Kupala Song

The Kupala song is a ritual song of the summer cycle, tied to the feast of Ivan Kupala (since 2024, on the night of June 23–24; July 7 by the Julian calendar), one of the most archaic and poetic feasts of the Slavs. Kupala songs accompanied rites by the bonfire and water: weaving wreaths, leaping over fire, floating wreaths on the water, and searching for the fern flower. In them the motifs of love, marital choice, and the magic of fire and water dominate, along with the images of Marena and Kupalo. The songs are saturated with erotic symbolism and motifs of the union of opposites. Kupala ritual was described by Khvedir Vovk in his 'Studies in Ukrainian Ethnography and Anthropology.' Kupala motifs became the basis of Taras Shevchenko's 'The Drowned Woman,' Lesia Ukrainka's 'The Forest Song,' and Mykola Lysenko's opera.