KUSHCH T.V. Celebrating the New Year in Byzantium
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu4.2023.6.24
Tatiana V. Kushch
Doctor of Sciences (History), Chief Researcher,
Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Prosp. Leninsky, 32a, 119334 Moscow, Russian Federation
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9097-5466
Abstract. Introduction. Many cultures consider the first day of the new year a holiday which supposes the performance of specific rituals and rites. The traditions of New Year celebrations reflect the nature of this or that civilization, its historical experience, and religious and world-viewing constants. The said is to the full extent actual for the Byzantine civilization. The purpose of the work is to reconstruct the general scenario of official celebrations, to trace its evolution, and to analyse the folk tradition related to it.
Methods and materials. The main sources of the given research are liturgical books, treatises on ceremonies, and epistolography.
Analysis. In Byzantium, the New Year was celebrated on September 1 at different levels: church, state, and public. Despite its origin from the laity, the Byzantines viewed this holiday primarily as religious as it opened both the new year cycle and the church calendar. By the tenth century, there developed the order of service (akolouthia) for the first day of the new year. The patriarch served special liturgies in St Sophia’s Church and performed a crucession. The emperor was not allowed to participate in the church rituals. In Late Byzantium, the climax of the New Year ritual was the public prayer made in the imperial capital, in the Forum of Constantine, in the presence of the emperor. The ceremonial protocol documented that the ruler must participate in the New Year service. The ordinary people of Byzantium widely celebrated this holiday, spending this day in going to church, paying visits, and exchanging greetings.
Conclusions. The enlarging of the programme of palatial ceremonies with the emperor’s appearance in the New Year celebration shows, from the one hand, the strengthening of the secular component of the holiday and, on the other hand, the trend to sacralization of the palatial life. The comparison of the scenario of the New Year celebration that existed in the Age of the Palaiologoi with the official holiday on such a case in the pre-Petrine Russia shows an important Byzantine influence on Russian culture of celebration and church policy.
Key words: Byzantium, New Year celebrations, Byzantine palace ceremonial, imperial power, church holidays, festive culture of Byzantium.
Citation. Kushch T.V. Celebrating the New Year in Byzantium. Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya 4. Istoriya. Regionovedenie. Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya [Science Journal of Volgograd State University. History. Area Studies. International Relations], 2023, vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 320-328. (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu4.2023.6.24.
Celebrating the New Year in Byzantium by Kushch T.V is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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