Dozinky: the Grain Harvest Ceremony
The dožínky — grain harvest ceremony — marks the completion of wheat and rye reaping and historically took place in late July or early August. In its full form, the ceremony involves a procession of harvesters from the field to the village square, carrying a decorated sheaf called the věnec dožínkový (harvest wreath). The wreath is presented to the landowner or, in contemporary settings, to local municipal authorities, with formal speeches and songs performed by the workers.
In the Slovacko sub-region around Uherské Hradiště, dožínky is a major public event attended by several hundred participants in full regional kroj. The ceremony typically includes a spoken exchange between the harvest leader and the recipient, followed by dancing to a cimbalom ensemble. The songs performed are specific to the harvest occasion and differ from those sung at Easter or at weddings; the words address the land, the grain, and the labour of the season.
Village dožínky ceremonies have declined in areas where small-scale farming ended, but municipal and regional events compensate partly for this. The town of Strážnice holds a harvest-themed programme as part of its broader summer folk calendar, and the Slovácké museum in Uherské Hradiště documents the ceremony in detail.
The Straznice International Folk Festival
Held annually in the town of Strážnice in the Hodonín district, the International Folk Festival is the oldest and largest folk festival in the Czech Republic, running continuously since 1946. Over four days in late June, the festival hosts ensembles from Moravia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and further afield — but the dominant presence is always the Moravian village folk societies called folklorní soubory.
The festival grounds are divided into stages of different scales: the main open-air stage hosts competition performances judged by ethnologists, while smaller venues around the castle garden present informal sessions, workshops, and evening dance gatherings called cimbálové besedy. A cimbalom beseda is a participatory event rather than a performance: musicians sit at the centre, and whoever knows the songs joins in. These sessions often run until two or three in the morning and are considered the most authentic part of the festival by participants.
Strážnice also maintains a permanent open-air folk architecture museum — the Skanzen — adjacent to the festival grounds, where historical farmhouses from different Moravian sub-regions have been relocated and furnished as they would have appeared in the nineteenth century. The presence of the Skanzen gives the festival a documentary dimension absent from purely performative folk events.
Regional Kroj: a Guide to Moravian Folk Costumes
The word kroj (plural: kroje) refers specifically to the complete regional folk costume of a Moravian village or sub-region. A kroj is not a generic "folk dress" but a precisely codified set of garments specific to a location: the kroj of a woman from Velká nad Veličkou in the Hornatko sub-region differs from that of a woman from Stráznice in Slovacko in cut, colour palette, and embroidery vocabulary. These differences were historically immediately legible to anyone from the region.
The major costume sub-regions of Moravia are:
- Slovacko — centred on Uherské Hradiště and Hodonín. Women's costumes feature dense multicolour embroidery on white linen blouses, with layered underskirts and embroidered aprons. Men wear white trousers, embroidered waistcoats, and hats decorated with rosemary or flowers.
- Hornatko — the highland area around Velká nad Veličkou. Among the most elaborate costumes in Moravia. Women's blouses carry red and black geometric embroidery. The festive costume includes up to fifteen layers of underskirts.
- Wallachia (Valašsko) — the eastern Carpathian foothills. Costumes are influenced by Slovak and Vlach shepherd traditions. Women's dress uses dark blue and white with a shepherdess-style apron. Sheepskin waistcoats for men are characteristic of this region.
- Hana — the fertile lowlands around Olomouc and Prostějov. Considered the most colourful of Moravian sub-regions. Red and gold embroidery predominates. Hana women's festive costumes often feature a headdress of braided hair decorated with ribbons reaching to the waist.
Producing a full kroj requires months of embroidery work, typically done by the woman who will wear it or by her mother. The cost of materials for a complete festive Hornatko kroj was estimated at roughly 80,000–120,000 CZK as of 2023, according to the Slovácké muzeum annual report. Costume maintenance and repair is a recognised craft specialisation; several women in Slovacko villages earn income specifically as kroj seamstresses.
Wine Harvest in the Moravian Wine Regions
The Moravian wine country occupies a strip of territory in southern Moravia between Znojmo in the west and Hodonín in the east. Moravian wines account for approximately 94 percent of Czech domestic wine production, making the autumn grape harvest a major economic and cultural event across dozens of villages and small towns.
The ceremonial dimension of the wine harvest centres on vinobraní events held in September and October. The largest are in Uherské Hradiště, Znojmo, and Mikulov; smaller village vinobraní are organised by the individual wine-growers' associations that exist in most wine-country settlements. At these events, the first pressing of the year is made public, and the resulting cloudy wine called burčák — technically still fermenting — is served alongside smoked meat and bread. Burčák can only legally be sold and consumed fresh; it is protected by a European Union geographical indication.
Folk music is central to vinobraní. Cimbalom ensembles play through the afternoon and evening, and older guests often know the specific wine-harvest songs by heart. These songs are not the same as general Moravian folk songs; they reference the specific labour of the vineyard, the quality of particular years, and figures from local vine-growing history. Some wine-country songs have not been formally transcribed and exist only in the memory of older singers.
"A Moravian harvest song is not decorative background. It is an account of work — who was in the field, what the weather did, how much was brought in. That's why the songs are different in every village." — Jiří Novák, folk musicologist, Uherské Hradiště, interview in Slovácko magazine (2022)
Saint Martin's Day and the End of the Harvest Season
The harvest calendar closes formally on November 11 — the feast of Saint Martin — which traditionally marks the end of the vinobraní period and the moment when burčák becomes wine. Restaurants throughout Moravia and Bohemia serve roast goose on this day, another traditional association. In wine-growing villages, the Saint Martin's Day goose dinner is often a social occasion for the local wine cooperative, with the first bottles of the new vintage opened.
The significance of Saint Martin in Moravia extends beyond the wine calendar. In some Slovacko villages, November 11 also marks the day when seasonal farm labourers settled accounts and moved on to winter employment — a function that gives the day a social-financial dimension alongside its culinary meaning. Folk sayings about Saint Martin's weather are used to forecast the coming winter; a white Saint Martin (early snow) is considered a sign of a cold season ahead.
Last reviewed and updated: April 14, 2026