Pancakes. Pancake Week or Maslenitsa
Maslenitsa or the Pancake week is a traditional
Slavonic holiday. The celebration lasts for a week which is the last week
before the spring Lent.
Why is it a pancake week?
The answer is simple. People
cook and eat pancakes the whole week each day of which has its own name.
Why do they make pancakes?
Well, a good pancake is supposed
to be round and yellow like the sun up in the sky. Much earlier in the pagan
times the god of Sun was very powerful and meant a lot to the ancient Slavs.
Joyful week of Maslenitsa
Maslenitsa or the Pancake Week is still a joyful week.
Every day is special. Long ago Monday was intended for making a huge straw effigy
of a woman. It symbolized Winter. On Tuesday people paid visits, went sledging
and enjoyed bear performances. On Wednesday sons-in-law would visit their
mothers-in-law who had to be nice to their daughter’s choice of life. On Thursday
people would take part in jolly events like singing, fisticuffs, snowballing and
various competitions.
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| Pancakes. Maslenitsa. |
On Friday mothers-in-law would come to their sons-in-law
and eat pancakes. On Saturday there would be a meeting with other relatives and
a gift exchange. On Sunday the straw effigy of Winter would be burnt. Sunday is
the end of Maslenitsa. It is time to ask for forgiveness from close relatives and
mates. That is why a lot of people who celebrate this festival these days phone each other
and ask to forgive them for everything they could do wrong.
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| Pancake Week |
Symbol
Maslenitsa is a symbol of new life which is brought by
spring. Nature awakens from its long winter sleep…it is especially important
for Northern countries where winter is long and frosty.
Shrove Day
In other cultures there is also Shrove Day or
Pancake Day.
It is the traditional feast
day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. The forty days of Lent till
Easter is a time of fasting. For example, on Shrove Tuesday Anglo-Saxon Christians
went to confession and were "shriven", in other words they would be
absolved from their sins.
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