Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

St Paraskeve in the Balkan Context

2010; Routledge; Volume: 121; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00155870903482049

1469-8315

Mirjana Detelić,

Balkans: History, Politics, Society

Abstract The cult of the great saints is usually much wider and involves more than their hagiographies alone. These, as a special literary genre, have to consider strict compositional principles and an even stricter church canon. Not even the apocryphal hagiographies, although they most often originate in oral tradition, can completely escape the influence of these norms, which come into play as soon as an oral legend starts gaining the form of a literary composition. The cult is rather freer and much less dependent on the Church. Once they become a part of popular religion, the officially recognised saints almost invariably enter a ready-made semantic field that acts as their natural surroundings. Here, by the working of many generations, they build up the multilayered, developed, often unexpected, but always logical connections with the tradition and the culture to which they belong. These fertile and inescapable interactions are reflected in elements of folklore, especially folk literature, from the major prose forms like folktales and epic poetry, to the so-called minor genres (nursery rhymes, incantations, proverbs, and so on). In association with other elements of material and spiritual traditional culture (such as rites, customs and beliefs), stories about the saints tended to spread everywhere, rendering their roots and influences difficult to elucidate. Notes [1] The Serbian Orthodox Church still uses the Julian calendar, so it is necessary to add 13 days to each date mentioned here. Thus, 26 July is, in fact, 8 August in the Gregorian counting system; and likewise 28 October is 11 November, and 14 October is 27 October, in the Gregorian system. [2] As such, Friday was connected with Sunday, the Resurrection day and Most Holy Day of all, celebrated at Easter. Sunday (Dies Domini, whence Dominica/Kiryaki from Gr. κυριακη = Sunday) was also a very popular personal name at the beginning of the Christian era. Thus, the Orthodox church recognises two saints with that name (7 July and 8 January). In Serbian popular tradition, St Petka (Friday) is often thought of as the mother of St Nedelja (Sunday) (see Flier Citation1984; Mirković Citation1922). Those two, St Petka and St Nedelja, have also their own iconographic imagery (see Walter Citation1995, illustrations 2 and 8). [3] Because of the fact that her relics rested in Belgrade from 1398 to 1521 (see Mirković Citation1922, 143). [4] In Russia, the most respected—both officially and traditionally—is St Paraskeve the Roman. [5] Together with some other languages of both Roman and German groups (English, German, French, Italian, and so on), Romanian and Albanian also name the fifth day of the week after the goddess Venus (Vineri). Furthermore, the first of the three saints is also known as St Venera (see Raciti-Romeo and Santoro Citation1903–4, 133–56; Elis Citation2000, 43). The connection between the day Friday as Veneris dies and the saints of this name in the context of folkloristics, was postulated as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century by the Russian mythological school, and reasserted quite a few times since (see Citation Mifi narodov mira 1982, vol. 2, s.v.). The connection Giovedi–Venerdi, Donnerstag–Freitag corroborates the mythologem about the Supreme God and his unfaithful wife, as it was reconstructed from the folklore stories about the German pantheon (see Gurevič Citation1987, 140; Leach Citation1972, s.v. "Frigg"). In the Slavic languages, days of the week are named numerically, under the influence of Hebrew and Greek practice, but not with Saturday as the seventh day in the row as it figures in Greek and Hebrew. Actually, Slavs amalgamated both traditions and kept Friday as the fifth day, but did not call it after any divinity. It remained Pyatnitsa/Petek/Petak [literally "the fifth day"]. [6] In his article on Albanian saints, Robert Elis defines St Veneranda (Paraskeve, Albanian version Prenne or Petka) as an illusive saint: "strictly speaking, she does not really exist" (Elis Citation2000, 43), because she "was originally a pre-Christian deity and came to be identified by the Catholic Church with Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary" (Elis Citation2000, 43). In referring to a saint as non-existent, Elis means a saint "for whom there are no historical sources" (2000, 43), although she "was particularly popular in Albania and Greece, as elsewhere in the Balkans, and many villages and churches in Albania were named after her. Indeed, of the some 275 Catholic churches […] over one in eight, were dedicated to this obscure figure, more than to any other saint except the Virgin Mary and Saint Nicholas." As historical data about the saints are usually found in their hagiographies, the historical aspect of St Petka (and I strongly believe that it is the same St Petka venerated generally in the West Balkans as is postulated in my paper) is very well covered by the abundance of different, official as well as apocryphal, hagiographies. However, the link between this saint, the goddess Venus, the Holy Mother of God, and St Anne, is well indicated by Elis as a matter of continuation of a belief through the ages, in different religions and different confessions. [7] This hagiography was written by the Bulgarian patriarch Ephthimie in 1385, and reprinted in Venice in 1538 (compare Mirković Citation1922, 144). [8] For the various Lives of St Petka in Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania, see Valchinova (Citation1999) and Dermendzieva (1994). [9] See tale no 28 ("Deca andjeli" ["Children angels"]). Here St Petka also acts as the "mother of all humans" (Čajkanović 1927, 99–101). [10] See tale no 167 ("Sveta Petka i djavo" ["St Petka and the Devil"]; Čajkanović Citation1927, 404–5). [11] See tale no 79 ("Car, njegov brat i Sveta Petka" ["Tsar, His Brother, and St Petka"]; Čajkanović 1927, 292–3). [12] Both in Greece and in Serbia, St Petka alternates with "ala," a kind of demonic creature similar to a dragon; in Greece she also alternates with a dragon and "aždaja," and in Russia she alternates with Baba-Yaga (compare Radenković Citation1996, 15). "Aždaja" is a distorted form of "Aži Dahaka," an old Iranian three-headed snake named Dahaka. [13] Except when she figures as an invisible helper (see above "Children angels"; Čajkanović Citation1927, 99–101). [14] In a paper about curses and obscene speech, Uspenskij is of the opinion that, in Slavic paganism, the cult of the Mother the Black Earth is directly connected with the cult of the Thunder God in the first instance, and with the cult of the goddess Mokosh as a female hypostasis in contraposition to the Thunder God. With the arrival of Christianity, veneration of Mokosh was transferred both to St Petka Paraskeve ("water and earth mother"), and to the Mother of God. That is also the reason why God's Mother is connected with the Mother the Black Earth. In Russian spiritual verses, the cursing of St Petka is forbidden in the same way as the cursing of God's Mother is likewise forbidden. But, in the Serbian language, the cursing of the mother can be connected directly to St Petka, and such a curse is considered very strong. God's Mother and St Petka stand, in fact, as an alternative form for Mokosh (Uspenskij Citation1996, vol. 2, 93). [15] "Moon" is of male gender in the Serbian language. [16] See story no. 35 in Čajkanović 1927, 124–31. This folktale type could also be defined in terms of the groom's inhuman metamorphosis, as folktales of a boar, a hedgehog, a falcon, a snake, a lizard, an ox/bull, a lamb as bridegroom (see also comments in Čajkanović Citation1927, 512). [17] In Serbian tradition, the sinning spinner is cooked—together with the yarn—by Wednesday (Čajkanović Citation1927, 444). [18] Karadžic 1852, s.v. "Gvozdenzuba." In Boka Kotorska (Montenegro), there is "baba korizma" ["old woman Lent"] with the same functions, and in Slavonia (Republic of Croatia), where the population is mostly Catholic, a similar belief is connected with St Lucia (Čolić Citation1916, 147). There are opinions that connections with weaving and spinning leads not only to a female deity like Mokosh, but also—and rather—to a kernel of beliefs in three goddesses of fortune (Parke, Moire, Urisnice, Rožanice) who weave, spin, and cut the thread of life (see Loma Citation2002). [19] Yudin Citation1997, 88. In that sense, St Petka, in Russia, alternates with St Barbara and the Holy Mother of God (see Slavyanskie drevnosti… Citation1995, s.v. "Vereteno"). [20] Elis in his article already cited mentioned this detail about St Paraskeve, but seems to be unaware of the existence of two, and even more saints with the same name (Elis Citation2000, 43). [21] Elis suggests Venus (Elis Citation2000, 42). [22] Karadžić Citation1852, s.v. "Kuga." The most recent fieldwork carried out in Serbia by the ethnologists of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA), Institute of Balkan Studies, confirms belief in a female demon called "mlada" ["the bride"], a woman in white robes similar to a wedding dress. [23] As "women's holiday," and as a day of St Paraskeve/Friday, this holy day was a part of a fairly long procession of saints who were considered protectors of women's skills and crafts (St Evdokija/Javdoha, Varvara/Barbara, Gana, Marina, Nedelja/Sunday, and so on), and whose purpose was to punish the disobeying of strictly-forbidden domestic activities (compare also Ajdačić Citation2004). Yet another link to the "women's holiday" is suggested by Elis, based on sexual behaviour and a fertility ritual complex. "On her feast day, July 26, also the feast of Saint Anne, the women would dress up in their finest clothes and put out a mortar and pestle, evident erotic symbolism. The rainbow, sacred to Veneranda, is known popularly as 'Lady Prende's belt,' i.e., Venus's girdle. According to legend, anyone who succeeded in jumping over the rainbow would change his sex" (Elis Citation2000, 44). [24] For the same in Bulgarian and Romanian tradition, see Popov (2001, 139–42) and Sveshnikova and Civyan (Citation1973). [25] Nedeljković Citation1990, 180; Polnyj pravoslavnyj… 1898, s.v. "Pyatnitsa"; Milićević Citation1984, 116–18. With Russians (according to Mifi narodov mira ["Myths of the People"] 1982, vol. 2, s.v. "Pyatnitsa"), twelve Fridays are connected with twelve demons of fever. Demons called "ponochnitse" ["midnight beings"] also appear as twelve sisters who are functionally related to the goddess Mokosh and St Petka. [26] The Hagarians are the descendents of Abraham's concubine Hagar; that is, the Ishmaelite people who included the Arabs (Genesis 16:15). During the age of the Jewish kings, Arabian tribes attacked the neighbouring Jewish tribes. In the Balkans, "Hagarian" became the name for all Muslim peoples coming to Christian lands as invaders (Turks, Arabs, Tatars, and so on). [27] For the Albanian tradition, Elis gives a very interesting explanation for the veneration of Friday: "It has been postulated that the cult of Saint Veneranda was encouraged by the church in Albania as a strategy for stemming the spread of Islam. Her association with Friday meant that the faithful would be busy attending Friday mass in her honor instead of participating in Friday prayers in a mosque" (Elis Citation2000, 45). [28] Compare also Polnyj pravoslavnyj… 1898, s.v. "Pyatnica," where it is said that St Petka's holy day was "often connected with different pagan festivities and dances, as can be read in Stoglav [Council of a Hundred Chapters, Moscow 1551] and Duchovnij Reglament [Spiritual Regulation, Petersburg 1721]." Since all these characteristics of Friday are found not only among Serbs but also among all surrounding peoples (Romanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians), the cult of the day Friday is obviously common to all Balkan peoples. The influence of St Petka's cult is, of course, much wider than the cult of the day Friday, but it does not always show the same combination of elements. [29] For Mokosh, see, for example, Vasmer (Citation1962).