Vertep

This article is about Ukrainian puppetry. For Serbian tradition, see Vertep (Serbian).

Drawing of a vertep box from the 18th century

A vertep box with puppets from Mezhyhirya, 1923

In Ukrainian culture, vertep (Cyrillic: вертеп) is a portable puppet theatre and drama, which presents the nativity scene, other mystery plays, as well as secular plots with satirical and comical elements. The original meaning of the word is "secret place", "cave", "den", referring to the cave where Christ was born, i.e., the Bethlehem Cave. Vertep first appeared in the first half of the 17th century under the influence of Western European traditions, which spread to Ukrainian lands, then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (see szopka), and became popular in the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate, which would eventually become a protectorate of the Russian Empire.

In Belarusian culture it is known as Batlejka (батлейка), from "Bethlehem".

A typical vertep was a wooden box, one or two storeyed. The floors had slots through which the puppeteers controlled wooden puppets. The upper floor of the two-storeyed box was used for the nativity scene, while the lower was for interludes and other mystery plays (most often featuring the Herod and Rachel plots) and secular plays, often of comedy character.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the atheistic Soviet state severely persecuted religion and the associated elements of culture, and by 1930s the tradition of Christmas verteps was virtually eliminated, except in the lands of Western Ukraine.

Ukraine

The Ukrainian vertep, or puppet theatre, first appeared in the latter half of the 16th century - beginning of the 17th century from a popular Western European mystery play. It is believed that it was introduced by students of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The vertep puppet theatre was made familiar to Ukrainian rural communities by wandering deacons and students of the above-mentioned Academy. The theatre had numerous regional variants. The performance was divided into two separate sections, sacred and secular, with the latter taking the form of either a tragedy or a comedy.

The sacred act was based on the Nativity scene with interludes, while the secular was based on day-to-day life often lampooning the various national traits of the local population with characters such as the Kozak (Ukrainian/Cossack), Liakh (Pole), Moskal (Muscovite), Zhyd (Jew), Tsyhan (Gypsy). Each was accompanied by representative dance music (Kozachok, Krakowiak, Kamarinskaya, etc.) Religious Christmas carols were also sung, often in harmony. Some verteps told of the destruction of the Cossack Sich.

The vertep box often had the construction of a multi-storey building. The sacred act took place on the upper level (with occasional interludes on the lower floor) and the secular one taking place only on the lower floor.

In some regions, for example Galicia, people in villages would dress as vertep characters and go from house to house, acting out nativity plays during Christmas holidays. This form, following the old tradition of Malanka, is quite popular in Western Ukraine.

Vertep in Ukraine also became heavily intertwined with singing of the Ukrainian Carols (koliadky).

See also

• Kamishibai

References

• Литературная энциклопедия 1929–1939, Article "Вертепная драма".
• Entsyklopediya ukrainoznavstva Vol 1. p. 232, Paris, 1955.