EDUCATIONAL CLASSES
"TRADITIONS OF EASTER CELEBRATION IN UKRAINE"
"If our people had created nothing but Easter eggs, this would have been enough to take an honorable place in the pantheon of civilized nations.
V. Skuratovsky
The peoples of the world differ in clothing, customs, traditions. Each nation has its own national shrines, favorite things, trees, animals. Ukrainians have their own traditions that have always been respected and preserved. These are the father's house, the mother's song, the holy bread, the embroidered towel, the red viburnum, the roasted willow, the cruciferous periwinkle, the amazing Easter egg, the stork faithful to its land. They are all our ancient and good symbols, our talismans. Perhaps, having such beautiful symbols, the Ukrainian people managed to save from oblivion our song and thought, our history and ancestral memory, freedom-loving.
Soon all Christians will celebrate Easter. This is one of the largest and most revered Christian holidays after Christmas. This is one of the happiest holidays, because it symbolizes the beginning of a new life. But do we all know about the traditions and customs of celebrating Easter?
In order to consolidate and deepen knowledge about Easter, folk traditions of celebration, attributes, development of interest in Ukrainian ceremonial holidays, education of student youth spirituality, diligence and love of nature April 17, 2019 teachers Bulakh II and Szymanska OV with students of groups F-28 and K-36 held an open educational hour "Traditions of celebrating Easter in Ukraine."
Students received a lot of interesting information about why Easter is celebrated on different days and how to determine the date of celebration, the symbolism and meaning of Easter, what is special Holy Week, how long Lent lasts and what it means for a person in preparation for the great Christian holiday, what is the Way of the Cross, what people do every day during Holy Week and what traditions they follow. Everyone present at the event learned about the most important and sensitive moments in the life of Jesus and Christians.
Teachers together with students in an interesting cognitive way filled the Easter basket with products that are usually traditionally consecrated by Ukrainians in the church. To do this, students were asked to guess the riddles, the solution of which required products. Together with the guesses, the students learned what the different components of the Easter basket symbolize: Easter cake, sausage, cheese, butter, horseradish, candle, Easter egg …
Students were told many legends about the emergence of the custom of painting eggs, about what techniques of painting eggs exist today. Those present at the event had the opportunity to understand why the seemingly ordinary work of preparing Easter eggs for our ancestors turned into a solemn event that required special conditions.
Particular attention was paid to the peculiarities of making paints for painting eggs, which paints were used and which symbolizes each color. Not to be overlooked is the variety of traditional images, elements – symbols. The ancient art of pysanka keeps many secrets! Every element of the painting, every color on its surface is a coded sign given to us by our great-grandparents.
Pysanka is one of the brightest types of decorative and applied art of Ukraine. Cheerful Easter eggs are pleasing to the eye, perceived as an example of high artistic taste. People all over the world have immortalized the beauty and grandeur of the Ukrainian pysanka in the form of monuments and architectural structures. During the event, student youth realized that such monuments exist not only in Ukraine but also in the world.
Over time, the celebration of Easter has become overgrown with new customs and traditions. It has no standards, so each nation has its own interesting customs and rituals. Students heard about the traditions and customs of celebrating Easter in Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden, Italy and the United States.
Times pass, decades and centuries pass, and Ukrainian traditions and rites, such as Easter, pass from generation to generation. They are protected because our people respect their faith, respect the rites of their ancestors and passionately love their land. We wish this to all of you, dear friends!
