English, or German style. And what is Ukrainian Baroque? We are discovering our own history today, and a lot of people are prepared for this,” said Skrypka.

The goal of this year’s Dream Festival is to show Ukrainians their own aristocratic roots, which are as venerable as those of any other European nation. Taras Kompanichenko performed chants that were once heard at the court of the princes Ostrozky, one of the richest and noblest families of 13th-16th-century Europe, and the court of the great Ukrainian Hetman Ivan Mazepa. Accompanied by great-feast chants and renditions by Nina Matviienko and Kostiantyn Chechenia’s ensemble of ancient music, Ukrainians and their many foreign guests performed a famous rite called the “candle’s marriage.” It is difficult to say if this ceremony resembled the medieval Ukrainian rite, but the hosts definitely succeeded in recreating the atmosphere of a real feast.

While Chorea Kozatska performed knightly songs as well as religious and lyrical secular pieces, Kompanichenko taught festival goers a series of medieval dances. Soon the cathedral courtyard was the site of a gathering of true aristocrats, who were diligently learning steps that their ancestors once performed. They danced around a kind of New Year’s tree festooned with ribbons attached to pieces of paper inscribed with the wishes of the participants: another Ukrainian tradition. Our forefathers believed that the wishes written on these papers on the feast of St. Simeon the Stylite would come true.

I wonder if some of the statesmen who came to have a good time wished that such extravaganzas would become traditional.

Skrypka said that he is planning to hold an ethno-disco festival as part of the Dream Country festival. We look forward to it!

Taras KOMPANICHENKO, kobza player:

“A well-known actress said recently that nobody ever spoke Ukrainian in Kyiv. Yet what we are showing here – songs and dances – is medieval urban Ukrai­nian culture. The burghers of Kyiv had their own customs and traditions. The feast we are marking today, the ecclesiastical New Year, is by no means the only one that Kyivites used to celebrate. Kyiv was always the center of culture and piety. Even in the period of decline, say, in the 16th century, it managed to preserve the ancient princely tradition. So what you see here is just a fraction of that ancient world.

“Unfortunately, Medieval Autumn is one of the few places where you can familiarize yourself with Ukrainian history and culture. In our country, TV broadcasts programs even about the 20th century late at night. For example, if you want to see something about Nechui-Levytsky, you should sleep through the afternoon and then stay awake at night, when you may also catch Dovzhenko’s film Earth. When children have an opportunity to watch television and listen to the radio, the informational space is stuffed with the rubbish that we actively consume. This is either the state’s stupid cultural policy or a deliberate onslaught of the vestiges of the former ruling country.

“Historians have written a lot about our real history, but politicians do not read it. Instead, they capitalize on old stereotypes, thereby working in the interests of another country. If the Ukrainian state does not radically change its cultural policy, we will lose another generation that will end up being disappointed because they will not know who they are and what culture they have inherited.”

Oleksa RUDENKO, president of the civic organization Department of Military and Cultural Anthropology:

“Oleh Skrypka is suggesting a return to national values in such an unconventional way, and we really like it. Frankly, I would have probably not come if somebody else had invited me. But I am a big fan of VV and especially Skrypka, so I support all his projects. With his popularity he is bringing people back to the history of their own country. To tell the truth, the vast majority of this country’s population is absolutely unaware of and does not even try to know its national history. The state is doing nothing to popularize history. But who will do this?

“Of course, this is not a very high-profile event, and not everybody will wake up tomorrow, transformed overnight into connoisseurs of national values. This rite, the ‘candle’s marriage,’ was once part of the school curriculum (remember Kocherha’s work Svichka’s Wedding?). Today’s young people don’t know about this at all. Who knows that today is the feast of St. Simeon the Stylite? The fact that wine is being served here is not exactly a national tragedy – it is a link with European values. Events like this are necessary for people not to forget who they are. The loss of national identity leads to the loss of personal identity. If that happens, an individual becomes a cipher in a mass of lackluster and faceless people.”