Pomlázka is unique to the Czech Republic, the oldest Easter symbols are eggs and lamb. If the meaning of customs and rituals is emptied and people no longer understand them, they will eventually stop observing them, cultural historian Eva Doležalová explained some time ago in an interview for Aktuálně.cz. According to her, today’s customs and symbols will change over time, but at least as a celebration of spring, Easter will remain in Czech culture, she assumes.
Is today’s Easter more of a Christian holiday, or is the main idea more of a celebration of spring?
Three different holidays fall almost simultaneously on the Easter period. It is our traditional Christian, then Pesach, when the Jews remember the escape from Egyptian slavery, and finally the pagans had this time associated with the spring holidays. Today, we have a complex structure of traditions from this, which would be very difficult to separate from each other. But the meaning of spring is comprehensible to absolutely everyone, even to people who do not actively subscribe to the Christian faith, and they are the majority in the Czech Republic. Spring is thus the most universal idea for celebrating Easter.
Eva Doležalová is the deputy director of the Historical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. He specializes in cultural history and church history of the Middle Ages. | Photo: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Various older pre-Christian customs are associated with this, for example eggs, which symbolize new life. So is the pom pom. Twigs that sprout buds in the spring, from which pomelo is knitted, symbolize rejuvenation, fertility and birth.
Do they know pomázka elsewhere in the world, or is it a Czech invention?
Pomlázka is really a purely Czech, or rather Czechoslovak, custom. The origin will be an older tradition, probably Slavic. The whipping of girls and women so that they are healthy, fertile and do not grow old is connected precisely with the spring Slavic respect for birth. This custom became the most prominent element of Easter in the second half of the twentieth century, when the Christian dimension of Easter was suppressed under communism. The meaning of the three holy days – from Thursday to Sunday – was superseded by Easter Monday and the pom pom.
Why this custom is not observed elsewhere is not entirely clear, in any case there is really no trace of it anywhere else but here – in Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. It is a world rarity. People from other parts of the planet do not understand this custom at all.
And do you think the Czechs understand the original tradition?
Of course, if the pom pom is operated with some kind of sadism, it’s not nice and no one will like it. Overall, there is probably a tendency to abandon this habit. Especially in an urban environment, it no longer makes much sense, it is no longer a round of the village, which at the same time symbolized a certain phase of courtship and the expression of interest of boys in girls.
A visit to individual houses was also accompanied by a wish for health and whipping with a pomelo. For this, the caroler received a bow, an egg or another gift. In cities, however, togetherness is no longer like that, so the original meaning has basically disappeared. If all that was left of the whole tradition was the bare violence, then it no longer makes any sense at all.
So in cities these traditions are disappearing much faster…
Where people are religious or live in a smaller community, i.e. mostly in villages, Easter traditions are maintained more strongly. In the urban environment, they have rather turned into, for example, Easter markets, where we buy items that remind us of the original Easter idea.
Has our approach to Easter changed due to the pandemic?
I am afraid that the pandemic will have some influence, it is not yet possible to say how deep. I think that people have withdrawn into themselves and there is more of a need for an inner experience of any holidays. This also applies to Christmas and other important anniversaries.
Which of the symbols of Easter are the oldest?
Probably the very oldest customs or symbols that we still know today are eggs and roasting lamb. Eggs have been worshiped as an object of life since ancient Egypt. Today we associate them with a new life that begins in the spring.
The lamb, in turn, refers to Jewish traditions. Before the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, lamb was baked and unleavened bread was eaten. This custom was also adapted in the Christian tradition through the fact that Jesus ate lamb with his disciples at the last supper. However, many people today do not know these connections anymore and take the lamb only as a young creature that symbolizes spring.
Smears also appear relatively soon, which are already mentioned in medieval documents in connection with the mass on Easter Sunday. After a forty-day fast, people brought food to the church to be blessed. It was, for example, meaty dishes, bacon, eggs, or even spreads or cakes. But I wouldn’t dare to say that the 14th century buttermilk tasted or looked exactly the same as today’s buttermilk. For example, because back then it was sweetened with honey, today we sweeten it with sugar and the like.
What is the reason for coloring eggs and decorating Easter eggs? For example, do different colors have a meaning?
It can be said that red color refers to blood and love, blue could symbolize hope, green new life and resurrection. But I wouldn’t look for such a deep meaning in that decoration. Rather, it is an effort to decorate objects that are a symbol in themselves.
Are there any traditions that we have adopted from abroad relatively recently?
Easter bunnies are a typical adopted custom. Even though we have them in stores every year and they belong to the spring, they are not original with us, we took them over from Germany. The habit of searching for eggs is also associated with them. Some Czech households even replaced the original, typically Czech traditions with it.
So what customs are losing their meaning and gradually falling into oblivion?
There are small rituals that we do know, but are hardly followed today. For example, on Good Friday morning, one should wash with cold water in order to be healthy throughout the year. Likewise, one should not wash clothes on Friday because, according to legend, they would be soaked not in water, but in the blood of Jesus. People should not cultivate the land so as not to cause misfortune and crop failure. Rocks and treasures were also believed to be opened on Good Friday.
Most of these superstitions were connected in some way to the story of the martyrdom of Jesus Christ, but at the same time they grew out of non-Christian customs. In the Middle Ages, it was also customary to symbolically baptize a group of small children on the Easter vigil, and on Sundays, exceptional priestly ordinations took place. Today, mainly people who converted to Christianity at a later age are baptized on Easter.
Will the customs that are still observed today survive in the next decades? We already talked about the fact that pom poms give up somewhere.
Many of the original rituals have lost their content and over time people stop doing things they don’t understand. So I would almost be afraid that it will happen gradually. At least their appearance will change. Society is moving a lot now, and the common experience of these traditions is disappearing. But it can be replaced by something else. What I don’t think will ever completely go away is the celebration of spring. Therein is the symbolism of continued life, eternal hope, that our life has some meaning. It does not have to be associated with a specific religion, in this form it is universally understandable to people.
Is Easter becoming a commercial holiday? Does it contribute to it?
Easter is definitely less commercialized than, for example, Christmas, where there is an appeal for gifts, an effort by marketers to introduce us to the idea that we need to give gifts to our loved ones. At Easter, there is a gift only for children and it usually takes the form of some goodies. So the often criticized dimension of large gifts is missing here. Therefore, perhaps Easter gives more space for some deeper reflection.
