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On Intercession, in the Morning it is Autumn, in the Afternoon it is Winter

The 14 of October is a holiday of the Intercession of Holy Mother of God. It is a very old holiday respected and widely celebrated by the Don people.

This tradition was historically timed to the miraculous defeat of the Turks under Azov (the Azov siege sitting of 1641). When the Cossack garrison was exhausted from a long and unequal struggle against the enemy, the soldiers saw a vision of “Holy Mother of God dressed in a scarlet robe”, who gave hope and inspiration for the victory.

Intercession is the main holiday of golden autumn, it was connected with the end of field work and beginning of winter: the first snow was expected. The people tried to make their houses warm and clean. They believed, what the Intercession is, so is the winter.

In the Don region Intercession was mostly celebrated, because on those days they marked a holiday of the Don Army (Voisko Donskoye) and a holiday of the 12th Don Cossack Regiment. Housewives cooked pancakes believing that many pancakes cooked on Intercession days will bring warmth to the house for the whole winter.

In old times this season was the time of weddings, and girls prayed to Holy Mother of God about a happy marriage.

The holiday of Intercession of Holy Mother of God is repeatedly mentioned in the works by M.A.Sholokhov, where the life of the Don Cossacks is brightly depicted. Here are some of the examples from the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”:

“…Grigory and his wife left for the field to plough three days before the Intercession…” (Book 1, part 2, chapter 5); “…Winter did not fall right away. After the Intercession the fallen snow melted, and the herds were again driven out to the pasture…” (Book 1, part 2, chapter 7); “…On the first day of the Intercession Pantelei Prokofyevich woke up, as usual earlier than others, went out to the yard and grabbed at his head: the gate removed from the hinges by someone’s mischievous hands and brought to the middle of the street was lying across the road…” (Book 2, part 4, chapter 5).

The holiday is also mentioned in the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned” by M.A.Sholokhov (“…If so we plough, we’ll have to sow the corn by the

Intercession…”), and in the short story “The Road” (“…What a queer fish you are! To compare yourself to your father: I am going to be fifty-six on the Intercession, and you are a little more seventeen. It’s an old age that wears me out, but not illness!”), and in other works of the writer.

Yelena Kleimenova
Yelena Ponomaryova