page_title: Midsummer
section_title: Ukraine
hierarchical_section_title: Midsummer / Contemporary national traditions / Ukraine
context_page_description: Midsummer is the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, and more specifically the northern European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice or take place on a day between June 19 and June 25 and the preceding evening. The exact dates vary among different cultures. The celebration predates Christianity, and existed under different names and traditions around the world.
  The undivided Christian Church designated June 24 as the feast day of the early Christian martyr St John the Baptist, and the observance of St John's Day begins the evening before, known as St John's Eve. These are commemorated by many Christian denominations, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Lutheran Churches, and Anglican Communion, as well as by freemasonry. In Sweden, the Midsummer is such an important festivity that there have been proposals to make the Midsummer's Eve into the National Day of Sweden, instead of June 6. In Latvia, Midsummer's Jāņi festival is a public holiday. In Denmark and Norway, it may also be referred to as St. Hans Day.
context_section_description: Ivan Kupala was the old Kyiv Rus' name for John the Baptist. Up to the present day, the Rus' Midsummer Night (or Ivan's Day) is known as one of the most expressive Kyiv Rus' folk and pagan holidays. Ivan Kupala Day is the day of summer solstice celebrated in Ukraine on June 23 NS and July 6 OS. Before the day was named for St John, this was a celebration of a pagan fertility rite involving bathing in water.  Since St John the Baptist's birth is celebrated at this time, some elements of Kupala's pagan origins were seen to be roughly synonymous with Christian meanings, most notably the parallel of Baptism as cleansing from sins, so the holiday in a Christian-modified form has been accepted into the Orthodox Christian calendar.  In modern times, due to increasing secularization, it is possible to find Kupala being celebrated in a manner closer to its pagan roots.
caption: Night on the Eve of Ivan Kupala, by Henryk Hector Siemiradzki
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