Nativity Scene - a traditional Ukrainian puppet theater on the theme of Christmas and biblical themes. He appeared at the turn of XVII - early XVIII centuries, and he recounted the birth and life of Jesus in a cave where he was hiding from King Herod.
Den was a box with two floors in a scenic area, but the very idea was divided into two parts: religious and domestic. The latter eventually becomes larger than the first.
It looked like a den
Nativity Scene- a big box located inside his scene. In the upper tier of staged scenes, dedicated to the birth of Jesus Christ. His nursery and were the main decoration vertepnogo theater. In the background were usually located image of the righteous Joseph and the Virgin Mary. On the bottom tier usually shows scenes of King Herod, whose death and ended the religious part of the show and started home.
It is noteworthy that the characters can not move from one part to another den, and the puppet theater was vertepnoy a kind of mini-model of the universe: the top tier - the world Horn, lower - the world of the earthly hell - hole, into which falls King Herod.
Wooden doll characters with the lower part fixed on the wire with which they moved the puppeteer and showed scenes, voicing characters. Puppeteer was usually the owner den.
Showed a nativity scene in the places where people tend to be in the market square. Sometimes, the owner of the puppet theater and went to the houses showed submission to their masters.
Note that among the owners of dens was an unwritten rule: a doll depicting the Mother of God, was made as if it bothered over a completely different person. Sometimes the place of the doll took an icon of St. Mary.
The plot den
Herod learns from the wise men that Jesus was born and takes a decision to kill him (that he did not take his throne). Herod gave the order to beat all the kids (under two years) in Bethlehem, only old Rachel did not give her baby to the beating, for which he was killed. For their crimes king pays life: Death cuts off his head, and devils dragged his body into hell. Thus we showed good triumphs over evil.
After starting the socio-consumer of the den, where representation is usually focused on topical themes, and the main characters (usually they were Gypsies, Jews, grandfather, woman, pop, Cossack Cossack, Moskal and Lyakh) usually amused public. In everyday scenes den characters like saying goodbye to the audience.
An important role was played by musical accompaniment den. So, the music gave the characteristics of the characters, as well as helping to create a festive atmosphere. Especially popular were the edges connecting the secular folk songs and dance tunes.
You will also be interested to know, how Christmas is celebrated in different regions of Ukraine.
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