Polish Christmas Carols and Their Cultural Context

Abstract

The carol is one of the keys unlocking the door to Polish culture, Polish customs, and perhaps even to the Polish mentality.' A carol is a Christmas song and, at the same time, something much more. It refers to a large body of themes connected with singing these songs, with understanding them, and with the feelings they evoke. These themes are expressed in many different ways, in multicode: through words and music, sonic language and activities, and through textual, situational, and religious contexts. Carolling is the name given to this whole rich cultural phenomenon. Despite numerous changes in Polish customs in recent years, the phenomenon continues to have a significant cultural position both in rural areas and in the cities, in contemporary culture in Poland, and also, it seems, among emigrants. Studies of customs carried out in Warsaw in the mid-70s show that even young people in urban centers have, to some extent, kept up the tradition of carolling (Konorowska). In the southeastern part of Poland, very old forms of ritual carolling have survived-forms which ethnographers and folklorists had not known about until very recently. What makes Polish carolling so vital? Briefly speaking, this is the result of a fortunate fusion of seemingly unrelated forms and subjects: religious and secular, national and universal, elements inherited from the distant past and elements which look far ahead, anticipating an order yet to come. The old Polish name for the carol-symfonia (symphony)-can be metaphorically applied to the whole carolling tradition as a cultural phenomenon. Its inner, dominating tendency is harmony. The carol seeks some hidden unity beyond the limits of forms of expression, models of culture, environmental traditions, national differences, or historical periods. As the foundation of this unity, the carol presents Christian values and the Good News of the birth of God as Man. Let us have a