This text should have been titled “Easter traditions in Galicia”, but then I realized that traditions are common and are spread on significantly broader territory. In the process of writing, it became apparent that apart from clerical traditions there are plenty Easter-related superstitions and straight-out fiddlesticks. Finally, it became clear that writing about traditions will not be enough, there is a need to present a personal story based on what I know “from home” and some things I picked up throughout my life.
Easter bread is the foundation for celebration in all Christian countries. It is always yeasted dough, with plenty of eggs, butter, sugar, spices and seasonings. It is an embodiment of everything that is best, the most delicious and the most valued of what one could afford – almonds, vanilla, cinnamon, saffron, and I don’t even mention dozens of eggs and the best flour and butter.
Easter bread or Paska is baked in round forms, sometimes braided and decorated with symbolic ornaments. Just the baking of Paska is symbolic and spiced with household superstitious. Depending on the region, people value either the paska’s width or its height. But there is one common thing – paska should not crack or get out of shape. A successful paska is a symbol of a successful year for the whole family. Apart from big common paska, every member of a family had his/her own paska, and from the way it turned out during the baking process it “told fortunes” about the fate of that person for the nearest year.
In fact, it was not a custom in Ukraine to cover paskas with white sugar glazing, as a contrast to “kulich” (Russian Easter bread), which were usually covered with white glazing. Paskas in our tradition were decorated with crosses from dough (symbol of patience), cuckoo-birds with joined wings (longevity), braids and spikelet (harvest), symbols of eternity and other ornaments.
In 1929 Olha Khoruzhynska-Franko wrote the following notes: “You can cover paskas with any kind of glazing for cakes, and sprinkle them with cut almonds, sugar and cinnamon.” Now paskas are mainly glazed. On the one hand, I see a diffusion of times when it was difficult to have our own traditions, on the other hand, it is the influence of mass media and “wild Internet”, when everyone and their dog can write and share simply translated content.
I would also like to reflect on some of my family traditions which I do not always adhere to, but they live inside me as a precious compass. A week before Easter our house was cleaned as a new pin – washed windows and curtains, pillows and blankets aired on the sun and clothed in fresh bed linen. Thursday was the last day for cleaning, and after that, in the clean kitchen, paskas were baked. Before baking, my grandma wore clean clothes, washed her hands and face, showed everybody out from the kitchen and prayed. Flour for the dough heated next to the oven and several times filtered through a sieve. After the first kneading, her palm made a sign of the cross on the dough and covered it a with napkin. When dough raised for the first time she would lightly touch it and let it grow in peace.
It is not allowed to sit while paskas are being baked, as it was interpreted that the “paska will sit” as in not rise in the baking process. Strangers are not allowed to the house, especially women, because “evil spirits” could come with them, and it means that everything should be sprinkled with holy water.
In fact, there were three types of Ester bread in Galicia – paskas, kolaches and babkas. Paskas and kolaches were baked from almost the same dough, approximately with 10 eggs, yet paskas were always round and sweeter, kolaches – less sweet and certainly with braids. Whereas babkas were baked with 30-40, even 60 eggs, and they also could have been from short pastry, or yeast, always sweet, with plenty of spices. Pasky were baked in special dishes while babkas in clay dishes with thick sides, sometimes with a fap in the middle, thus babkas would be in a form wreath. Now paskas and babkas for majority of people are almost the same, but I remember that my grandma differentiated between them, and there was a difference.
It does not matter how yellow and pastured are the eggs, but for good yellow dough saffron is always added. It is a kind of “showing off” before relatives and neighbors, because true saffron was always valuable. One more traditional Easter bakery are lambs. In our family they were baked in a heavy mould from the regular dough as paskas. I do not remember anyone eating those lambs, yet one lamb with a ribbon tied around its neck was always put in the basket, then it stood in the cupboard for a very long time.
In my childhood I had several “small Easter mercies” such as cheese horses, new pysankas and creeping to the closet where sweets were kept. Cheese horses were brought from the Kosiv market, I enjoyed sucking horse’s leg, suck salty whey from it, strip the horse into separate threads, wrap them around my finger, and, at last, eat. Pysanky in my childhood were from Kosmach, Pistyn and the surrounding suburbs. Approximately one-two or weeks before Easter, pysanky would just appear at our house. I don’t remember anyone making pysanky from blown out eggs or (God forbid!) on wooden forms. All eggs were whole, with yolk inside, you should have treated it extremely carefully, especially with the ones from the previous year. If you break such an egg it stank for all the cupboards.
The closet was a “mystery of mysteries” since sweets lived there. If paskas and kolaches lay under the napkins on the table in granddad’s room, the closet held something much more interesting. Rolls, stuffed with jam, waffles, poppy-seed cake with honey cake, and my favorite “wells” – choux pastry, in which you could stick a finger and get vanilla custard. Of course, it was prohibited to go to the closet, but who would listen?
If you even just glimpse at household Easter rituals, you can see how closely interlaced are pre-Christian and Christian traditions, and over them there are some kinds of kitchen-magic rituals. Let’s take, for example, blessing of the knife to cut paska (I don’t remember this in our family, but I read it some sources); even content of the Easter basket – it’s not just paska and sausages – it is just full with household symbolism! Basket made of vine for blessing appeared in the tradition not so long time ago, sometime around the 20th century. Paska and eggs were brought to a church in tablecloths, or in bags, Hutsuls did it with their own bags – besagy, even put in carts. My mom told me that when grandad went to bless paska during the Soviet times, he put it in his brief case, and in the pocket – several boiled eggs, so “if something happened” he could quickly hide it all. Such were the times, good that they passed.
Trip to the church on Easter was always not only a religious, but also secular ritual. The wife has to show her skills, while the husband – wealth. So well-baked, big, beautiful paska, beautifully decorated basket, clean children – that’s all trophies. Basket for Easter should be a special one, you cannot put anything else in it throughout the rest of the year. As well as special, usually embroidered, napkin to put in the bottom of the basket and a towel or a long napkin, which we put on the basket. I, to tell you the truth, don’t really like napkins embroidered with willow branches and words “Christ has risen”, I like simple ones, embroidered with geometric ornaments. However, that’s a personal preference. At our house we decorate the basket with myrtle, but there are traditions to decorate with branches of periwinkle, willow, ribbons.
In the basket we would put one paska, several boiled, necessarily peeled eggs, pysanky, salt in open caster, root of horse radish, cheese babka (baked cottage cheese with caraway seeds and eggs), butter in bowl, decorated with the cross, made of cloves, and something meat – usually a ring of sausage. And, for sure, a candle. And that’s, probably, all. We do not put a lot in the basket. We had never ever put alcohol in the basket. Frankly speaking, it looks like some kind of blasphemy.
The table for the Easter breakfast is covered with special tablecloth, white with embroidery. We put the best plates and dishes, and in the corner of the table – blessed paska, pysanky, and, of course, that candle that was in the basket. Those eggs that were blessed in the basket are divided into as many parts, as many people are at the table (+1 for the dog). We salt eggs, pepper them and add several pieces of fresh horse radish. Here is also an understandable symbolism, both ancient and Christian. The oldest member of the family – now it is my father – share an egg among everybody, saying “Christ has risen!” and kissing everybody. Then – communal prayer and Easter breakfast.
Well, seems like I remembered everything. Wishing you all happy holidays, sweet paska, and be healthy at the same time in a year!
