The badnjak is a tree branch or entire tree that is central to Serbian Christmas celebrations. It is placed on a fire on Christmas Eve and its branches are later brought home by worshipers. The burning of the log is accompanied by prayers that the coming year brings food, happiness, love, luck, and riches.
About Badnjak (Serbian) in brief
The badnjak is a tree branch or entire tree that is central to Serbian Christmas celebrations. It is placed on a fire on Christmas Eve and its branches are later brought home by worshipers. The burning of the log is accompanied by prayers that the coming year brings food, happiness, love, luck, and riches. The log burns on throughout Christmas Day, when the first visitor strikes it with a poker or a branch to make sparks fly, while wishing that the family’s happiness and prosperity be as abundant as the sparks. Other South Slavic peoples have similar traditions, and the custom that a family brings a log into the house and burns it on Christmaseve has also been recorded in other parts of Europe. Traditionally, the ceremony begins on Christmas eve, but there are many regional variations surrounding the details. The head of each family, usually accompanied by several male relatives, selects and fells the tree from which a log will be cut for their household. The group announces its departure by firing guns or small celebratory mortars called prangija. The Turkey oak is the most popular species of tree selected in most regions, but other oaks are also chosen. Beech, pear, quince, hornbeam, and plum trees are used in eastern Serbia, although less frequently than oak trees. In some areas of Montenegrin Littoral where oaks do not grow, olives, bay laurels, elms, or strawberry Trees are used instead.
Depending on the local custom, Montenegrin Serbs may fell two, three, or an equal number of logs. The latter means that each log representing the thickest of the males has a log associated with him, and there are four sets, as they are burned on New Year’s Day. In parts of the Bay of Kotor, south-west of Serbia, there are also four sets of logs burned on the Feast of Saint Sava, Epiphany, and Saint Kava Grjava, Grbalj, Kotor and Sotor. The logs may be more valued if it is felled stealthily in someone else’s rather than in one’s own woods. Young, straight, and undamaged specimens are preferred. The badnJak may also be seen as a symbol of the cross upon which Christ was crucified, the warmth of its fire symbolizing the salvation which, in the Christian belief, the crucifixion made possible for mankind. Scholars regard the tradition as inherited from the old Slavic religion. They interpret the badNjak as an incarnation of the spirit of vegetation, and as a divinity who dies by burning to be reborn, to whom sacrifices and prayers were offered for the fertility of fields, the health and happiness of the family. In the early 1990s, the Serbian Orthodox Church has, together with local communities, organized public celebrations in which the badn jak plays a central role. Since the early 20th century, the Badnjaks have also been celebrated more publicly.
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This page is based on the article Badnjak (Serbian) published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
