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Historical roots of American Thanksgiving and Ukrainian Svyato Pokrova
by Irina Timchenko
Throughout the USA Thanksgiving Day is an annual legal holiday. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. Thanksgiving was originally a harvest festival, like Ukrainian national fall fairs. Similarly to Ukrainian culture, it has been one of the oldest and mostpopular celebrations.
The equivalent holiday in Ukraine, which is associated with harvest celebration, is the so-called Pokrova Presvyatoy Bogoroditsy, or simply Pokrova. It is celebrated 5 weeks earlier than the American holiday, on October,14. Here is a little information about historical roots of these holidays in our cultures.
History of the Thanksgiving.
American holiday commemorates a harvest celebration held by the Pilgrims of Plymouth colony in 1621. The Pilgrims had come ashore from the Mayflower on Dec. 21, 1620.
The winter had been harsh. Only about half the original group had survived.
Fortunately the harvest was plentiful. There were 20 acres of the Indian corn, for which the Indians had furnished seeds. There were also barley and plenty of meat. Governor William Bradford sent four men to hunt for fowl. They returned with enough waterfowl and wild turkeys to last a week. Fishermen brought in cod and bass. Indian hunters contributed five deer. Ninety Indians, with their chief, Massasoit, feasted with the colonists for three days, but the date of the feast is not known. Bradford wrote in his history 'Of Plimoth Plantation' that on September 18 some men set out in a small boat for Massachusetts Bay to trade with
the Indians. The harvest was gathered after they returned so the feast must have occurred before December 11. It was described in a letter written on that date by Edward Winslow. There is also no record that the feast was called a "thanksgiving." Appointing certain days for giving special thanks was a custom of the Puritans, but the first record of such a day was two years later in 1623. Then the Pilgrims "set apart a day of thanksgiving" for rain that ended a terrible drought. Thanksgiving days following harvests later came to be celebrated throughout the New England Colonies but on different and varying dates. Later the custom was kept alive by proclamations of state governors.
During the 19-th century, the holiday was celebrated wider and wider. Eventually, enthusiasts all over America started to send letters to the president, to state governors, and to other influential people, requesting to make it a national holiday. For the date they chose the last Thursday in November because on the last Thursday of that month in 1789 (November 26) George Washington had proclaimed a National Thanksgiving Day in honor of the new United States Constitution.
Finally, on Oct. 3, 1863, during the Civil War, Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26. He also named the last Thursday in November as the day to be observed every year. Lincoln and every president who followed him proclaimed the holiday each year.
However, President Franklin D. Roosevelt believed that Thanksgiving fell too close to Christmas. In 1939 he proclaimed the third Thursday Thanksgiving Day. Not all of the states complied, however. In December 1941 a joint resolution of Congress specified the fourth Thursday in November, which is not always the last Thursday, as Thanksgiving Day.
History of Ukrainian PokroAccording to old tradition, Pokrova (lit.translated as Coverage, Protection) is celebrated 5 weeks earlier than the American holiday on October,14. After the popular calendar, October was the last month of autumn, especially in northern areas of Ukraine (and in Russia). This month symbolized a transition time between autumn and winter.
The Pokrova holiday was regarded as the turning day, when the first gust of cold winter air reached the Ukrainian land. Surprisingly, but the popular observations of the old past were correct - every year October,14 is an unusually cold day with first snow and cold wind, which may be followed by another fortnight of warmer weather, but the welcoming warm sun of autumn is gone till the next year.
The transition day from autumn to winter was regarded a Holiday of Holy God Mother and Virgin Maria. The faithful Ukrainians have always started this day in churches, and prayed: We, Orthodox people, are celebrating the joyful holiday, holified by your, God Mother, appearance. Raising our eyes to your wonderful pure icon, we pray for your protection: Cover us with your Cover of sincerity and purity; relieve us from evil, and let Jesus, your son, our God, save our souls.
Before Christianity, the pagans celebrated the same day with a traditional cult of memorizing their ancestors. They prayed for the
sould of the dead and the happiness of their families; they praised the harvest, for mid-October was the time when the field works were over.
This was also the time of marriages in villages. The marriages season lasted till the end of November. The God's Mother, who was also called Pokrova, was also the idol for Zaporizki Cossacks.
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