Mother's Day in Festive and Ritual Culture of Ukrainian Population of Galicia (1929-1939)

Author

Drohobytska Oksana

a Ph.D. in History, an associate professor at Ethnology and Archeology Department of the State Higher Educational Institution Vasyl Stefanyk Ciscarpathian National University

Mother's Day in Festive and Ritual Culture of Ukrainian Population of Galicia (1929-1939)

Abstract

The process of the Mother’s Day celebration in Galicia is analyzed in the article. It is noted that the Mother’s Day has been celebrated for the first time in the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada (1928) and from 1929 – in Galicia. Public organizations Union of Ukrainian Women, Prosvita, Native School and others have taken an active part in the holiday popularization.

In the Ukrainian version the holiday is considered as an effective educational factor. The holiday initiators have tried to lay the national­patriotic background, emphasized the necessity to educate nationally conscious mothers.

The local intellectuals (teachers, priests, activists of public organizations) are of a great importance in the holiday realization and popularization. Representatives of rural intelligentsia have joined the organization of mass celebrations, not only through direct management of celebrations, but also indirectly – through the preparation of scenery, costumes sewing, writing of scripts, poems, songs. Gradually, the peasants have taken the experience of the holidays realization and arranged such celebrations independently.

The Mother’s Day starts usually with the morning worship for all mothers, and finishes with a concert consisting of the introductory word, choir performances, children’s plays, declamations. The poetry of the Galician poetesses Mariyka Pidhirianka, Uliana Kravchenko, Ivanna Blazhkevych is very popular. In the reports on the occasion of the holiday the necessity to increase the level of pedagogical and sanitary­hygienic knowledge of peasant­women. The Mother’s Day is celebrated not only at the public level, but also in many families.

The Mother’s Day in Galicia is celebrated as a holiday of Ukraine, Mother of God and mother, and most of the solemn events in their content are reduced to the formation of a conscious person.

Keywords

the Mother’s Day, holiday, public organizations, peasants, Galicia.

References

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