easter traditionsin poland
TRANSCRIPT
SP nr 11 Puławy, Poland
POLISH EASTER !
Easter is very important for Polish people
from the religious point of view, as Poland is a very
Catholic country. It is preceded,
according to the religious tradition, by the Lent, which lasts for 40 days.
Easter in Polish is called Wielkanoc. This year we
celebrate Easter on 27th of March. We have six days free
from school from Thursday 24th to Tuesday 29th. But the main celebrations take place during Easter Saturday, Sunday and
Monday.
FAT THURSDAY We celebrate Fat Thursday a week
before Ash Wednesday. On Fat Thursday we eat a lot of donughts.
Ash Wednesday
On Ash Wednesday we go to church and the priest puts ash on
our heads. It’s the first day of Lent.
The week preceding Easter is the time of
the intensive preparations, at the
religious level and on the practical side. It all starts with Palm
Sunday. On this day people go to churches with colourful palms in
their hands to have them blessed by the
priest. This tradition is very alive in certain
parts of Poland. There are even some
contests organised, where the longest
palm wins.
Palm Sunday is at the beginning of Holly Week. This week is for deep reflection, therefore some parishes organise so called „Rekolekcje”
when the Catholics can go to church on special masses to prepare
spiritually to Easter.
On Holly Friday an exceptional Mass takes place - then the last moments
of Jesus Christ`s life is read out from the Bible.
Easter SaturdayOn Saturday every family prepares
pisanki. Pisanka is a dyed egg. There are different kinds of Easter eggs:
• Pisanki- eggs preparedby using wax to make decorations and then dyed
• Kraszanki- eggs dyed a single color with vegetable dyes, especially onion.
• Drapanki- are created by scratching the surface of a dyed egg to reveal the white shell.
When the eggs are ready we prepare Święconka – a basket in
which there are all traditional Polish dishes: pisanki, white
sausage, a piece of bread, a bit of butter, spices, and a white lamb a symbol of Easter in
Poland.
Easter Sunday starts with Resurrection Mass at 6 a.m. After that, the whole family gathers at the table full of delicious things and have breakfast, which starts with a prayer. Then, the „holy food” is divided into chunks and every member of the family gets a small
piece of it. Only then people can savour the rest of the dishes. Such breakfast can last long hours, as Polish people like to feast.
Traditional dishes prepared for Easter breakfast (on Sunday) are: white sausage, white borsch, ham and salads, and Easter buns and sweets.
Easter Monday is known as Wet Monday or Śmigus-Dyngus. During that day, it is allowed to pour water on others, even some unknown! So the best thing you can do, if you want to have dry clothes, is to stay at home, otherwise you have to take into account that you may get soaking wet.Formerly, pouring water on unmarried girls was the way of showing them men`s inerest. The more water the man poured on the girl, the more he liked her! Then the girl used to thank the boy for choosing her by offering him some decorated eggs!
