Badnjak (Serbian)
As most Serbs today live in towns and cities, the badnjak is often symbolically represented by a cluster of oak twigs with brown leaves attached, with which the home is decorated on Christmas Eve.
In the succeeding Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the military badnjak ceremony was further elaborated and standardized in army service regulations, but the tradition ended at the outbreak of World War II.
Since the early 1990s, the Serbian Orthodox Church has, together with local communities, organized public celebrations on Christmas Eve in which the badnjak plays a central role.
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.
Other South Slavic peoples have similar traditions, and the custom that a family brings a log into the house and burns it on Christmas Eve has also been recorded in other parts of Europe.
[3][5] He may also explain to the badnjak why it will be cut: "I have come to you to take to my home, to be my faithful helper to every progress and improvement, in the house, in the pen, in the field, and in every place.
[6] In Montenegrin Littoral, each should be adorned with leaved bay laurel, olive, juniper, and rosemary twigs, which are tied to the trunk's top, middle, and base with ivy or red silken or woolen threads.
[5] In Resava, Levač, Temnić, and Jadar of Serbia, as well as in Ozren and Romanija of Bosnia, the badnjak is cut into three logs associated respectively with the men, the women, and the children.
[13] At the side of ognjište where the thicker end is situated, the family may place a plowshare, a round loaf of bread, a glove filled with wheat, sugar, or a sieve containing grain, honey, cakes, wine, salt, prunes, walnuts, and apples.
[2][3] He then proposes a toast: "Grant, O God, that there be health and joy in this home, that our grain and grapevines yield well, that children be born healthy to us, that our property increase in the field, pen, and barn!
[7] Christmas Eve dinner follows, which traditionally includes a round loaf of unleavened bread, beans, fish, walnuts, honey, and red wine.
[2] At the same time he utters a wish that the happiness and prosperity of the household be as abundant as the sparks:[6] Koliko varnica, toliko sreće u ovoj kući.
[6] In Rađevina, the head of the household would lead a sheep into the house, place it between the ognjište and himself, and utter the wishes while striking the badnjak with a branch cut from it, before saying: "We passed one fire, we are not afraid of another."
In Njegoš's epic poem The Mountain Wreath, the plot of which takes place in 18th-century Montenegro, Voivode Batrić urges converts to Islam to return to Christianity and Serbdom: "[...] Lay the Serbian Christmas-log [badnjak] on the fire, paint the Easter eggs various colours, observe with care the Lent and Christmas fasts.
"[15] Petrović-Njegoš describes the holiday atmosphere that surrounds the burning badnjak on Christmas Eve through the words of Abbot Stefan, one of the mains characters of The Mountain Wreath: Vatra plama bolje nego igda, prostrta je slama ispred ognja, prekršćeni na ognju badnjaci; puške puču, vrte se peciva, gusle gude, a kola pjevaju, s unučađu đedovi igraju, po tri pasa vrte se u kola, sve bi reka jednogodišnici; sve radošću divnom naravnjeno.
A custom developed before World War I in the Kingdom of Serbia to lay the badnjak on a fire built in military barracks, so that the soldiers stationed there over Christmas could share in the holiday atmosphere.
On Christmas Eve, under the command of a specially appointed officer, the representatives of military units of a garrison formed a festive procession on horses, accompanied with music.
[17] More and more state institutions, private firms, organizations, and clubs joined the procession each year, and the event began to take on the character of a public holiday.
The consecration or blessing is performed by a priest: he strews wheat grains over the badnjak, censes it while singing the Troparion of the Nativity, and as he intones prayers, he pours wine and spreads honey on it.
[17][18] After the ritual the priest delivers a short sermon, followed by the church choir singing Christmas songs; poems that praise the Nativity of Jesus may be recited.
The celebration ends with parishioners gathered around the fire, served with cooked rakia, wine, or tea, and the food allowed during the Nativity Fast.
Salutations, prayers, and sacrifices such as grain, wine, and honey are offered to him (the name badnjak is of masculine gender in Serbian); he is consistently treated not as a tree but as a person.
[23] Čajkanović characterizes the pre-Christian badnjak as a divinity who dies by burning to be reborn, comparing it in this respect with Attis, Osiris, Adonis, and Sandan.
The lighting of the log on the ognjište could be seen as a solemn annual rekindling of the sacred hearth fire, regarded as the center of the family life and the seat of the ancestors.
The characters of Stari Badnjak and Mladi Božić are found in old Serbian Christmas songs, where they are not explicitly referred to as father and son, and no fight between them is mentioned.
[Note 4] The words badnjak, budhnya, and python stem from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhudh-, denoting bottom, foundation, depths, and related notions.
Nikola is portrayed in East Slavic folklore as merciful and protective towards the common people, patron of animals and agriculture, connected with riches, abundance, and fertility.
The connection between the father–son pairs of Stari Badnjak–Mladi Božić and Nikola's Dad–Nikola is corroborated by the fact that, in many East Slavic regions, practices characteristic for Christmas have been transferred to the Feast of Saint Nicholas.
In Provence, it had to be cut from a fruit tree; it was brought in by the whole family while they sang a carol praying for blessing on the house, that the women might bear children, the nanny-goats kids, and the ewes lambs, and that their grain and wine might abound.
These practices are no longer performed, but in some places a modified form of badnjak is used: a cross is carved into the bark of pieces of firewood which are burned in kitchen stoves on Christmas Eve.
