Palianytsia (, ) is a type of Ukrainian hearth-baked bread, made mostly of wheat flour in a home oven. The yeast hearth bread has a semi-circle cut across the top third of the loaf.

Etymology

The word comes from , meaning "to burn" or "to smoke". This is because, when baking the bread, the raised crust can sometimes be burned. Another version is based on the assumption that ''pOlianytsia'' is a traditional bread produced by the Polans () an early medieval tribe of Eastern Slavs. Folklorist, ethnographer, and linguist Mytrofan Dykariv ( Митрофан Дикарів) proposes that the word comes from the , which referred to round cakes offered to the gods.

Recipe

Traditional palyanytsya was baked from a dough made with

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, year or sourdough, wheat flour and salt and baked. According to

GOST GOST () refers to a set of international technical standards maintained by the Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification (EASC), a regional standards organization operating under the auspices of the Commonwealth of I ...

12793-77, the bakeries of the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

produced a standardized "Ukrainian palianytsia" baked in molds. It had a mass of 750 g to 1 kg, with a lateral cut of 3/4 of a circle.

Symbolism

In Christianity, palyanytsya, like

bread Bread is a baked food product made from water, flour, and often yeast. It is a staple food across the world, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cu ...

in general, symbolizes happiness and can represent well-being, the body of God, affection, hospitality and security. Palyanytsya can also be interpreted as a symbol of the sun.

Other uses

The word palyanytsya is used as an important

shibboleth A shibboleth ( ; ) is any custom or tradition—usually a choice of phrasing or single word—that distinguishes one group of people from another. Historically, shibboleths have been used as passwords, ways of self-identification, signals of l ...

test in the

Ukrainian language Ukrainian (, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the first language, first (native) language of a large majority of Ukrainians. Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet, a variant of t ...

, to identify people not well-versed in the

Ukrainian phonology This article deals with the phonology of the standard Ukrainian language. Stress Stress is phonemic in Ukrainian. With most Ukrainian nouns, the stress falls on either the final vowel of the stem or the initial vowel of the inflection. In a fe ...

. During the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, the word was often used to identify Russian soldiers or saboteurs, some of whom, when captured, claimed to be Ukrainians. Instead of pronouncing ''palianytsia'' as , Russian speakers would often mispronounce the stressed Ukrainian letter и (''y''), which represents the non-palatal vowel / ɪ/, as palatal /^(j) i/, which is represented instead by Ukrainian і (''i''); they also often mispronounce the first unstressed я (''ya'') as �ɪand the second unstressed я (''ya'') - after the letter ц (''ts'') - as � Thus the result is , sounding as if it were spelt пальиніца ''pal’ynitsa'' / палініца ''palinitsa'' with Ukrainian letters.

Notes

References