oorlog rusland 22 juni - Ivan Kupala Day (6-7July E.Europe)

[webmaster]

https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/global-food-supply-ukraine-soviet-union-s-breadbasket-plan-to-feed-the-world

https://belsat.eu/en/news/21-06-2021-jailed-katsyaryna-andreyeva-works-as-seamstress-s-assistant-and-reads-kolyma-tales/

https://belsat.eu/en/news/21-06-2021-siloviki-push-for-recognising-white-red-white-flag-slogan-long-live-belarus-as-symbols-of-nazi-collaborators/

https://belsat.eu/en/news/21-06-2021-political-prisoner-uladzimir-nyaronski-deprived-of-food-parcels-until-august/

https://belsat.eu/en/news/21-06-2021-lukashenka-wants-to-stop-air-traffic-from-ukraine/

https://belsat.eu/en/news/21-06-2021-hr-vp-josep-borrell-announces-sanctions-against-lukashenka-regime/

https://belsat.eu/en/news/21-06-2021-coup-d-etat-case-investigation-extended-for-another-four-months/

https://belsat.eu/en/news/21-06-2021-sennitsa-residents-hold-solidarity-action-on-medic-s-day/

https://belsat.eu/en/news/20-06-2021-no-need-for-compulsory-vaccination-says-lukashenka/

https://belsat.eu/en/news/20-06-2021-polish-border-guards-detain-two-groups-of-illegal-migrants-from-afghanistan/

https://belsat.eu/en/news/20-06-2021-scandia-steel-to-review-cooperation-with-belarusian-steel-works-over-violations-of-workers-rights/

https://belsat.eu/en/news/20-06-2021-belarusian-foreign-ministry-meets-with-u-s-charge-d-affaires/

http://www.intellinews.com/confusion-over-the-biden-administration-s-commitment-to-military-support-for-ukraine-213619/

https://qha.com.ua/en/kryimskie-tataryi-en/diplomacy-forum-kicks-off-in-turkey-s-antalya-province/
Diplomacy Forum kicks off in Turkey's Antalya province

https://ukrainetoday.org/2021/06/21/the-future-of-the-minsk-agreements-how-the-document-is-read-in-the-us-and-the-kremlin/


https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/croatian-necropolis-0015477


I never knew about this celebration until one year when I visited my family in Ukraine during the time of this event?have any of you participated in this outside of Ukraine? (I missed most of the fun and bonfire because I got food poisoning from mushrooms I ate earlier in the day at a restaurant?but I did get to hear all the drunks singing all night?😉)
IVANA KUPALA
The feast of Ivan Kupala is a traditional and most mysterious and magical Ukrainian holiday.
Kupala Night is an ancient pagan celebration dedicated to the summer solstice when the day starts to decrease, and the night increases.
In addition, it is associated with the end of the summer solar cycle of pre-Christian holidays, and eventually, after the adoption of Christianity, it transformed to some extent into a church holiday.
According to ancient traditions, Ivana Kupala is the festival of the sun, and the most important role in mystical rites belongs to the power of fire. Our ancestors believed that the fire is the sun-embryo in the womb.
In Christian times, the church tried to suppress the tradition, substituting it with the feast day of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist but it remained firmly part of folk ritual as the festival of Ivan (John, from Saint John) Kupalo.
Thus, the ancient folk feast of Kupaila began to be called the holiday of Ivan Kupala. It is the celebration of the birth of the John Baptist, and as often happens in Ukrainian culture, the pagan and Christian traditions have come together again.
But folk memory preserved the Kupala ritual and songs that belonged to ancient times, to the original poetry and rituals. This day has always been associated with many beliefs, attributes, traditions, ceremonies, and even prohibitions, and that is why ahead of Ivan Kupala Ukrainians have long adhered to the traditions of celebration.
Thus, in Ukraine, from year to year, it comes on July 6 and on July 7 on the Julian calendar and June 23 and 24 on the Gregorian calendar. It is believed that on this day rituals protect homes and beloved ones, strengthen health and bring happiness. Not surprisingly, it has always been associated with various traditions, superstitions and beliefs that appeared in pre-Christian times.
Written references to the festival date from the 11th century. Its origins are much earlier, however. On a 4th-century calendar pot found in the middle-Dnieper region once inhabited by the Slavic Polianians, for example, the time of the festival was already marked by two crosses. The term ?Kupalo? was itself first mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle under the year 1262. In medieval and early-modern church documents?eg, ?The Sermon of Saint John Chrysostom? and the ?Epistle of Hegumen Pamphil? of Pskov Monastery (1515)?there are fairly detailed descriptions of the lascivious festivities.
Despite the efforts of the church and secular rulers?eg, Hetman Ivan Skoropadsky issued a decree in 1719 categorically forbidding it, and many similar decrees were later issued?the tradition proved too old and too well rooted to disappear. By the late 19th century most of the pagan beliefs connected with the Kupalo rituals had vanished, but the festival was still widely celebrated to mark the beginning of the harvest.
Most of the traditions for Kupala Night trace back to the pagan past. For instance, one of the most widely adhered to ones is that all the possible evil spirits like witches, snakes, water, mermaids, and werewolves awaken at this time. Therefore, you shouldn?t sleep on Kupala Night. It is customary to go to a pond, a river or a lake and celebrate the holiday there. However, males should stay away from the water and not swim in it, or a ?Mavka? could seduce a male walking along the water and then drown him.
The herbs for Kupala Night are imbued with a special healing power, so witch doctors collected them in the forest. Bunches of grass, gathered on the holiday, hung in the house and acted as a charm for the whole family.
Kupalo was also believed to be the god of love and of the harvest and the personification of the earth's fertility. According to popular belief, ?Kupalo eve? (?Ivan's eve?) was the only time of the year when the earth revealed its secrets and made ferns bloom to mark places where its treasures were buried, and the only time when trees spoke and even moved and when witches gathered.
The fern flower brings fortune to the person who finds it.....the fern flower brings luck, wealth, or the ability to understand animal speech. However, the flower is closely guarded by evil spirits and anyone who finds the flower will have access to earthly riches, which have never benefited anyone, so the decision to pick the flower or leave it alone is left up to the individual.
According to folklore, the flower is the Chervona ruta. The flower is yellow, but according to legend, it turns red on the eve of Ivan Kupala Day.
On the eve, unmarried young men and women gathered outside the village in the forest or near a stream or pond. There they built ?Kupalo fires??a relic of the pagan custom of bringing sacrifice?around which they performed ritual dances and sang ritual songs.
On the eve female participants wore scented herbs and flowers to attract the males and adorned their hair with garlands of freshly cut flowers. Traditionally, unmarried women, signified by the garlands in their hair, are the first to enter the forest. They are followed by young men. Therefore, the quest to find herbs and the fern flower may lead to the blooming of relationships between pairs within the forest.
On the evening of July 6, unmarried girls look for their future husbands.
A popular tradition is to weave a wreath of wildflowers while making a wish, later in the evening they let it go on the river.  They divined their fates according to what happened to the garlands which they had sent flowing on the water.If the wreath floats far away, the wish will come true, and if it is beaten to the shore or sinks, then you should forget about your dream for a while.  Romantic  fate was played out according to which male picked up girls crown.... young men would go and try to pull the wreaths out of the water. The girl whose wreath a young man captures, is to kiss him and then they are paired for the rest of the evening.
Another of the rituals was  leaping over the fires. young people jump over the flames of bonfires in a ritual test of bravery and faith. The males who jumped the highest and cleared the fire would have good good fortune for the year.  If you did not clear the  fire you would have misfortune.  Couples would jump together holding hands. The failure of a couple in love to complete the jump, while holding hands, is a sign of their destined separation. They also all bathed in the water (an act of purification), and played various games. 
The fires were also used to burn herbs gathered in the previous year and various items of no further use, particularly those that had been blessed with holy water and could therefore not be discarded by normal means. The fires were never extinguished, but were always allowed to smolder out.
On the morning of that day girls washed themselves with the dew that had fallen on Kupalo eve, which they collected in a bowl left outside overnight, and then ran barefoot through the bedewed fields in the belief that doing so would accelerate their opportunity to get married. The sick would roll naked in the dewy meadows in the belief that this action would help them get well, and farmers would run their cattle through such meadows in the belief that this routine would prevent disease.
On Ivan Kupala day itself, children engage in water fights and perform pranks, mostly involving pouring water over people.


---------------------------------




http://krantvannederland.nl/discuss/list/2021/22062021