Korochun
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Korochun (Slovak: Kračún) is a Slavic holiday, it is considered the day the Black God and other spirits associated with decay and darkness are most potent.
It was celebrated by pagan Slavs on December 21 the longest night of the year and the night of the winter solstice. On this night, Hors, symbolising old sun, becomes smaller as the days become shorter in the Northern Hemisphere, and dies on December 22, the winter solstice. It is said to be defeated by the dark and evil powers of the Black God. On December 23 Hors is resurrected and becomes the new sun, Koleda.
Modern scholars tend to associate this holiday with the ancestor worship. On this day Western Slavs lit fires at cemeteries to keep their loved ones warm, and organized feasts to honour the dead and keep them fed. They also lit wooden logs at local crossroads. In some Slavic languages, the word came to denote unexpected death of a young person and the evil spirit that shortens life.
A Slavic origin for the word is accepted by virtually all scholars.[who?] A recently discovered Novgorodian manuscript makes the Slavic origin virtually beyond question. Max Vasmer derived the word from the Common Slavonic for "to step forward". The non-Slavic Hungarian language took over the word from its neighbouring Slavic people and now Karácsony means Christmas. Equally, the non-Slavic Romanians also borrowed the word in the form Crăciún and similarly used it to mean Christmas. As neither ethnicity is Slavic, they never applied the original meaning to the word.
[edit] References
- Archiv für Slavische Philologie, 1886, Vol XI, p. 527
[edit] See also
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