Do you remember the famous exhortation of Suvorov, addressed to his soldiers? "Save bullets in your gun! If three come on you, stab the first, shoot down the second, and put a 'karachun' to the third with your bayonet!"
Vladimir Dahl in his dictionary defines "karachun" as "kaput", "death", "perdition", "putting an end to someone". To give somebody a karachun means to destroy or to kill somebody. What's the origin of this enigmatic word?
This ancient word actually has several meanings. It does not only denote "death" (in Russian, Belarussian, Ukrainian, Slovak and Bulgarian), but also "the solstice", "Christmas", "Christmas fast" and also the Christmas wheat bread.
The word's origin is not quite clear. This could be a translation of the Latin "adventus" (literally "the coming" or "Christmas fast") and is derived from "krachiti", "krak", meaning "a step". "Karachun" or "korochun" also means "short", i.e. the shortest day in the year.
According to the folk calendar this is the shortest day of the year and quite often it was also the coldest winter day. But now the climate has changed and folk signs no longer work as they did before.
There is also one more meaning. In Slavic and Baltic mythology Karachun is the second name of Chernobog – the deity of calamities and death, commander of the frosts, shortening the daytime. It should be reminded that Russian ethnographers of the XIX century found that Karachun was the name of an evil spirit in Simbirsk governorate.
The servants of the formidable Karachun are rogue bears, in whose guise blizzards return, and also snowstorm wolves.
This year Karachun falls on December 21.
Alexander Ryazantsev
