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We hear, mostly, winter Christmas time. However, there are also the so-called Green Christmas time, which falls on Trinity week.
The main day of Green Christmas time is Semik. On this day, it is customary to commemorate the “laid down” dead – people who died an unnatural death. We will tell you when Semik will be celebrated in 2023, how the customs of the celebration originated and what are its traditions.
When is Semik celebrated in 2023
It is not difficult to calculate the date of Semik: after the end of Easter, it is necessary to measure the seventh Thursday, it comes three days before the Trinity, when they see off the spring and meet the summer. Semik in 2023 falls on 1 June. This will be the forty-seventh day after Easter.
The history of Semik holiday
When preparing for the Semik holiday in 2023, it would be good to carefully study its history and traditions. In pre-Christian pagan times, when the official annual calendar did not yet exist, it was Semik who identified the transition from spring to summer. The holiday so organically entered into folk customs that even after the adoption of Christianity in Our Country, it continued to be honored. After all, the commemoration of the dead and departed has always been a significant ritual for our ancestors.
At the end of the XNUMXth – beginning of the XNUMXth century, the girls of the Central region of Our Country celebrated the holiday with Semitsko-Trinity festivities. These traditions are recorded in archival manuscripts of the Imperial Geographical Society and on artistic canvases. Semik was distributed among the Volga peoples – the Mari and Chuvash.
The history of the Semik holiday in various territories is interesting. In Western Siberia, on the banks of the Ob, Semik was widely observed until the mid-twenties of the last century. And in some remote places of the region, the tradition of celebrating Semik was preserved almost until modern times – the 90s of the last century. Green Christmas time can also be widely celebrated in 2023, for example, in rural areas of the Novosibirsk Region. Even if the name of the Semik holiday is no longer mentioned, some of its main traditions continue to live among the people.
Semik holiday traditions
In the paintings depicting the farewell to spring and Green Christmas time, young girls are most often present. On Semik among the grown-up girls, a rite of worship was performed. Young ladies chose their sincere friends, learned to guess at their betrothed. The symbol of Semik is a birch as the personification of vital energy. Round dances were danced around her in the name of the upcoming good harvest. Ribbons, scarves, beads were tied to a tree.
Birch branches decorated the graves of deceased relatives in the cemetery. In some areas, priority was given to the commemoration of the “laid” dead on this day. First they commemorated their souls, and only after that the souls of their relatives. Semik is the only day of the year when you can order a memorial service for the deceased, whom the church refused to perform at the funeral.
When studying the tradition of the Semik holiday, one can again turn to the experience of the regions, accumulated over the centuries. For example, on the banks of the Vyatka on Semik, violent commemorations were held in cemeteries in honor of the drowned. But in the Smolensk region in Semik it was even forbidden to approach the river and, of course, wash and rinse clothes in order to avoid the appearance of drowned people in the village.
Popular questions and answers
What was usually sown in Semik?
What are some other names for this holiday?
Other names of the memorable folk date for the beginning of summer:
● Trinity of the dead;
● Maundy Thursday;
● Great Thursday;
● Tulip; Semukha;
● Mavsky Great day;
● Nava Trinity;
● Ripey;
● Dry Thursday.
It becomes quite clear that the names of the day were given by representatives of various regions and territories. The study of the customs of ancestors is of considerable interest to historians and local historians of our country.