HALF-PAGAN FESTIVAL.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 136, 15 July 1914, Page 11

HALF-PAGAN FESTIVAL.

RUSSIAN "BANK HOLIDAY." Mr Stephen Graham, the clever and adventurous young; Englishman who is living as a Russian in Russia in order to write intimately about that country, is now setting out on a long tramp to the Russo-CViinese frontier and through Siberia. I lived recently through one of the most t-haracteristie of Russian "Bank Holidays,'' called Krasnagorka. It occurs between Easter and Whitsuntide, and is half-Christian, half-pagan—-a festival of spring and of new life, but celebrated almost entirely in graveyards and cemeteries. At Krasnagorka almost the whole population of the town goes on an outing or_a picnic—to the cemetery, writes Stephen Graham in the ' 1 Daily Mail.'' Early in the morning I received a message from a Russian friend: "Come to our church; you'll see an interesting sight." The church was crowded, but I got in, for nobody objects to your pushing. It was an unusual service. The whole centre of the floor of the church, a space of some twenty feet by seven, was Covered with napkins in which lay lumps of cake, brightly coloured eggs, basins of rice and strawberry jam, basins of rice and raisins. In each basin, and there were some hundreds of them, a lighted wax candle was stuck in the rice, and gave a little flame, and beside each lay the little red book in which the peasant reeprds the names of his relatives as they die.

"What is it all for?" I asked. "It is the food for the dead,'' my friend answered.

A priest and a deacon were standing at the near end of the spread of illuminated food, and they read aloud yfrom sheaves of papers the names of dead persons whom members of the church had wished to have remembered. Each person who had brought in food for sanctification brought also a slip of paper with the names of his dead. It took hours to read them all out, and when at last the task was finished the deacon took a smoking censer, and, walking round the feast, flung incense over it, the .chains of the censer rat-tling-as. he made the sign of the cross. We sang once more the festal hymn of Easter, "Christos Voskrese iz mertvikh ("Christ is risen from the dead") sung a,t every service until Ascension, and then, after kissing the cross in the priest's hand, each person sought out his special basin of rice and pieces of cake and bowl of coloured eggs, and moved out of the church.

At the door of the church stood many beggars,, six or seven bearded, tattered, and dirty old men, and SL score or so of women and children. All the old men had their mouths open, and each worshipper, as he made his exit, helped a beggar liberally to rice and jam, scooping out' great spoonfuls with vvooden spoons and poking them into the opferi' waiting niouths. Many beggars likd cotton bags'hanging from.their necks, and ijito these was promiscuously flung, spoonfuls of rice and raisins, eggs, biscuit, cafre.... The.beggars were told to eat what,,,w:as; given them in the name of the, dead* .. My., friend fed at least ten, beggars before she left the church, gave eggs and fyits of cake, but she did npt give all that she had. A great quantity was reserved for a spread in the graveyard. Manyicabs. were waiting at the church door, and the worshippers stepped into them, with • their napkins of sanctified food and drove to the of the town. Prom ten o'clock in the morning until sunset ' the - cemeteries were as thronged with people as Hampstead Heath on Whit-Monday: Nearly every grave in Russia has a seat round it, so that you can go there at .your convenience and sit down. On this day the wide, melancholy collection of green mounds and wooden crosses was alive with the laughter and songs of children. On the heaps of mouldering earth samovars were humidling, and little candles gleamed against a background of lilac blossoms and spring flowers.

. 1 wc r l ! t t0 tlie grave of my friend's sister. ' As far as eye could see, little candles twinkled in the graveyard. We planted our candles. We took brightcoloured eggs, dug holes in the earth, and buried them. .We. put down cake, and rice for the dead one to share in. The mother of the girl went away to find a priest, and presently brought a purple-cloaked greybeard to sing over the grave and burn incense. We all stood round, silent and awe-stricken, and listened and.crossed.ourselves, and k:issed the cross in the priest's hand. 1 The priest received a rouble and then went ,away to an'other grave,; beggars besieged us, and as if they had not been satisfied at the church door but were taking enough to last them a whole yiear/ they received helping after helping of rice and cake and eggs. This, i! felt, was the great beggars' day in the year. They were important people. They were necessary to the feast. Strange that they should appear as pjroxi6s" for the, dead and eat for them. A beautiful reminder that in the living we find all our dead again. ! When the beggars had eaten all the rice and raisins and rice and jam, and had gone further to eat at other graves, we sat down on the old seat facing the green mound and talked of the virtues of the dead one, of how old she would have been and how beloved she was, aind of how often she had been remembered and how soon we should join her. Evidently the mother assumed that what she said was heard by her whose body lay in the earth. We were all quietly joyful—not sad. We had the spirit of children making believe; we had also the calm faith and knowledge of elders —that there is no death, that those who have passed out of sight have not ceased but are alive for evermore. I felt the Russians, and indeed mankind altogether, were very dear at this festival. As we sat and •were silent we heard something of the music of the world ajnd of man's life, and listened 'witli pur soulfc to the orchestra.

At some graves there -was boisterous, jollity, at others terrible anguish and girief. Near where we sat a woman lay moariing on the grave of her husband, her red, tear-washed cheeks and her lips on the earth; and she called to him with, spbs, telling him all that had happened during the year, how the children were,: how often they had thought of him. It was heartrending to listen to her. And yet,' mingled with her terrible : lament, came the sound of mumbling priests, the buzz of conversation, the laughter of ehildi'en wrestling among the graves and gambling in the eggs that had been given them; the tinkle of the guitar ami of light 'songs, the strains of the concertina. We walked about and saw old men and women knocking at the doors Of the earth they would soon enter, dropping placid tears and thinking what it would be like some years hence when they were under the earth and there

was all this candle-lighting and feasting above; and there were young men and women walking arm-in-arm, looking brightly into one another's ej*es, strengthening their bonds of love and of life. There were also little children, boys and girls, thoughtless, indifferent to death and to the dead, waiting for the older people to go away, so that they might forage among the graves and dig up again the red and blue eggs that had been buried there. "Are they allowed to do that?" I asked in horror. "Yes," said the sister. "Everyone knows that directly evening comes and we elders go home, the poor children will come and dig up the eggs and take away the wild flowers we have brought. And let them! It is quite good that they should. You know it is the festival of spring and of life." That is the way to give to the dead—give to the beggars and to the children. The dead will get what you send them, surely.

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