Wedding Towel

The importance of the rushnyk in the wedding ritual is evidenced by individual names. For example, matchmaking in some regions of Ukraine was called taking rushnyks or giving away rushnyks (Kirovograd region), rushnyks ( Kharkiv region ), serving rushnyks ( Kiev region ). Attributes of matchmaking and the girl’s sign of consent to marriage were rushnyks, tied to matchmakers or bread, brought to matchmakers on rushnyks. Accepting the gift, they said: “Thank you father and mother that they woke up their child early and taught a good cause. Thank you and the lady for getting up early, thinly spinning and embroidering good rushnyks. ” In some regions of Ukraine, rushkins were not called matchmaking, but betrothal - the first wedding ceremony that had legal force at the wedding. The ceremonial binding of the hands of the bride and groom was carried out by the senior headman. He covered bread with a rushnyk, laid the hands of the groom, bride and all relatives present on him, tied with a rushnyk, saying: "The knot does not fit, but the word fits." After this, the headman untied the symbolic knot, and the bride bandaged the matchmakers with rushnyks and gifted everyone present with shirts, linen or scarves.

According to tradition, after the wedding, towels are stored in a young family as a symbol of a happy family life. In the traditional embroidery of the Eastern Slavs, a pair of birds are depicted on the wedding towel, symbolizing the bride and groom. Birds embody family happiness, fidelity in love. A pair of birds such as a falcon , a turkey , a peacock , a rooster (only not in a fighting stance) are embroidered on wedding towels. Cuckoos do not embroider - a widow's symbol, nightingales - a symbol of unmarried men (so that the husband does not change). Also, floral ornaments are embroidered on the wedding towel. This is a guard against evil forces, and the wish of the young “prosperity”, health, wealth, birth of children.

All sizes of the wedding towel, width and length should be divided by 7. 1/4 of each half of the towel should be filled with embroidery . Since the rushnyk in a certain way symbolizes the path of family marital life, his canvas should be whole and continuous. In the middle of such a towel there should be no lace or ribbons. The center of the rushnyka must be empty, without embroidery - God's place. The part, free from a pattern, personifies communication with space. The prevailing red color in the embroidery of a rushnyka is also not accidental: red is the color of the sun, warmth and beauty.

On some wedding towels, the Family Tree of the bride and groom was embroidered, in which information about relatives (grandfathers, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers) was laid. The genus tree is embroidered on the lower tier of the rushnyk near the birds (peacocks) protecting the genus.

A towel was used at all stages of the wedding and served as a connection (binding), hiding / covering, decoration, gift. At the Russians, during the bachelorette party, on the eve of the wedding, the bride was covered with a towel or scarf when she and her friends went “to the bathhouse” (to the next house), and the bride began to howl; such a towel (a long silk towel with a border) was called reunya (s.-z.-rus).

In the Polish rite before the wedding, the groom came with his friends to the house of the bride, and the marshal brought the bride to him by the rushnyk, as a sign of her submission; then they covered the table with rushnyks, laid a lot of bread, the bridegroom and the bride laid hands on it, and the marshal tied them with a rushnyk (sat down along the course of Narva ). During the “ransom of the table” (refreshments in the bride’s house), the mother spread the rushnyk into the arms of the bride and groom. The next day, the groom and the train called for the bride to go to get married; Before the end of the table, the mother tied the groom and the bride with a rushnyk, which the matchmaker immediately untied and wound on herself (she took it as a gift).

In eastern Serbia, before the bride was removed from her parental home, the young were betrothed: they joined their right hands and heads, covering them with a towel, holding bread with salt and rings over them.

After the wedding, when the bride changed her hairstyle and headdress, she was put on a military apparel and a headscarf, and they were spread over her, covering her face, a towel or a headscarf. The bride was revealed only when the young people were taken to the little stove to "sleep" (Russian, Moscow).

According to the beliefs of Slovaks and Bulgarians, the bride, getting down from the cart at the new house, should not step on the bare ground, for which a white canvas or rushnyk was laid in front of her. Entering her husband’s house, she walked around the table, led by a rushnyk, tied around her belt, with a wedding character in friendship, and hung a rushnyk on the wall (V.-Slovak).

After the wedding night, in the Vitebsk region, the husband did not take his wife to wash the shepherd by the hand, but by the rushnyk, she wiped them and hung them on a beam so that the sheep would breed better. With a successful outcome of the first wedding night, the bride hung her towels in the house, and sometimes washed her parents (Rus. Kuban).

In the wedding ceremony, the rushnyk often performed an informative and symbolic function. In Croatia, a rushnyk was hung out on the house of a prodigy girl. In case of successful matchmaking, the bride’s parents gave the matchmakers rushnyks with two heads on the ends of the bird. In Belarus, as a sign of her consent to the engagement, the bride bandaged matchmakers with rushnyks. In Slovaks, when the groom followed the bride, women tied wedding towels to the elders and a matchmaker over their left shoulder. The main wedding ranks were decorated with towels (fr.-glory.), The friends were tied crosswise (Rus. Tver.). In Serbia, relatives of the bride attached a rushnyk to the pitcher of brandy , which they brought to the groom's house.

They made a wedding banner out of a rushnyka: friends carried sticks before the wedding procession with embroidered rushnyks, rosemary and nutmeg tied to them (s.-z.-Slovak); s.-s.-slovak. praporec was made from a towel or shawl tied to a stick and decorated with feathers, for the Bulgarians - apples and popcorn garlands. The wedding banner and the Bulgarians were made from a rushnyk presented to the bridegroom by the bride. A flag made of red cloth with an apple and a rushnyka at the end of the pole was made for the dodola procession ( rain ), when it caused rain, where the characters “bride” and “guy” ( Kosovo ) were present.

Towel - one of the most common gifts at a wedding. In eastern Serbia, accepting a wedding invitation, the relatives of the young people tied gifts to the guest’s bag: a towel, socks, gloves. For Russians, the bride gave towels to the godmother, relatives of the groom, matchmaker, girlfriends (“knit brooms”) and other guests. In Ukraine, during the matchmaking, the young woman gave the elders a rushnyk, and the bridegroom a scarf; a wedding loaf, taken out of the oven, before being laid on the table, was wrapped with a long towel ^[1] .

• Towel
• Russian wedding ceremony
• Ukrainian wedding ceremonies

• Towel / Valencova M.M., Uzeneva E.S. // Slavic antiquities : Ethnolinguistic dictionary: in 5 volumes / under the general. ed. N. I. Tolstoy ; Institute of Slavic Studies RAS . - M .: Int. Relations , 2009. - T. 4: P (Crossing the water) - C (Sieve). - S. 147-150. - ISBN 5-7133-0703-4 , 978-5-7133-1312-8.
• Zaveryushchenko, O. L. Image of a rushnyka and hustki as storage of the concept sphere of the Ukrainian language // Linguistics No. 2 (23), 2011 (Ukrainian)