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Abstract. The article highlights the question of traditional agricultural life of Ukrainians as a scientific problem of ethnological research. The authors gave a try to characterize the state of development of this problem in the surroundings of ethnologists of the second half of XX – early XXI centuries, analyzing, first of all, analytical investigations connected with this scientific problem. On the basis of data, presented in the article, they made a conclusion that a number of questions, both from the history or evolution of cereals farming, and from baking history, its technology and spiritual component require a deeper study at the level of individual monographs.
Keywords: cereals farming, bread, agriculture, historiography, scientific problem, motive.
The current state of ethnological science in Ukraine and other countries of Central-Eastern Europe, where a stratum of traditional culture has been preserved better than in the West, testify to the interest of ethnologists in the reconstruction of Slavic antiquities. Researchers turn to a wide range of comparative material from the territory of the Slavic region in an effort to analyze in detail the origin of the various phenomena of traditional culture of Slavic ethnic groups. According to the most theories of localization of the Slavic homeland, the centre of Slavic habitat formation was part of the Southwestern and Northern historical and ethnographic regions of Ukraine.
Growing of cereals is one of the main components of the traditional culture of the Slavs, including the Ukrainians, which influenced the formation of their mentality. And baked bread is the basis of daily nutrition of Ukrainians. A researcher of Ukrainian traditional farming Stepan Pavliuk emphasizes:
Studying the cultures of past epochs as well as archaeological sites in the ethnic territory of Ukraine attests to the antiquity of household activity – as a formative basis of traditional culture of a particular region, of a separate ethnic group. Bread has been grown in Ukraine since the Trypillia epoch. Cereals farming were a way of economically securing households and a form of traditional folk culture creation, what organically linked to the material and spiritual spheres of life [Pavliuk 1991, 3].
Bakery in the traditional way of life of the population of Ukraine performed both utilitarian and symbolic function. These functions are closely interconnected and usually act simultaneously. Bread is one of the main phenomena of Ukrainian traditional culture. As a phenomenon, it is distinguished by a pronounced interweaving of fundamental cultural elements – language, customs (in particular – behavioral norms), labor technique and values [Strakhov 1991, 3]. The last element is the most constitutive and fundamental in the culture.
There are almost no works in the nowadays national ethnological science devoted to the complex study of folk traditions of daily bread baking and consumption, despite its particular role for the life of the Ukrainian ethnic group. Existing researches are characterized by a certain one-sidedness: they emphasize either the peculiarities of traditional technological methods of bread baking process (in particular, publications on folk nutrition by L. Artiukh and T. Hontar), or are interested only in the sphere of ritual and customary support of baking (for example, O. Strakhov, S. Tvorun). In addition, until recently, there has been no work demonstrating the clear interconnection between technology and the ritual of growing cereals, and its ultimate goal – successful baking of everyday bread.
Since the publication of the monograph study of Kiev ethnologists Volodymyr Horlenko, Ivan Boiko, and Oleksii Kunytskyi [Horlenko 1971] and two monographs by S. Pavliuk [Pavliuk1986; 1991], traditional Ukrainian farming has been highlighted, for the most part, in scientific articles and relevant sections of collective monographs, first and foremost of mentioned researchers. The agrotechnical aspect of traditional Ukrainian agriculture, what they analyzed, is the basis, no doubt, on which it is necessary to rely on the study of ritual and customary support of cereals farming in the Ukrainian ethnic lands and other territories of the Slav region.
However, unfortunately, most of today's researchers of calendar ritual of Ukrainians, while researching the agricultural theme in its structure, ignore the historical basis of folk agrotechnics (the presence of different systems of cultivation, crop rotation, etc.). Also, they do not pay due attention to archeological sources, but do not bypass the possibilities to transfer customs and rituals, dating back to the nineteenth and twentieth century’s, to earlier historical epochs. This is the reason of the large number of distortions in the highlighting of certain ethnographic phenomena. As an exemplar, some of scientists ignore in their studies archaeological data, thus they cannot define the period of appearance of some motives, which connected with the beginning of concrete cereal vegetation. At the same time, the inability to conclude the system from the disparate facts related to the bakery rites. For exemplar, when the analysis of separate bread baking custom was made using the complex of archeological, historical, ethnography and folkloristic data it gives a possibility, to outline semantic, probably period and territory of appearance of its custom. Also, it can be possible to use methods of other sciences (biology, organic chemistry) to find out rational origins and pragmatic necessity of some rites and customs.
As the obstacle to the reconstruction of such a system, there is also a limited source base used by researchers: relying not on complex field ethnographic materials, recorded on the basis of a special questionnaire on the theme “Ukrainian agricultural rituality”, but on the information about cereals farming customs and rituals recorded during the interview of the respondents about the whole calendar rite, or only its specific cycle, what causes to collection of fragmentary or superficial information.The reason for this is the relying on fragmentary published or archival sources, without proper detailed study of the traditions of specific historical and ethnographic areas in order to further compare them and to draw on this basis the whole-Ukrainian features of ritual.
It is necessary to emphasize at the other extreme feature of many works devoted to calendar rites, in particular those written using the concept of motives. This is an attempt to explain certain customs and rituals from the perspective of only one paradigm (for example, “marriage and vegetation” (focus on ensuring fertility and trying to draw parallels with the wedding ceremony), or “memorial” (the predominant influence of dead ancestors on the life of alive), etc.
As for the word “motive”, it came to Ukrainian language through French from Latin: the Latin verb “moveo” (to move; I am moving) in French turned into “motif” (cause of action) [Morozov 2000, 372], which later became part of the Ukrainian language. This term was originally used in several meanings: 1) the motivating cause of actions and actions of a person (in psychology); 2) a characteristic part of the musical theme (in music); 3) plot elements that relate to several works (in art); 4) the theme of the work, the simple part of the plot (in the literature) [Bybyk 2006, 380; Morozov 2000, 372].
Most likely, this term into ethnology came from literature. But it did not retain its original meaning – in practice, its significant sphere expanded somewhat. Nowadays, the term “motive (s)” is used quite often in ethnological texts. However, we have not been able to find an explanation for any author using the term. Every scientist, when referring to the term “motive”, understands it differently. Thus, in one work, the “motive” is an indivisible particle of a certain rite that carries the appropriate semantic meaning. On the other hand, the same term is widely interpreted and is synonymous with the term “theme”.
The scientific problem posed by the proposed research unit has not yet been sufficiently investigated. After all, for a long period of time, the agricultural motives were studied only in the context of a general consideration of traditional cereals farming or calendar rituality.
The principle of research on individual motives in ethnological science has recently been established. It was applied, first of all, by Nataliia Veletskaia, Russian ethno-linguist Nikita Tolstoi and representatives of his scientific school, including Tatiana Ahapkina.It is just these researchers who, in their monographs, conducted, for the first time, an analysis of the spiritual culture of the Slavic ethnic groups, highlighting the dominant motives [Ahapkina 2002; Veletskaia 1978; Tolstoi 2003]. However, there are some conflicting points in the works of N. Veletskaia and T. Ahapkina. So, the meaning of agrarian, cereals farming, vegetation, cattle breeding and agricultural motives are often duplicated (the term “agrarian” includes all cultivated plants, and “cereals farming” – only cereals, etc.). However, the classification of rites and customs, which were, firstly, multifunctional, and secondly, for most of them, one of the above motives was dominant, made it possible to define the semantics of many ritual actions, to systematize separate motives in the system of calendar rites.
The study of N. Veletskaia “Pagan symbolism of Slavic archaic rituals” is one of the first scientific monographs based on the principle of motives [Veletskaia 1978]. Although, in this work most attention is paid to funeral motives (the author prefers the definition of “cult of ancestors”), equally important, according to the ethnologist, in Slavic culture are “agrarian cults” (more widely, agrarian motives). Outlining the subject of her research, Russian scientist noted the following main points: the ancestral cult and the agrarian cults are organically interrelated; the rituals of wires of the “messengers” to the “otherworld” determined the formation of the structure and symbolism of calendar ritual cycles; commemorative motives in the calendar rites had a determinative importance.
In her work N. Veletskaia also tried to find out possible sources of origin of customs and rites of agricultural character. One of her conclusions is that
the genesis and functional purpose of many agricultural rituals of the pagan Slavs were interpreted as a ritual that is connected with the dying and reviving spirit of vegetation, apparently, it comes from the sending of envoys to deified ancestors. The notion of “bread field spirits” is also related, probably, to the spirits of the ancestors who went from these fields to their ancestors [Veletskaia 1978, 201].
The study of motives is best covered in the works of T. Ahapkina in modern Russian science. The monograph “The mythopoetic foundations of the Slavic folk calendar. Spring-Summer Cycle”, which is structured on a thematic basis, deserves the most attention [Ahapkina 2002, 5-9].
The sections of the monograph are devoted to individual motives (subsections “theme of awakening of nature”, “theme of fertility”, “agricultural theme”, etc.), some of them analyzed several motives (subsections “theme of spring new year”, “meteorological” theme, etc.).
Marking the subject of his research ethnolinguist notes that it covers not only folklore:
The desire to study purely “one's” material (be it folklore, rite or calendar terminology) inevitably distorted the general picture of the Slavic calendar and the nature of the phenomenon of traditional culture itself into components that formally belong to different disciplines [Ahapkina 2002, 15].
T. Ahapkina thus substantiated the principle of using methods, as ethnological, so philological and linguistic, for the study of spiritual culture (including motives). The researcher also formulates individual approach in studying the calendar, which is multidisciplinary:
If the theme or story we are about to consider is embodied through folklore, then we will be exploring mostly calendar paremies and ritual songs. If, however, the topic is covered in the tradition of the ritual language, then its realities will be discussed in a particular section [Ahapkina 2002, 18].
Analyzing only the spring-summer calendar cycle, T. Ahapkina classifies the motives, in particular, notes that «for the late spring period of the calendar – to a much greater extent than for the early spring period –characteristic topics and motives related to the household sphere» [Ahapkina 2002, 697]. So, according to the Russian researcher, in early spring, the dominant motives are vegetative, commemorative, and in late spring – agrarian.
In Ukrainian ethnological science, the most sophisticated theory of "motives" was suggested by Lviv ethnologist Kornelii Kutelmakh. However, due to a number of circumstances, it was not integrated into a single synthetic work: the theoretical positions of the researcher are scattered in his thematic articles [Kutelmakh 1997; 1999; 2006a; 2006b]. K. Kutelmakh focused his attention on funeral and agrarian motives. By attracting mostly Polissia, Carpathian, and Podillia, to a lesser extent, whole-Ukrainian material, he considered individual complexes of calendar customs and ceremonies, with emphasis on the semantics of phenomena, their place in the system of common Slavic rites, and their connection with funeral and wedding customs and rites.
K. Kutelmakh brought all the motives together in a certain structure, subordinate to the main idea: «In the wide ritual and customary variety of the annual calendar circle of Ukrainians the idea of well-being of a person, family, and community is clearly traced» [Kutelmakh 1999, 191]. Among the agrarian motives, the researcher focused on the objects of farming (sheaf, straw, grain, etc.) and the products of farming (porridge, bread).
K. Kutelmakh divided the calendar year into several parts, by such parameter as saturation with agrarian motives: «In one part, the agrarian motives will reach their maximum, in the other – they are nearing extinction. But they will never go away completely, as the year's concern for the crop doesn`t disappear» [Kutelmakh 1999, 191]. According to the ethnologist, the most agrarian motives are presented in the spring, summer and autumn periods, which is connected with the active labor activity of the farmer; in winter, the commemorative motives are dominant.
K. Kutelmakh, developing the thesis of saturation by motives of each calendar cycle, classified these motives into two groups: ceremonial activities directly related to concern for the crop, and holidays of folk calendar, in which agrarian motives are indirect. During the year, the rites and customs of the first group were only one-time acts, while the rites of the second group were repeated.
Explaining the sources of the grains farming motives, K. Kutelmakh noted that they are still pre-Christian, but over the centuries they have been extremely reduced and altered [Kutelmakh 1999, 197]. The ethnologist explained the inability to identify specific historical sources of agricultural motives in this way:
Each generation has brought something new to it (rituality – V.K.). The latter was born out of contact with tradition: either with its denial or with the emergence of a “hybrid combination”; the transfer of the new to the old, which, under the influence of the new, was rethought, sometimes even to the contrary [Kutelmakh 1999, 200].
In this view, the researcher substantiated the conventionality of retrospective conclusions. At the same time, he noted that the main motives – agrarian and commemorative (the most archaic), among all varieties of motives were most resistant to change [Kutelmakh1999, 200].
K. Kutelmakh was one of the first to pay attention to the functions that performed folk customs and rituals. Analyzing the annual calendar cycle, the researcher concluded that it has an agrarian basis, since it was based on the traditional occupation of Ukrainians – cereals farming. However, the most attention K. Kutelmakh focused on the memorial function, which, in his opinion, was the most important (the ethnologist devoted several articles to prove this thesis) [Kutelmakh 1997; 2001; 2006a]. The dominance of the commemorative function (in the sense of K. Kutelmakh – commemorative motives) was determined by the fact that in the general conclusions the researcher grounded the “cult of ancestors” in the calendar ritual of the Ukrainians.
One of K. Kutelmakh's most thorough works is his thematic section to the second volume of the publication “Ethnogenesis and Ethnic History of the Ukrainian Carpathians”. In it, the researcher first analyzed the agrarian motives in the calendar rites of the inhabitants of the Carpathians, and then covered other motives [Kutelmakh 2006b]. Among the main merits of the scientist is the formulation of the principle of the study of “agrarian” motives, typologization of customs and rituals of calendar cycles on the dominant motives, emphasis on the interdependence of agricultural and commemorative motives, determination of ethnic and local features of rituals.
We do not agree with conclusions made by K. Kutelmakh, because the dominance of individual motives should be noted by analyzing specific calendar-ritual complexes that cover individual holidays or are separate elements of the calendar holiday, and in no way at all these conclusions shouldn’t be transferred for the entire annual calendar cycle.
The terminological confusion that is associated with the concept of “grains farming motives” should also be clarified. Ethnological explorations do not have a permanent structure according to which material should be taught. Some universalization was characteristic for the Soviet period. However, more recently, the concept of “motives” has been gaining ground in spiritual culture studies (mostly family and calendar ceremonies).
For example, the phrase “grains farming motives” in calendar ritual is interpreted differently: some researchers focus only on certain aspects that clearly present agrarian customs and rituals, while others describe the whole calendar, others – consider only aspects that they consider to be “farming motives”. But in most studies, with a few exceptions [Ahapkina 2002], no attempt is made to explain the meaning of the term used.
As it was noted, this problem has not been adequately covered in the literature. Only T. Ahapkina, defining the subject of the study of her monograph, tried to make sense of the terminological confusion (through which the researcher finds it impossible to use alongside such synonymous terms as “theme”, “idea”, “leitmotif”, because they carry a different load), having actually introduced as a synonym the term “motive” a new term – “mythopoietic dominance”. According to T. Ahapkina, “mythopoietic dominance” is a kind of general theme (meaningful content) that, together with several others, permeates a certain calendar period, is present throughout the period and is embodied in all its genre forms [Ahapkina 2002, 21–22].
In the context of the study of ritual, such groups of motives are distinguished, such as “cereals farming” (in a somewhat broader sense – “agrarian”), pastoral, commemorative, fertility. The first and second groups are sometimes combined under the name “household”.
It should be noted that V. Propp structured his research “Russian agrarian holidays” on the thematic principle: 1) Commemoration of the dead; 2) Ritual food; 3) Spring meeting; 4) Greetings; 5) Cult of plants; 6) Death and laughter; 7) Ritual games and fun [Propp 1995, 166–168]. The purpose of such graduation was to attempt to look at each of the calendar cycles not by chronological principle, but by problematic ones. If we compare modern research on the principle of “motives”, they largely repeat the structure, and therefore, the use of the term “motive” has simply replaced the term “theme”.
It should be noted that such a broad understanding of the word “grain farming / agricultural motives” as a “grain farming / agricultural theme” is the most complete one. Thus, from the above material V. Konopka formulated his own definition: a separate agricultural motif is a ritual or part of a ritual (ceremony), expressed in certain forms (verbal, subject and action), aimed at ensuring the yield of cereals [Konopka 2018, 21].
Growing grain has never been an end in itself for the peasant's economic activity, because the basis of food was not so much grain as the product of its processing. It was baked bread first of all.
Bread products were a key attribute of practically all rituals that accompanied the most significant stages and periods of life of the Ukrainian peasant, such as the birth, marriage and death of a person, erection of housing, agricultural cycles, etc. Bread was always a daily source of food, without which even the very biological existence of an ethnophore individual was impossible or at least problematic (a real famine in the peasant family occurred only when there was no bread). However, these considerations do not apply to ceremonial breads (this topic has been thoroughly researched by Ukrainian ethnologists), which played such a “vital” function only from time to time. Therefore, in our opinion, the greatest weight of bread biscuits was played in that, mostly larger, part of rural life, which can be described as “everyday”[Konopka 2018, 46–49].
Theoretical and analytical generalizing studies concerning bread preparation can be divided into three groups. To the first group belong monographs on the peculiarities of Ukrainian national nutrition. Among them are works by Lidiia Artiukh and Taisa Hontar.
In a general study, “Ukrainian folk cooking”, Lidia Artiukh [Artiukh 1977] describes, in particular, the history of bread, the socio-economic and geographical causes that influenced its diversity in Ukraine; in detail reconstructs the traditional peculiarities of baking, explains the origin of some signs and precepts. However, the author examines bread not as a phenomenon of folk or everyday culture, but above all as a phenomenon and an important component of folk nutrition, ascertaining its sacred status.
There is a certain disproportion of material in the text, in particular, there is practically no information on the ethnographic Volyn (dominated by Podillia and Polissia), and also certifies, in obedience to the requirements of the conjuncture of Soviet ideology, that after the October Revolution in Ukraine there was an “improvement” in the quality and variety of food, including bread.
The nutrition of the Carpathian Ukrainians was described by Taisa Hontar [Hontar 1979]. In summarizing work the author states the significant role of bread, describes the place of pastry in the outlook of the highlanders and the peculiarities of its use in various fields of folk culture. However, the researcher does not elaborate on the reasons for the occurrence, origin and interrelating of baking traditions (customs, rituals, behavioural stereotypes, taboos, restrictions, prescriptions that accompanied the process of making bread).
The second group includes studies not devoted to the manufacture of bakery, containing an analysis of the semantic-ideological role and functions of daily bread. Roman Siletskyiand Tetiana Fainyk have written about the use of pastry in the folk building rituality [Siletsky 2011; Fainyk 2007]. In particular, R. Siletskyi, exploring the prohibitions on the household use of timber with acquired and natural defects (or by the criterion of the breed), points to the connection of such taboos with Ukrainian ideas about the afterlife and commemorative customs. This interpretation helps to understand why certain types of wood were not used for fire in the oven before baking bread. The author also points to the commemorative context of the use of bread when laying a home.
Zoriana Boltarovych's monograph “Folk medicine of Ukrainians” [Boltarovich 1990] contains information about medicines connected with bread or pastry. Although the researcher does not distinguish bakery as a separate group of medicines, but she notes that the use of bread as a rational medicine is conditioned by deep empirical folk knowledge about its effect on the human body. Also, the ethnologist pointed that bread was used as a remedy for magical action, due to Ukrainians ideas about its magical properties of pastry (the ability to absorb and transmit diseases or protect a person from the harmful effects of demonic forces).
Constructive features of cooperate utensils (including dough troughs), their role and place in the folk culture of Ukrainians on material from the territory of Kyiv Polissia [Gvozdevych 2004] and Ukrainian Carpathians [Gvozdevych 2012] are explored by Stefaniia Hvozdevych. The author claims that due to the role of the bread “giver”, the dough trough had a great semiotic weight and was a central component of the whole range of cooking utensils. From this point S. Hvozdevych analyzes traditional folk behavioural stereotypes of this product, as well as methods, ways, forms of use and the role of dough trough in the wedding ceremony, which, according to the author, is caused by the association of this product with fertility, which should be broadcast to the couple.
However, in my opinion, more detailed analysis requires the causes and origins of other prescriptions and recommendations for the use of dough trough: ways to improve the fermentation of dough in it, sanctification (“fasting”), searching of drowned people by using the trough, the origin of ideas about “female” and “male” dough trough and more.
The third group includes monographs entirely devoted to traditional bread, methods of its production and its role in traditional culture. The oldest such work is a monograph of M. Sumtsov [Sumtsov 1885], published almost 130 years ago. It covers the whole complex of bread-related phenomena, describes the history of the appearance and development of bread baking on Ukrainian lands. However, the author focuses on the rites, their functions, forms, species, types and genesis, without analyzing the daily bread in detail.
Among ethno-linguistic studies we should mention the work of Oleksandr Strakhov “The cult of bread of the Eastern Slavs. An experience of ethnolinguistic study” [Strakhov 1991]. In this monograph, the author describes the functions and terminology of daily bread (and, as an addition, the Eastern Slavic pastry of spring calendar cycle), the rituals of its production and consumption.
O. Strakhov considers the methodology of his research to be the middle ground between the methods of mythological and ethno-linguistic schools, that is, the one that attracts their best features. However, the author notes that in the analysis of folk baking customs, he uses “operative texts”, verbal descriptions of the baking process and its terminology, which brings the methodology of his research closer to ethno-linguistic. The author presents his thoughts on the stages of baking: from the transformation of the dough into bread to eat it.
The ethnologist pays less attention to the technological component of baking, trying to find the essence of traditional bread-making ideas only in the sphere of spiritual culture, which makes his work somewhat one-sided. Although both published materials from Ukraine and ethnographic explorations of the author (from Ukrainian Polissia) were used in the work, it should be mention that most of the territory of the Southwestern historical and ethnographic macro region is not covered enough.
O. Strakhov quite rightly argues that the spiritual component of traditional baking of the Slavs had a commemorative basis, and the prescriptions for the daily handling of bread, its section and consumption are based on the idea of the identity of bread (its piece) and the Fate of man.
Traditions associated with the instrument baking, baking pastry of everyday and ceremonial use, role and place bread in rites and rituals (magic, medicine and divination) are presented in stereography of Polish researchers Irene and Krzysztof Kubiak “Bread in folk tradition” [Kubiak 1981]. The disadvantages of this work are the lack of a scientific apparatus, a journalistic style of presentation and not always legitimate use of ethnographic material from Ukrainian ethnic lands to illustrate the phenomena of Polish culture. However, in general, the authors come to the right conceptual conclusion, linking daily baking to the funeral sphere (honoring the souls of deceased ancestors).
Until recently, the only work devoted to the study of various aspects of daily bread (its history, technological methods of production, certain worldview principles of consumption) was a monograph by Havrylo Hordiienko “Our daily bread” [Hordienko 1979]. His work can be divided into three blocks. The first provides extensive analytical data that can be conditionally characterized as a “bread mechanism”. In this part H. Hordiienko examines the chemical-biological and botanical features of grain, its types and varieties affecting the production of flour, the technological basis of dough preparation, pointing to certain features that regulate its quality, and also stages the process of baking bread, however more from a technological point of view.
In the second block, the author gives historical information about the origin of cpastry, the beginning of baking, focusing on the period of antiquity. H. Hordiienko also analyzes the terminology of bakery, assuming that the term “bread” is borrowed from the Germans (from the Minor- or Pre-Asian region). In addition, the researcher provides data on the methods of constructing a certain image of bread by the state authorities and forming public opinion about it. For example, it considers Soviet policies aimed at forming a respectful attitude to bread that would make it impossible to use it for livestock breeding in the private peasant household, even in times of total surplus and its low cost.
In the third section, H. Hordiienko examines the prescriptions, recommendations and prohibitions of a worldview concerning the baking and consumption of bread. However, in my opinion, both methodologically and ethnographically, this section is the weakest. In my opinion, the author obtained the latter by observing the peasants' everyday life while living in Transcarpathia, and from his own wife, who was born in Lutsk.
In general, H. Hordiienko's work helps to explain from a realistic point of view many baking signs, prescriptions, recommendations that cause the status of bread in the worldviews of Ukrainians. The disadvantages of the study are, in my opinion, the lack of a scientific apparatus, a journalistic style and the haste of conclusions, especially with regard to aspects of ethnology science.
Despite the important role of bread in the culture of everyday life of Ukrainians, the source base and historiography on the traditions and innovations of daily baking, the semantic and ideological aspects of its perception in the everyday life of the peasant are rather narrow. Obviously, this is partly due to the fact that daily baking and its ritual and customary accompaniment, which, at first glance, lack such striking features as wedding or funeral rites, have rarely been the subject of a ethnography description, at least in the middle of XIX– the middle of Twentieth century. And even those authors, who described and characterized the national nutrition, did not always write about the peculiarities of making pastry of everyday use.
At the beginning of the XXI century A. Ziubrovskyi and V. Konopka are engaged in the research of the problems related to the agricultural life. In particular, the result of their work was the stereography “«From grain to bread»: a semantic-structural analysis of the agricultural life of Ukrainians (based on materials from the Southwestern historical and ethnographic macro-region of Ukraine)» [Konopka 2018]. It provides a comprehensive scientific analysis of the traditions of growing and processing grain, as well as the rational and spiritual component of the production and consumption of baked bread – a fundamental element of the structure of everyday nutrition of Ukrainians. The genesis of bakery ceremonies on the Ukrainian lands, bakery motifs in the structure of the national calendar, the harvest ritual as a significant component of the Ukrainian tradition are considered; conducted areal-chronological characteristics of life of unleavened bread; the folk traditions of baking and consuming leavened bread are analyzed; the personal code of traditional baking and tools of the baking process have been clarified.
Also, another monograph by A. Ziubrovskyi “The folk bread baking traditions of Ukrainians at the end of XIX – beginning XXI centuries (on the base of data from South-Western Historic-Ethnographic Macro-region of Ukraine)” [Ziubrovskyi 2018] was published in 2018. So, the author made a conclusion that the territory of the South-Western Historic-Ethnographic Macro-region of Ukraine due to the specific features of bread baking can be divided on two zones: the flat country (with domination of leavened bread baking) and the highlands (where dominates baking of unleavened bread).
In general folk bread baking technology traditions demonstrates the community on the whole flat country of the explored territory and with its analogs on the other Ukrainian ethnic lands. In wide Slavonic geographical range it’s similar to the folk sour bread baking traditions eastern and western slaws (mainly with Polish, Belarusians and Russians). The homogeneity of technology and terminology everyday’s bread baking in Allslavonic areal is the evidence of its ancient genesis, which starts on the I-st millennium a.d.
Distinct baking traditions existed on the territory of the Ukrainian Carpathians. The difficult climate conditions, which rule out the growing cereals available to the leavened bread baking, both geographical isolation, caused that unleavened bread dominated in this area nearly by the middle of XX century. That’s why the folk baking traditions of the Carpathian highlanders are more similar to the Balkan Slavs, especially Montenegrins and highland Bulgarians.
Unleavened bread is the most ancient type of bread in whole Slavonic folk nutrition. The leavened bread appeared on the territory of Ukraine during the period between VI and XI century’s a. d. as a result of spreading corns appropriate to the sour bread baking (rye and gymnospermous wheat), evolution of flour-grinding devices, cooper’s crockery and appearance of appropriate baking stoves.
Preleaven (“prisnopodibnyj”) bread was the third type of bread on the explored territory. It was made of leaven dough but baked alike – in the type of thin disks.
The producing of leaven bread was more difficult and prolonged process than producing unleavened one. Dough fermentation and growth is the biochemical process, the real reasons of which for the peasants were unknown. The results of dough leavening in conditions of traditional household were often unforeseen. As a result the population of the South-Western Historic-Ethnographic Macro-region of Ukraine used a lot of different both rational and unreasonable ways and methods called for successful bread baking outcome. Making of unleavened bread was technologically primitive and owing to this, had a positive result. That’s why, in one hand, we can declare nearly full absence ritual acts called for programming positive unleavened bread baking. In the other hand, the period of forming bread baking rituality is synchronized with appearance and spreading of leaven bread – between VI and XI century’s a. d. Consequently rites and habits of sour bred baking present the synthesis of pagan and Christian cultural primaries.
The grain growing and bread baking of Ukrainians in the studied region are closely linked, because during the crop failure the people were deprived of bread – the main source of life-giving food. In the folk consciousness, the concept of “hunger” was associated primarily with the absence of grain and baked bread, often united in the symbolic-semiotic complex – the concept of “bread”.
In general, the purpose of all the cultivating and bakery customs and traditions was to provide the family / genus / kin with grain and bread. In particular, their close connection with the honoring of the deceased relatives testifies to the joint origin of these strata of folk culture.
The cycle of cereal cultivation and bread baking caused a kind of perception of these acts in the public consciousness embodied in the “big grain-bread-baking cycle” (author's term by V. Konopka and A. Ziubrovskyi). It began with the grain sowing and ended up with eating of baked bread. Reinterpretation of this process in the folk culture of the studied region is presented in folklore legends “about the life and suffering of bread” and in the shortened version – in paremia or riddles.
Thus, the bread-making in its broadest sense of a term was not only the main occupation of the Ukrainians, but also a peculiar basis of the peasant's everyday cosmos, the starting point of the formation of his system of ideological coordinates. Given this state of affairs, considering the material cited in the investigation, it is clear that in Ukrainian ethnology this problem is underdeveloped, even with the most up-to-date research. A number of questions, both from the history or evolution of cereals farming, and from baking history, its technology and spiritual component require a deeper study at the level of individual monographs.
Ahapkina T. A. 2002, The mythopoetic foundations of the Slavic folk calendar. Spring-Summer Cycle, Moscow: Indrik.
Artiukh L. F. 1977, Ukrainian folk cooking, Kyiv: Naukova dumka.
Bybyk S. P., Suta G. M. 2006, Dictionary of foreign words: interpretation, word formation and vocabulary. Kharkiv: Folio.
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