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POLISH
EASTER TRADITIONS
Polish Easter traditions
are as old and beautiful as Polish Christmas
traditions and they require just as much elaborate
preparation. These traditions celebrate not
only the central mystery of the Catholic faith,
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, they also
celebrate the coming of spring and the long-awaited
rebirth and renewal of nature after the long,
dark months of winter. The Polish name for
Easter is Wielkanoc, which means Great
Night-the night from Holy Saturday to Easter
Sunday-when the miracle of the Resurrection
took place.
Lent or Wielki Post is the six-week
period of religious preparation for Easter.
Before the fasting that is a part of Lent,
everyone enjoys one last week of merrymaking
and good food. This is called Fat Week or
Tlusty Tydzien. It starts on
the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, when costume
parties are held and millions of the famous
jelly doughnuts called paczki are baked and
consumed. In the United States, paczki
are eaten on Fat Tuesday, also known as Mardi
Gras, but in Poland these delicacies are a
part of weeklong celebration leading up to
Ash Wednesday.
On Ash Wednesday people
go to church for ashes and they also cut pussy
willow branches, called bazie
or kotki and place them in water
, in the hope that they will bloom by Palm
Sunday. The six weeks of Lent, leading to
Easter Sunday, are a time of fasting and prayer.
Stations of the Cross and Gorzkie Zale are
two religious traditions observed during Lent.
Gorzkie Zale, which means Bitter
Sorrows, are beautiful hymns or lamentations
that are sung on Friday evenings and Sunday
afternoons in Lent. These are ancient chants,
retracing the Passion and Crucifixion, and
their soulful notes ring out of all churches
in cities and villages in Poland during Lent.
Palm Sunday begins
Holy Week when preparations for Easter can
start in earnest. Since palms do not grow
in Poland, people take pussywillow branches
to church to be blessed by the priest on Palm
Sunday, or sprigs of colored straw. The branches
and sprigs are then hung in houses, usually
tucked behind a holy picture, to bring health
and prosperity to the household during the
coming year.
Holy Week, Wielki
Tydzien, includes spiritual and other
preparations for Easter. Homes are cleaned,
curtains washed, and the baking and cooking
begins. In olden times, ham and sausages were
made and smoked at home, and bread and other
pastries were baked from scratch. The baking
tradition continues today and tall airy babkas,
flat colorful shortbread cakes called mazurki,
and rich creamy cheesecakes or serniki
are lovingly prepared. Each housewife wants
to have a large selection of homemade pastries
to place on her Easter table. Easter eggs,
called pisanki, are also made during Holy
Week.
On Holy Thursday, people
go to church for a service that commemorates
the Last Supper. The priest washes the feet
of twelve parishioners and repeats the actions
and words of Jesus Christ, starting the celebration
of the Passion that will take place over the
next three days. On Holy Friday, after 3 p.m.,
which is the time that Jesus died on the cross,
each church sets up a tomb where the Holy
Eucharist is placed as well as a statue of
Jesus taken down from the cross. Parishioners
stand guard at the tomb all night as people
come and pray. Many people go from village
to village and in the city from church to
church to pray at the tombs, called groby.
No baking is allowed on Holy Friday, but people
spend time coloring Easter eggs and preparing
baskets to be blessed in church on Holy Saturday.
The most colorful additions
to Polish Easter baskets are the Easter eggs,
called pisanki. There are many different names
for Easter eggs in Poland, depending on the
method that is used to make them. Click
here to learn more about the many methods
of making Polish Easter eggs. In addition
to the eggs, a Polish Easter basket includes
sausage or ham, bread, butter, salt, and horseradish.
The eggs symbolize life, spring, and the Resurrection.
Bread represents Christ, the bread of life.
The sausage or ham represent abundance and
God's generosity. The horseradish represents
the passion of Christ and salt symbolizes
prosperity. Butter represents good will and
the decorations of green sprigs, pussy willows,
or daffodils represent joy. People all over
Poland walk with their Easter baskets in hand
to church on Holy Saturday-where a priest
blesses them with holy water-and then they
go straight home to try some of the blessed
food, which tastes all the more delicious
after weeks of fasting during Lent.
On Sunday morning,
a beautifully laid table is prepared and covered
with pisanki, ham, sausage, cold meats, salads
and relishes, including cwikla,
made with grated beets and horseradish, bread,
babki, mazurki, and other pastries, and, in
the center, a lamb made of butter or sugar,
commemorating the resurrected Christ. No smoke
was permitted on Easter Sunday so no warm
food was served, other than zur, the traditional
sour soup that is a must on the Easter menu.
Easter Brunch is called Swieconka,
which means blessed food, since many of the
items served on Easter Sunday had been blessed
in church on Holy Saturday. The Easter Brunch
starts with the sharing of a blessed egg-everyone
takes a piece of the egg from the head of
the household as they exchange best wishes
with one another.
On Easter Monday the
water consumption in Poland shoots way up
and this is due to an ancient custom that
is still observed today, in villages and cities
alike. It is called Smigus Dyngus
or Wet Monday when people sprinkle each other
with water on the day after Easter, or, in
the case of young people, they don't sprinkle
but douse each other with buckets of water.
Boys lie in wait to surprise young girls to
see who can get whom wet first! In extreme
cases, you might even be thrown into a stream
of cold water with all your clothes on!
The custom of pouring
water is an ancient spring rite of cleansing,
purification, and fertility that is practiced
all over the world, from Europe to China.
In Poland it takes on a religious meaning
since, according to legend, Prince Mieszko
I, the first king of Poland, was married and
baptized on Easter Monday in the year 966
AD. He had the entire nation of Poland christened
on his wedding day as well, and Poland has
been a deeply religious country every since,
for over one thousand years.
PISANKI
Polish Easter Eggs
- Pisanki
Eggs are a symbol of
spring and rebirth all around the world, and
they have also become the most enduring symbol
of Easter and the Resurrection. In Poland,
Easter egg-making has developed into a true
art form and there are as many methods of
making them as there are traditions and rituals
associated with them. Easter eggs are called
pisanki in Polish, which comes
from the word pisac, which
means to write. Designs are drawn or words
are written on a hardboiled egg with a wax
stylus, then placed in a dye. When the wax
is scraped off, a white pattern is revealed
on the colored egg.
Pisanki are usually
prepared in Polish homes during Holy Week,
especially on Holy Friday. On Holy Saturday,
the colored eggs are placed in baskets, along
with butter, bread, salt, horseradish, sausage,
and ham, and taken to church to be blessed
by a priest
Altough pisanka
has come to mean Easter egg in Polish, it
represents only one of the methods used to
decorate eggs in Poland. Here are some of
the most popular types of Easter eggs in Poland:
Pisanki
- eggs with wax patterns "written"
or drawn on them, then dyed
Kraszanki - solid-color eggs,
dyed with plant materials such as beets,
onion skins, and leaves
Malowanki - hand-painted eggs
Drapanki - solid-color eggs with
a design scratched onto the surface
Wyklejanki - eggs decorated with
colored yarn
Nalepianki - eggs decorated with
paper cut-outs or straw
Sometimes, hollow eggs are used instead of
hardboiled. The eggs can then be displayed
all year long, ensuring good health and prosperity.
The solid-color eggs were used for consumption;
the decorated and hollow eggs would be saved
from year to year. Once blessed in church
on Holy Saturday, eggs were never thrown out,
nor were the eggshells. Instead they would
be buried in the garden or field as crops
were sown, bringing good fortune and ensuring
a good harvest. The water used in cooking
Easter eggs was also saved and used to water
fruit trees and to wash beehives. This was
believed to result in sweet-tasting fruit
and delicious golden honey.
On Easter Sunday, before
Swiecone, the traditional Polish
Easter Brunch, a blessed Easter egg is shared
by the family, as Easter wishes are exchanged.
Pets and livestock were given a blessed Easter
egg to eat as well.
For Polish Easter
Recipes, click
here.
POLISH
CONSTITUTION DAY MAY 3rd
Did you know…
that the Polish Constitution is the second-oldest
Constitution in the world and the first Constitution
in Europe? It was ratified on May 3, 1791,
only four years after the American Constitution
was adopted by the Constitutional Convention
in Philadelphia in 1787. Did
you know… that the Polish Constitution
so enraged Poland's super-power neighbors
that they partitioned the country in an attempt
to keep democracy from spreading beyond Poland's
borders? Russia, Prussia, and Austria divided
Poland into three sections and ruled the nation
for over 100 years.
Did you know…
that Poland has two national holidays? May
3rd Constitution Day and November 11th Independence
Day. That was the day in 1917 when Poland's
Independence was reinstated by the Regency
Council, after more than 100 years of partition
by its neighbors.
CORPUS
CHRISTI - BOZE CIALO
The feast of Corpus
Christi (Body of Christ) or Boze Cialo is
observed on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday
all over Poland. Houses, doorways, and windows
are decorated with greenery, flowers, and
holy pictures and makeshift altars and shrines
are built in the streets.
Traffic comes to a
virtual standstill at noon as from every church
in the country a procession leaves with people
walking behind the priest who is carrying
the Blessed Sacrament. Many of the people
are dressed in their regional costumes. The
colorful procession winds through the streets,
stopping at the temporary shrines to sing
and pray. The shrines are also decorated with
branches and members of the processions pick
twigs and leaves from them for good luck and
happiness. Young girls dressed in First Holy
Communion dresses scatter flower petals on
the street in front of the priest while young
boys carry incense. It is a day of celebration
and prayer in all of Poland, as well as a
national holiday.
LAJKONIK
The legend of Lajkonik
goes back to medieval times, when Poland was
often invaded by Mongol tribes from the East.
In 1241, the people of Krakow successfully
repelled one such attack and this triumphant
day is celebrated every year on the first
Thursday after the religious holiday of Corpus
Christi during the Lajkonik Festival.
Lajkonik has become
one of the most beloved unofficial symbols
of the city of Kraków. It is represented
as a bearded man resembling a Tatar in a pointed
hat, dressed in colorful attire, with a wooden
horse around his waist. Some say that the
legend originated in pre-Christian times when
it was believed that in the spring a horse
brought good luck and high crop yields. Later
this was combined with the historical stories
of a Mongol invasion that was warded off by
the brave people of the city. Today,
the Lajkonik Festival begins with a colorful
parade of medieval dragons, knights, kings,
and maidens, led by the Lajkonik who prances
around chasing people with his mace. It is
said that if he touches you with his mace,
you will have good luck throughout the coming
year! The parade starts at the Wawel Castle
and ends in the center of town, in Market
Square.
BOCIANY
/ STORKS
Nothing says spring
in Poland more than the arrival of the beloved
"bociek" or stork. You can see their
large nests on rooftops, towers, chimneys,
telephone poles, walls, haystacks, and on
specially constructed nest towers. Storks
are said to bring good luck and many homeowners
will erect special stork ledges on their roofs
to encourage them to nest there.
Poland is home every
summer to over half of the 160,000 European
storks thought to be in existence today. They
are tall white wading birds, with long red
legs and long red beaks. They play a colorful
role in Polish fairy tales and folklore. They
are much loved by young and old alike and
they are considered harbingers of the weather,
marking the warm months with their activities.
Here are some folk sayings about storks in
Poland:
If storks arrive on St Joseph's Day (March
19), the snows will soon melt away.
On Annunciation Day (March 25), a stork will
be in its nest to stay.
On St Wojciech's Day (April 23), the stork
an egg will lay.
On St. Bartholomew's Day (August 24), the
stork prepares to fly away.
The storks fly from
Poland to Africa for the winter months with
their young. Over 100,000 stork babies are
hatched in Poland every summer. Storks really
seem to love their adopted country of Poland!
EVE
OF ST. JOHN'S - NOC SWIETOJANSKA
People
have always celebrated the summer solstice.
The shortest night of the year is a night
of festivities and merry-making all across
the world. In Catholic Poland, the celebration
of this night was moved a few days to coincide
with the eve of the feast of St. John the
Baptist on June 24th. So the night that
is celebrated with festivals in Poland is
called the Eve of St. John's and it falls
on June 23rd.
Traditions
of the summer solstice focus on two of nature's
elements: fire and water. These elements
symbolize male and female characteristics
and the celebrations in Poland include the
burning of huge fires by men and boys, who
also danced around them and jumped through
them, while girls made wreaths from flowers
and herbs and floated them down the rivers
and streams, sometimes adding burning candles
to the wreaths.
The
men and women usually celebrated separately,
the only communication between them being
the floating of the wreaths (rzucanie wiankow).
Girls hoped that the young man of their
dreams would find their wreath and then
fall in love with them.
There
is a Polish legend that says that the magical
flower of the lowly forest fern (kwiat paproci)
only blooms on this shortest night of the
year. According to the legend, anyone finds
this mysterious fern will be rewarded with
great treasures. Fairy tales abound about
young men who go off on this night, searching
for the illusive fern flower.
Today,
St. John's Eve festivals and parties include
music and dancing, fireworks, boat floats,
and bonfires, with men and women celebrating
together. In Warsaw and Krakow and in other
smaller towns along the Wisla River, you
can still see candle-lit wreaths floating
down the river on the night of June 23rd.
MATKI
BOSKIEJ ZIELNEJ - OUR LADY OF THE FIELDS
As summer draws to
an end in Poland, the feast day of Our Lady
of the Fields (Matki Boskiej Zielnej) is celebrated
on August 15th. This is also the feast day
of the Assumption of Our Lady. People bring
to church great bouquets made from branches,
herbs, vegetables, and wheat, interwoven with
a few flowers from the fields and gardens,
which are blessed by the priest. These bouquets
are carried home and kept until the following
year. When there is sickness in the household,
the herbs are brewed and used for medicinal
purposes, not only for the people, but for
the livestock as well. Wreaths are made on
this day by young girls and also brought to
church to be blessed and then they are proudly
worn to attract young men during the picnics
and festivals that follow the ceremonies in
church.
DOZYNKI
- HARVEST FESTIVAL
The Poles
do not celebrate Thanksgiving in November
the way we do in the United States. They celebrate
the end of the harvest and thank God for the
bounties of the land in September, as summer
turns to fall and as the last fields are mown
and harvested.
The symbol
of Dozynki or the Harvest Festival is a large
wreath made of a number of grains, the ones
considered most important to the harvesters,
usually wheat and rye. The wreath was made
in the shape of a domed crown and decorated
with flowers, ribbons, hazelnuts, and the
fruit of the mountain ash tree. Holy pictures
or icons were sometimes added (see photo).
The wreaths
were made by farmers and landowners and brought
to church to be blessed during the Harvest
Mass. Everyone dressed in their finest folk
costumes for the Mass and young maidens vied
to be the ones selected for the honor of wearing
a smaller version of the dozynki wreath on
their heads. A procession accompanied the
wreaths to church, which were either carried
or placed in horse-drawn wagons, also decorated
with ribbons and greenery. After Mass, a harvest
feast was prepared and everyone joined in
the celebrations that sometimes lasted for
a few days. Music, singing, and dancing accompanied
the festivities, as everyone rejoiced that
the work of the harvest was done and that
the food and grains were now in storage for
the long winter season ahead.
The dozynki
wreaths were taken home after the celebration
and hung in a prominent place in the home,
such as in an entrance hall, above a chest
of drawers, or above the door of the main
living room as a symbol of prosperity.
NOVEMBER
IN POLAND
The biggest holiday
in Poland of the autumn season is All Saints'
Day called Wszystkich Swietych, celebrated
on NOVEMEBR 1st.
All Saints' Day is
a holy day which has been celebrated in Poland
and the rest of the Catholic world for many
centuries. All Saints' Day is a national holiday
in Poland, and a day when people visit the
graves of loved ones and place candles and
flowers on their graves. Abandoned graves
are also decorated with candles and flowers.
If a family has moved away or no family members
are able to be present, neighbors will make
sure that no grave is forgotten. On this day,
all of the dead are to be remembered and honored.
The special votive candles, which can burn
for many hours, are placed on the graves so
that departed souls can find their way through
the darkness and flowers, usually mums, are
placed so that the dead know that they live
on in the memories of the those they left
behind. Cemeteries are lit by many hundreds
of these candles and at night they can be
seen glowing from long distances as darkness
descends. Many Poles travel from far and wide
to visit family graves on that day and to
honor the dead. The holiday is also sometimes
known as the Day of the Dead, Dzien Zmarlych.
The next day, November
2nd is All Souls' Day, or Zaduszki, when the
church prays for all departed souls, not only
the souls of the saints, but also of those
who are still in purgatory. Cemeteries and
churches are visited on this day as well.
In recent years, Halloween,
which originally was a Celtic holiday, has
made an appearance in Poland with children
donning costumes and attending parties on
October 31st, but the true celebration of
the dead in Poland continues to be on November
1st and 2nd when millions of people from all
around the country criss-cross the nation
to visit the graves of their loved ones. The
smell of burning candles wafts across the
breadth and the width of Poland and cemeteries
are ablaze at night-you can see the glow in
the night sky wherever you look.
November 11th is Polish
Independence Day and it is the second national
holiday in Poland-the first one is Constitution
Day celebrated on May 3rd. November 11th is
the day that Poland regained its freedom after
123 years of partition by its powerful neighbors,
the superpowers of the time: Russia, Prussia,
and Austria. November 11th is the same date
that the Armistice was signed ending World
War I between Germany and the Allies. Poles
celebrate both of their national holidays
with pride. For a nation that was not free
for a large part of its history, it is now
happy to celebrate its political freedom with
great passion and pride-on both of its national
holidays.
POLISH
WEDDING TRADITIONS
May and June are months
of weddings and many Polish American brides
like to incorporate some Polish traditions
into their own weddings. We often get asked
to publish some of the common Polish wedding
customs. There are, of course, many different
traditions and they vary from region to region
and from city to village. Country weddings
in Poland are often three-day affairs with
all the neighbors as well as family members
joining in the festivities. In Polish towns
and cities weddings are becoming more
elegant and smaller and are being held in
hotels and restaurants rather than in the
bride's home.
Regardless of whether the wedding will be
large or small, held in a Polish village or
an American city, it is undoubtedly the most
important celebration in a couple's lifetime.
It is a joyful occasion for both families
and for both sets of friends and couples usually
go all out in planning the day. They try to
add meaning to the festivities by writing
their own vows and by adding special traditions
from their own families or ethnic backgrounds.
Parents' Blessing
The "wesele" or wedding in Poland
began with the groom arriving with his groomsmen
at the house of the bride. They would wait
outside while the bridesmaids helped the bride
to dress and get ready. Guests would also
arrive at the bride's house shortly before
the church ceremony. Musicians would be playing
as the guests arrived and everyone waited
for the bride to appear. People gathered at
the home of the bride in order to accompany
the bridal couple to church, but also to witness
the blessing and symbolic farewells of the
bride with her parents, relatives, and friends.
The blessing by the parents was sometimes
seen as more meaningful than the church ceremony
itself! After the couple received the parents'
blessing, everyone stood in a circle around
them as the bride's mother sprinkled them
with holy water. The blessings were so important
that if a mother or father had died, the wedding
party would stop at the cemetery where the
groom or bride prayed at the deceased parent's
grave before going on to church.
The trip to the church took place in various
ways, with the bride and groom usually riding
in separate wagons. Several wagons pulled
by stately horses and filled with guests dressed
in their Sunday best and with bouquets of
flowers, followed the lead wagon on which
a driver stood, cracking his whip for everyone
to get out of his way. Behind him were a fiddler
and other musicians playing merry tunes. Behind
the lead wagon, on horseback, rode the master
of ceremonies, the Starosta. Everyone sang:
the bridesmaids, the groomsmen, the musicians,
as well as the drivers.
During the church ceremony it was expected
of the bride to cry. If she didn't, it was
believed that she would be unhappy and cry
throughout her married life. After the ceremony,
the bride sometimes threw handfuls of straw
on the young boys and girls who followed the
wedding party. Whoever caught the straw was
prophesied to marry before the others. Another
belief was that whichever of the bridesmaids
touched the bride or her wreath first after
the ceremony would marry that same year.
Greeting with Bread and Salt
When the newlyweds, followed by the wedding
party and invited guests, finally arrived
at the Dom Weselny, the house where the wedding
feast would take place, they found the door
closed to them. The Starosta (best man or
master of ceremonies) would have to sing a
song asking for the door to be opened to the
young couple. The young couple was most often
greeted at the entrance of the house by both
sets of parents with bread and salt. Salt
had equal footing with bread in all family
customs from birth to death. It was believed
that salt had the power to heal and cleanse,
to uncover evil and thieves, to protect houses
against fire, dispel storms and hail, and
to drive away evil spirits.
In Polish American weddings, the parents of
the bride and groom often greet the young
couple with bread and salt as they enter the
banquet hall where the reception will be held.
A loaf of bread and a small ramekin of salt
should be placed on a tray covered with a
white linen cloth. The bride and groom break
off a piece of the bread and dip it in the
salt while the parents greet and bless them.
A glass of wine is sometimes added to the
greeting and the couple take a sip of it as
well.
"Oczepiny"
Towards the end of the reception, the most
important wedding custom of all takes place:
the "Oczepiny" or the Unveiling
and Capping Ceremony. It is documented all
the way back to the 16th century and represents
the rite of passage-from young girl to married
woman. All the single women at the reception
circle the bride as the maid of honor stands
behind her and removes the veil from her head
as music is played. A married woman then has
the responsibility of pinning a married woman's
"cap" on the head of the bride as
all the married women present at the reception
form a circle around her. At this moment,
the bride is officially considered a married
woman! Sometimes after the unveiling, the
bride will toss the veil rather than the bouquet
to the single women or she will give her veil
to the maid of honor. The cap was usually
a gift to the bride from her godmother. The
cap was reserved for special occasions and
worn to church, for folk festivals and weddings,
and, at the end of a married woman's life,
she was buried wearing the cap from her wedding
day.
The
Apron Dance
The Polish Bridal Dance has become an American
tradition for the descendants of immigrants
from Poland and other Slavic countries. The
last dance at a Polish American wedding, before
the bride and groom leave, is usually reserved
for the bride and is called the "Pani
Mloda" or Bridal Dance. It is also sometimes
called the Money Dance or the Apron Dance.
All the guests at the reception line up for
a last chance to dance with the bride and
to donate money to the newly wed couple. The
money is placed by each guest into an apron,
which is held by the bride's father before
dancing with the bride. The Starosta (master
of ceremonies) keeps the line moving, allowing
everyone only a few spins with the bride before
cutting in for the next guest's chance to
dance. After each guest has danced with the
bride, she or he receives a drink and a piece
of the freshly cut wedding cake.
After the final guest completes his dance
with the bride, the groom takes his turn.
Then he throws his wallet into the apron,
takes his bride and the apron, and they leave
together to start their new life!
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