#czech traditions

[myryathedreamer]

I feel like the internet needs to hear about judas buns.

If you have even a passing knowledge of the New Testament, then you know Judas was the guy who betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 silver and then hanged himself.

So the Czechs asked "Can we make a dish around this?" and didn't wait for an answer.

This soft sweet pastry is traditionally made for Easter Thursday (google tells me it's called Maundy Thursday in English) and usually takes a form of various knots and spirals to symbolize a rope. Some take this metaphor a step further, as shown by my mother, who hands covered in flour asked me "Do you know how to tie a noose?"

When we speak of fucked up Czech traditions, we usually think of whipping girls with willow sticks in exchange for eggs. But I believe baking rope-like buns in "honor" of a guy who hanged himself should be up there as well.

[madam-of-lithuania]

Czech day in Kaunas

My home city Kaunas, Lithuania 🇱🇹

[enlitment]

for the ask game!

13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?

13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?

Oh boy do we. I tried to explain it to slightly horrified-looking Western Europeans more times than I could count.

Basically, on Easter Monday, we have a tradition of men whipping women with a bundle of sticks tied together. They recite a poem while doing it and after it, the women give them a decorated egg. It's usually interpreted as a fertility ritual.

I fully realise it sounds kind of terrifying, but I promise it's not as bad as it sounds. It's mostly symbolic. Like you don't go full-on with the whipping unless you're a total jerk. There has been a lot more emphasis on consent in the recent years. There's a window of time when girls can get their revenge by splashing water on the boys as well.

I've also recently found out about the Roman festival of Lupercalia and ever since then, I kind of see it as the Lupercalia's spiritual successor?

[oraclekleo]

Just a reference to my comment under the hobbies ask.

It's called 'Vizovické těsto' in Czech.

I'm not sure whether there's an English term for it, if there is, educate me.

These are not meant for eating as they are really hard after baking. This dough is used to make like Christmas tree decorations or table decorations for various festivities.

You really only need luke warm water and all purpose flour. You add as much water to create a compact dough. Then you have to work it with hands so it's nice and smooth and it can take an hour, for real. It should rest wrapped in cling film or plastic sack in a fridge for about 2 hours, then you can start making the figures. If you want them to look glossy like the ones on pictures, smear them with egg white. The figures should again rest and slightly dry out for 2 hours on the counter. You bake in an oven set to 120°C for about 4 hours until hard.

And that's it. It's a Czech tradition and there are several motives that had symbolic meaning. For example if you made a dove and gave it to someone, it meant you wish them peace in family, or a fish was often given to mothers in law as an encouragement to keep silent. Czech people knew how to nicely say to shut up. 😂 Let me know if you want me to list all the meanings.

You obviously can make anything out of the dough.

So yeah! This is what I was doing as a child.

Sorry. I just wanted to explain.

[autistictortoise]

Nikdo:

Češi: Takže, musíme vymyslet, jak budeme slavit svátek významného světce svatého Mikuláše. Budeme děsit svoje děcka pohádkovými postavami, aby nezlobily, protože nemáme lepší výchovný prostředek než trauma z dětství

[s-u-w-i]

Three more requests! I meant to make them all black&white but well, green knight somehow doesn't work all that well without green 🍀

IX. The Green Knight for romanodegois and @a-gremlin-for-my-thoughts VIII. Otesánek eating his mum for msdearcos who asked for folklore's creature from Czechia VII. for christine.kasparian who asked for spooky fairytale for the autumn season. I chose czech fairy tale Hádanka (Riddle) about this queen who made household items from the bones (and hair) of her lover to take a revenge on his killer.

Enjoy! 💀

[zoyazoy]

I love drawing European folk dress so much even though I am Thai ♥

[tofiam]

We have a tradition of Saint Nicholas with an angel and a devil (well, on of the lower devils, something like a demon hell entity called čert) visiting children on early december and scaring them shitless.

Like almost everyone you ask has at least one childhood trauma connected to this event. And we still do it. And parrents still pay for it.

I offer to trade that for Mari Lwyd.

"It's Christmas!"

[cable-salamder]

Sora but she’s Czechoslovakian and hungry for Kapusnica and Gulaš every single day (aka me)

+ Some Swiss Landchinder Arin and Sora (because of my Swiss Arin hc) but they’re fully decked out in stereotypes, with the only accurate thing being the spiderman backpack. They’re headed to the Reuss to jump in and get to school (/s, however it’s one of my fave myths that I once saw somewhere)

[owlmaya]

i drew bingyuan celebrating easter the czech way!

to explain: on easter monday the boys hit girls with a braided willow whip, which is supposed to keep them young, and in return they give the boys easter eggs (sometimes they also add a ribbon to the whip)

it’s a pretty unique easter tradition, so aside from it being silly and fun, i also wanted to share it (because im czech)

[slavinkka]

Rakvice🇨🇿

Some beautiful Moravian dresses/costumes from Rakvice, a village/municipality in the South East of Czechia🇨🇿. 

This place has wonderfully preserved their beautiful culture.

You will notice with Moravian dresses, women tend to have large, puffy dresses with their distinctive huge, wide skirts and abundant petticoats underneath.

In many regions in South Moravia, men's costumes typically include a long white embellished ribbon with a decorated cockade on the right side of their vests as you can see above.

I managed to find some older photos from 1959 too♡

A traditional dress/costume in Czech & Slovak is called a "Kroj" (pronounced like kroi). I love how highly and beautifully embellished each garment is from here♡

[folkfashion]

Sudeten German woman, from Czech Republic, by Yvonne Most

[yanpsychobitch]

I had to join the trend and so let me intoruduce to you

An Ostravian Miku 🇨🇿

[marmota-b]

Podhorácko Miku!

Jumping on the cultural representation bandwagon (must say I had to look her up...) with a quick doodle of one of the least obvious Czech / Moravian folk costumes.

I mean, original idea was Valašsko / Moravian Wallachia (part of my own family heritage) but I feel like that's the second most obvious Czech folk costume artists reach for every time they want to be different and avoid the super-obvious Slovácko... Podhorácko is a rather loosely defined border region between South Moravia and Vysočina / the Highlands, where it seems the folk costume doesn't differ too much from Horácko proper and what sets the region apart is rather geography and dialect.

One thing to bear in mind is that folk costumes were never uniforms, and Podhorácko appears to be one of the regions that underline the individuality. I zoomed in on Tišnov (among other reasons like liking the town, the red and white striped skirts are striking and easy to draw) and stole some elements from an old photo of very low quality which I'm guessing is from the 1890s (based on the non-folk-costumed lady in the back), and even there every single person seems to be wearing something slightly different.

Upon reflection, not sure where I came across the beribboned sleeves because Tišnov it ain't. Ah well. If someone with better artistic skills wants to take her on, please do. Yay for cultural representation. 😀

[s-u-w-i]

Few more sketches from Mami, pocem! (Mom, c'mere!) the book I worked on this January. It's getting printed right now and should be released soon!

Written by @irenahejdova and published by @hostdetem. Big thanks to them for the opportunity! 💖

[zoyazoy]

I'm back from break hoorah! Here's some girls of europe !