Nadiia Kovalchuk

Candidate of Historical Sciences (PhD), Scientific Secretary, State Scientific Center for Pro-tection of Cultural Heritage from Technological Disasters, Kyiv, Ukraine.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1240-8308

E-mail: kovalchuk69@ukr.net

Keywords:

cartography of ritual phenomena, New Year, Christmas, Epiphany, Christmas and New Year cycle, territorial spatial aspect, Middle Polissia of Ukraine, Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.

Abstract

This paper is dedicated to a comprehensive study of the traditional Christmas and New Year cycle rituals of the mid-20th century in the Middle Polissia of Ukraine. The analysis of ritual practices considers both their internal structure and geographic distribution within a defined historical period, aiding in the understanding of traditional culture in a spatial context. Based on the principle of identifying structural elements inherent in ritual phenomena and performing a comparative analysis of their variations, the research highlights both regional and local characteristics of Christmas and New Year traditions. The study provides a descriptive overview of the geographic distribution of customs, ritual actions and their motivations, attributes, loci, folk names of the holidays, verbal formulas, and temporal characteristics. In cases of marked territorial differentiation, the areas are graphically represented through maps based on cartographic work. The identification of territorial differentiation as a methodological approach was achieved by contrasting the distribution of various manifestations of each phenomenon.

The research is based on data collected from 368 villages during ethnographic expeditions conducted between 1994 and 2023.

The analysis of the cartographic data revealed that, in mid-20th century folk traditions, the Christmas and New Year cycle rituals maintained a relative uniformity in content overall, yet their structure displayed a diversity of components and variability in their distribution across the studied area. Based on structural differences and their geographic spread, three local complexes of Christmas and New Year cycle ritual traditions in Middle Polissia are identified: the western, northeastern, and eastern.

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