polish easter traditions halina ostańkowicz-bazan 2015
TRANSCRIPT
Polish EasterTraditions
Halina Ostańkowicz-Bazan 2015
Why is it called Easter?
The name Easter is derived from 'Ostara' or 'Eostre', a pagan goddess of fertility, whose feast was celebrated on the Vernal Equinox. The word East is also derived from her names, as is Oestrogen, the female hormone. In Saxon culture, the Hare was sacred to Ostara and the modern tradition of the Easter Bunny is a distant echo of that.
However, In most languages other than English and German, the holiday's name is derived from Pesach, the Hebrew name of Passover, a Jewish holiday to which the Christian Easter is intimately linked.
Easter depends on Passover not only for much of its symbolic meaning but also for its position in the calendar.
Sinking of Marzanna
Winters in Poland were long and unforgiving. Therefore people are longing for spring. One of the ancient and pagan habits that supposedly was helping to get rid of winter was "sinking of Marzanna". Kids made a doll from old grass and tree branches and take it to the river. They burn the doll and throw her into the river. The symbolic meaning of this ceremony is to get rid of winter therefore it is performed in early spring.
Polish Easter Customs
Polish Easter customs have not changed much during the centuries. To this day, eggs are a major item at Easter. Eggs are blessed. Eggs are artistically painted in various lovely and intricate patterns, and different sections of Poland are noted for their special designs.
Matins are observed in churches on Wednesday of the Holy Week. After each psalm is sung, a candle light is extinguished to signify the sorrow over the torture of Christ.
Poland has a series of unique rituals connected to Easter, ranging from joyful to spiritual, and of course always including plenty of homemade delicacies.
• Easter in Poland is celebrated according to the Western Roman Catholic calendar.
• Easter Sunday falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring.
• Rites and practices are therefore marked by Christianity, but still remain strongly influenced by pagan traditions.
• It is usual for both modern and conservative families to partake in the celebrations, regardless of what their religious beliefs may be.
Easter is very important for Polish people from the religious point of view, as Poland is a very Catholic country. It is preceded, according to the religious tradition, by the Lent, which lasts for 40 days.
Delicious Food for Fat Thursday
The Thursday before Ash Wednesday is celebrated as Fat Thursday - Tlusty Czwartek . On this is the day when you forget about your diet and eat mountains of donuts (paczki) and all the other things fat, greasy, sweet, full of cholesterol, generally unhealthy, and mmmmm.... delicious.
The first sign of approaching Easter in Poland is a large number of branches and dried flowers being brought to church. One week before Easter, Palm Sunday (in Polish niedziela palmowa) takes place. According to Catholic tradition, the day marks the entrance of Jesus in Jerusalem.
Palm Sunday Traditions
Palm Sunday niedziela palmowa is called also The Sunday of the Lord's Passion. Here we will focus mainly on the tradition of Polish palms
The most popular palms that people usually carry to the church are made of blooming pussy willows branches called bazie or kotki decorated with branches of birch, raspberry, currant and also some boxwood bukszpan, dry flowers and grass, ribbons and other decorations. In the Catholic Church the willow (Polish: wierzba) symbolizes the resurrection and the immortality of the soul.
Art of Coloring Easter Eggs
The Easter eggs are symbols of fertility and beginning of the new life. Some of the eggs were painted in traditional Polish folk patterns. These eggs were called "pisanki". Word "pisanki" comes from the root-word meaning "to write". Painting eggs is a multi-layered process of writing on an egg with hot beeswax, dying the egg, then finally melting and rubbing off the egg for a finished product.
Easter Saturday in Poland
Easter Saturday in Poland is a busy day. Every Polish family visits a church with a basket full of food products (a piece of bread, salt, sausage, egg - usually painted etc). Especially children love it! The baskets are then blessed by a priest.
On the Saturday before Easter Sunday, Poles paint hard-boiled eggs (called pisanki). Some use store-brought kits which make the coloring and decorating easier, others continue to make dyes the traditional way - with boiled onion skins. Egg painting is encountered in several other Slavic cultures, and is thought to date back to talismanic pagan rituals that are over 5000 years old.
Another Saturday activity is the preparation of Easter baskets. Lined with a white linen or lace napkin and decorated with sprigs of boxwood (bukszpan), the baskets contain a sampling of Easter foods: pisanki, a piece of sausage or ham, salt and pepper, bread, a piece of cake and an Easter Lamb made of sugar or even plastic. They are brought to church to be blessed.
The butter lamb (Baranek wielkanocny) is a traditional addition to the Easter Meal for many Polish Catholics. Butter is shaped into a lamb either by hand or in a lamb-shaped mould. It is also sold at delis, Polish specialty markets, and some general grocery stores at Easter time.Frequently the eyes are represented by peppercorns and a Polish flag on a toothpick is placed on its back.
Blessing The Food
Traditional Dishes of Polish Easter
White sausage, rye soup, cakes with poppy seed or cottage cheese: the numerous traditional Easter delicacies in Poland are surprising, sophisticated and inspired by Spring.
Easter is a feast of smoked meats and ham, where biała kiełbasa takes centre stage. Biała kiełbasa - white sausage - is an unsmoked minced pork sausage (with the addition of beef and veal) covered in a thin layer of pork casings and seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and marjoram. Whether it's in the żurek or amongst the food samples carried in the Easter basket, white sausage is mostly served boiled, sometimes with horseradish, mustard, or ćwikła (horseradish-beetroot relish).
White sausage
Żurek, or żur is a soup made of home-made or store-bought sourdough from rye flour. It's garnished with boiled white sausage and boiled egg halves. In remote times, żurek and herring were the main pre-Easter Lent fasting food staples. By the time of Holy Saturday, sick and tired of these dishes, people would give them a festive burial. A pot with the soup would be either buried in the ground or spilled. When it's not attending a funeral, żurek is consumed all year round.
Mazurek - traditional, sweet cake of the Polish cuisine. Mazurek is being baked in the period of the Easter. They are being made out of pastes of different kind: brittle, sponge, pasta, marzipan and is interleaving with mass, the preserve and jam. The surface is decorated with the icing, fruit, nuts and dried fruit. Mazurek can be baked in different shapes - oval, triangular, square or rectangular.
Makowiec is a traditional Polish cake usually baked around Easter. The cake consists of dough with a filling of poppy seeds, raisins, milk, butter, orange peel and nuts such as walnuts or almonds. The cake can be finished with a glaze made of powdered sugar and lemon juice
BabkaIt is a spongy yeast cake that is traditionally baked for Easter Sunday. Traditional babka has some type of fruit filling, especially raisins, and is glazed with a fruit-flavored icing, sometimes with rum added. Modern babka may be chocolate or have a cheese filling.
On the most important day, Easter Sunday, some go to church at 6am for the Resurrection mass – a ceremonial service and procession. Homes come alive with families who gather to eat breakfast. Before the meal, in much the same way as for Christmas with the sharing of the opłatek (Christmas wafer), people share wedges of the blessed Easter eggs from the basket. They exchange wishes and a Wesołego Alleluja (Joyful Hallelujah).
The breakfast is dominated by cold dishes and is a feast for meat lovers: ham, sausage, roast meats, pâté (pasztet), eggs, horseradish relish, bread.
Wet Monday
Smigus Dyngus (shming-oos-ding-oos) is an unusual tradition of Easter Monday. This day (Monday after Easter Sunday) is called also in Polish "Wet Monday", in Polish: "Mokry Poniedzialek" or "Lany Poniedzialek".
Easter Monday is also a holiday in Poland. It was traditionally the day when boys tried to drench girls with squirt guns or buckets of water.
Thank you for watching
Halina April 2015
http://culture.pl/en/article/polish-easter-traditions
http://culture.pl/en/article/10-traditional-dishes-of-polish-easter