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Paper short abstract:

The paper considers the array of Slavic terminology for a feast which alludes to the strict traditional rules for celebrating certain festivals and venerating the Christian saints in their folk version. Folklore evidence on the consequences of, and punishment for, ‘wrong behavior’ is analyzed.

Paper long abstract:

The Slavic traditional calendar has strict rules about how to celebrate each Christian feast, to venerate the saints on their day, and to act appropriately. The Slavic words for a feast (Russ. prazdnik, Bulg., Serbian, Slovene praznik, literally ‘an empty day’) allude to the avoidance of any type of labor in the field or at home. This corresponds to the concept of the Christian calendrical dates, which should be empty of any activity besides the religious one, e.g. they say that on the day of the Annunciation (25.03) ‘even a bird does not make a nest’.

Other words for a feast (Ukr. svito, Byel. svita, Czech svátek, Polish święto literally ‘a saint day’) reflect the idea of venerating the holiday and so parallel the prescription on how to celebrate it. In Serbia, on the day of the Ascension, people in the villages go around the fields with prayers so as to protect the crops from hail. There are accounts that in the years when this procession did not take place the crops were destroyed by the weather.

Special qualities are ascribed to many festivals and saints and these days are connected with certain types of bans, e.g. St Catherine (25.11.) is associated with children’s diseases and if a mother works on her day, her baby would get ill or die.

The paper offers a typology of ritual bans, recommendations and consistent kinds of punishment for inappropriate behavior. Field notes, archival data and published sources of Slavic calendrical festivals are quoted.