After last weekend’s discussion of Chernobog and Belobog, two Slavic “gods” who appear in books and TV but were likely not worshipped by Slavic pagans, we’re going to a lighter topic this Slavic Saturday. This past Thursday was Thanksgiving here in the United States, so it seems an appropriate time to discuss the harvest festival of the early north Slavs – Dożynki (also called Dozhinki, Obzhynki, Obzhynky, or Dožínky).
(June 2021 Updated) Note: If you enjoy Slavic mythology, check out A Dagger in the Winds, the first book in my Slavic fantasy series called The Frostmarked Chronicles. You can also join my monthly newsletter for updates and free novellas (such as the prequel, The Rider in the Night) set in the world of the series.
Though both are harvest festivals, Dożynki was celebrated three months before Thanksgiving (typically at the end of August or mid-September) in what are now the northern Slavic countries of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. These types of celebrations were and are common around the world due to the significance of the harvest, but for the agricultural-based early Slavs, the harvest was a time people looked forward to all year. A good one would ease the cold winter. A bad one could mean little to eat or even starvation.
Dożynki suffers from the same problem as much of early Slavic history – lack of Slavic pagan writing. This leaves us with traditions that have been passed down and adapted to Christianity, but there is enough for us to form a basic picture of the festival.
The harvest required a lot of work. Reaping the grain could take months to finish an entire village’s fields with scythes and sickles, and it could often be a community effort as families helped each other finish their fields. The culmination of this work was the cutting of the last sheaf of grain. That last sheaf was left uncut until Dożynki and often decorated with flowers until it was cut at the start of the festival.
According to Lamus Dworski, there were various words (at least in Poland) to describe this last sheaf: wiązanka, garstka, równianka, plonkopka, przepiórka, popiórka, perepełka, koza, and pępek. The best reaper would be honored by cutting the sheaf and then giving it to the women to weave a wreath called the “plonem,” literally “the harvest.” In some regions, a girl would be pulled around the sheaf beforehand as the “plowing of the last sheaf.”
The wreath was woven with berries, ribbons, nuts, and flowers – sometimes including a rooster – and then placed on that reaper’s head as a celebration of their efforts. This wreath was then stored until the sowing of the next spring.
Following the reaping, there were rituals and prayers, thanking the pagan gods for the harvest. The rituals themselves have been lost in time, but based on what is known about other festivals, it is likely that sacrifices of animals or food were involved to share the festival with the gods. A great feast was then shared after the reaping, followed by dancing and drinking as they enjoyed the first of the year’s harvest.
The wreath traditions continue today in some communities, sometimes translated into some Christian churches as a part of the harvest time – which is still crucial in many Slavic countries.
That’s all for this week’s Slavic Saturday. Be sure to keep a lookout for more posts next week, and if you haven’t seen the full series of posts, be sure to check them out.
*As always just a quick disclaimer. Slavic mythology is broad and not written in many if any primary sources, so there’s a variety of interpretations. The interpretations I’m using here are from the sources I’ve found to be reliable and as well as some creative freedom for my book series.