A thousand-year history, magical meaning and triumph at Eurovision: everything you need to know about Ukrainian spring songs

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Ukrainians are regaining their traditions. In particular, freckles, which are on a par with carols and shedrivkas, were popular ritual songs. Both adults and children sang them in the spring – this is how they tried to speed up the arrival of heat and chase away winter. They were the loudest songs on our land – the louder they were sung, the sooner spring came. They were also sung on Easter. So don’t be alarmed if you hear loud shrill chants somewhere in a park or a boat park. Read UP.Culture in Telegram UP.Life tells about this tradition and how to join it, what role did children play in this rite, how and where to sing these songs now, where to look for the lyrics and what they actually mean. We invited folklorists to the conversation: – the founder of the children’s folk studio “Pravitsa” Myroslava Palia – folklore researcher and radio host Zakhar Davydenko. Where were freckles common? Hayivka, hagilka, yagilka, ryndzivka – these are the names of spring ritual songs in different regions of Ukraine. They were spread from west to east and played an important role in the rites of summoning spring. “Freckles accelerated the arrival of heat and the beginning of a new calendar-ritual cycle. Depending on the area, the plot, melody and use of certain word forms could differ in the freckles,” says folklorist Zakhar Davydenko. Such folk-ritual songs as our freckles can be found in the traditions of many European countries, adds Myroslava Paliy: “Calendar rituals and spring traditions are inherent in the entire territory of Ukraine. And not only in Ukraine, but also in neighboring countries. We have a lot in common with Lithuanians, Belarusians, Poles”. But, she says, depending on the region, the freckles themselves, their texts, version of performance and ritual are different. “If it’s Polissia, it’s one, if it’s Podillia, it’s completely different. Western Podillia is different from Eastern,” Myroslava adds. Photo: Ivan Honchar Museum / Facebook According to her, the common name was given to these traditional songs in Soviet times: “When folklorists began to research all this and publish their works, in Soviet times they began to call it freckles. Because everything was simplified as much as possible, and that this for “gaivkas”, “hagilkas”, “agilkas”? Nobody needed all this, accordingly, they were called freckled women. According to Davydenko, the main feature of performing freckles is to be loud and resounding, “so that you can hear on the other side of the village.” “They sang not for people, but for nature itself, to wake it up from winter. Therefore, it was important that this sound was not ordinary, it had to be super high, piercing. And when they sang these songs, they tried to rise in their village something,” says Paliy. Mostly women and children sang, men could take part in separate games that took place during the performance of frenska. “The personification of the earth and fertility are still female symbols. That’s why most of these things were carried by girls or children,” adds the folklorist. What are freckles? “In general, a fresyanka is not too large in size, more often a one- or two-voice song, which was performed to “drive away winter” and “call spring”, – describes this type of folk songs Zakhar. He says that from the text itself you can understand that in front of you is a freckle: “Typical and most common images in freckles are winter, spring, girls, boys, old people, wreaths, flowers, wreaths. The leitmotif of most freckled chants is the end of winter, the arrival of spring, the beginning of a new year, that is, the continuation of life.” If you understand the essence of these traditions and know what the freckled chants were for, Myroslava adds, it is easy to distinguish them. The following key words serve as a clue: “spring”, “noise”, “crooked dance”, names of birds, etc. “When we hear ‘Oh, you’re a lark, an early bird’, it’s obvious that it’s a freckled bird,” she gives an example. The folklorist says that scientists different types of freckles are divided into subspecies: some according to the calendar, some according to the purpose of performance. However, the largest group of freckles and the primary mission of these folk songs is to call for spring. “Now we know for sure that spring will come, and it doesn’t matter if we sing or not , she will come. But before, people believed that their actions were directly related to what was happening. The union with nature was so deep that they believed they had to act in harmony with nature. And in order for spring to come, it must be helped, just as we help winter go away,” says Myroslava. In addition to calling for spring, with these folk songs, they tried to wake up the earth and all nature from winter, to get the birds to return from their hibernation, or even to find a mate: “After the Annunciation, such a period as the “street” began. This is when children in their time, young people in their time went out and gathered for fun. When it got warm, you could go outside and find a mate. That is why there are many freckles with a marriage motif. For example: “We caught a dove, surrounded ourselves. You dove, what do you long for – choose whom you love.” There were freckles with military motifs. “Let us go, let us fight for the summer. This is the mosty “Mosti”, it has both a marriage motif and a military one. There is also a military motif in the mosty “And we sowed millet”, – Paliya mentions examples. And even the mosty, for with the help of which the inhabitants of different villages arranged a kind of singing and dancing competitions. The bottom line is that a bunch of boys against a bunch of girls could sing along to such offensive songs. Mrs. Iryna Klymenko in her lecture mentioned how these quarrels were between the girls of one village and the girls of another village. It was necessary to show that your village is the best. And there, I’m sorry, but the word “sraka” was in almost every line,” she says. Easter frills Due to the fact that Ukrainians’ traditional culture and Christian tradition are very intertwined, religious motifs were also reflected in frells. This also affected the tradition performance of freckles itself, because Easter is preceded by Great Lent, which forbids loud celebrations. In order to preserve the ancient tradition of performing freckles, it was adapted to Christian rules, which sometimes, Palia emphasizes, went completely against the logical course of events: “In the village of Stari Koni, women go out and sung on Holy Week, after Easter. Although it is already clear to everyone that spring has arrived. And it had absolutely no logic, no correct cause-and-effect relationship. In order not to violate Christian norms, the women still go out and celebrate this winter.” Photo: Museum of Folk Architecture and Life in Lviv named after Klimentii Sheptytskyi / Facebook In addition, Easter also absorbed certain folk traditions, says Paliy. So, the traditional spring woman.” Crooked dance”, which is accompanied by characteristic collective movements, began to be performed on the very day of Easter, near the church. “And in general, these were such mass celebrations recorded by ethnographers. They gathered, led crooked dances, men made such a tower, twirled behind the sun and in this way showed their closeness to God, to the sky,” she explains. Freckled at Eurovision and on the top of Spotify In 2021, Ukrainian authentic freckled was performed on the stage of the international Eurovision contest. The electrofolk group Go_A took the song “Noise” to Rotterdam, created on the basis of an ancient folk song. … It was very interesting, they gave magical powers to every object that surrounded them, and they believed that, in fact, noise is the spirit of the forest,” the band’s soloist Kateryna Pavlenko said at the time. The stage number was also appropriate: the vocalist was dressed in a green fur coat, and the stage was decorated with white trees, which symbolized the forest. Thanks to Eurovision, the modern version of the traditional freckles has achieved such international success that it topped the global Viral Spotify Top 50 chart, took eighth place in the top 10 of the iTunes World Songs Chart (and in the European Songs Chart – the fifth) and became the first song in the Ukrainian language to enter the Billboard global chart. And here is the traditional performance of this fresniak in the village of Rozumivka in the Kirovohrad region: How to restore the tradition of performing fresniaks? Both Zakhar and Myroslava advise to learn the simplest fresniaks and games that they are accompanied from childhood – in kindergartens and schools. “Children are the greatest hope. Folklorists at universities will study it anyway, but such things should be tried to be fixed in everyday life among the younger generation. Find out what spring games were played in ancient times. Today, you can find enough descriptions of Ukrainian traditional games on the Internet: ask yourself, and then get your child interested,” says Zakhar. Myroslava says that the musical space Pravytsia, founded by her, gathers children and parents from time to time, and shows them how it is everything happened as the freckles were played and sung: “There are many bands in Kyiv that show this. “Pravitsa” and I, for example, will also gather a week after Easter to do all these crooked dances.” Photo: Amazing Ukraine Davydenko emphasizes that it is necessary to create conditions where all this can be organically reproduced: folklore festivals, master classes and fairs . “Because how can you imagine a person who today will lean out of the window of his apartment on some 20th floor and start singing to the entire sleeping area “Spring overturned winter, covered the boys’ feet”? Any. We need a context,” he adds. Where to listen to real freckles? Both folklorists advise to look for an authentic performance of freckles on the “Polyphones” resource, there are recordings from many different regions. Davydenko also names such ethnic groups as ShchukaRyba, Drevo, Volodar, Roksolania, Wiltse, Kralytsia. “And I’m asking you very, very much: if there are older people still alive in your family, talk to them, write down their dialogues, memories, stories. I guarantee that your grandmother will remember at least one freckle. Maybe she won’t call it a “freckle”, but listen,” advises the folklorist. Read also: Games near the cemetery and consecrated knives: what do you know about Easter traditions in Ukraine? TEST

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