Rejection Pumpkins
Roses, candy, poetry and a candle-lit dinner are the traditional gifts a young man will lavish on the lady of his fancy. If so inclined, a lady may go a-wooing with craft beer, movie nights and hockey tickets. But what do you give to the admirer you’d rather not have, the suitor who’s not really suited to you?
There are very old and complex rituals surrounding love and marriage in Ukraine. When a man wishes to marry a woman, the would-be suitor first sends a representative who is well-versed in Ukrainian customs to propose to the woman in front of her family. If the woman accepts, she is given a long, embroidered towel to drape over her shoulders and chest. If she refuses, the representative is presented with a pumpkin.
The dreaded Ukrainian rejection pumpkin is something like a consolation prize for spurned lovers. It’s like saying, “I’m really not into you, but please accept this tasty gourd you can consume while crying your eyes out later tonight in a dark room.” The American equivalent, if America had an equivalent, would be presenting a young man with an oven-ready lasagna. “The answer is ‘no,’ but perhaps this rich snack of cheese and carb will help you forget that I just crushed your hopes and dreams.”
Fear of the pumpkin in Ukraine led to the phrase “daty harbuza;” literally translated, it means “to give someone the pumpkin,” to refuse. Pumpkin-based rejection rarely occurs these days, because the bride and groom usually know each other before-hand and the proposal does not come as a surprise. However, the pumpkin remains a powerful symbol of staunch refusal. Outside the realm of romance it has even been used as a symbol of political resistance.
Pumpkins may even be the key to Ukraine’s resistance against Russia. Ukraine is the world’s third largest pumpkin producer, with 98% of Ukrainian pumpkins grown by households, not industrial farms. Relentless bombings have damaged Ukrainian farmland with craters and shrapnel. This makes tilling the land to plant corn or wheat difficult and dangerous. But pumpkins are hearty plants that grow on uneven terrain. They can be used to produce byproducts like seeds and oil, which are easily transported and do not require storage in large, expensive silos. All this means that pumpkin may be one of Ukraine’s more viable methods of building back its agriculture and economy. Ukraine may very well hand Putin the pumpkin.
Brian Rutter, PhD, is the cofounder of Hundredfold Video and plant biologist working for 2Blades at the University of Minnesota. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive our “Things About Things – Odd Facts About Plants” and video production tips in your inbox every month!
Works Cited:
Greene, David. “Fear the pumpkin: in Ukraine, it’s the big kiss-off.” npr.org, 29 Oct 2010, https://www.npr.org/2010/10/29/130890830/fear-the-pumpkin-in-ukraine-its-the-big-kiss-off. Accessed 11 Feb 2024/
Kononenko, Natalie. "Ukrainian Village Weddings; Collected in Central Ukraine, 1998." FOLKLORICA-Journal of the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association 4, no. 1 (1999).
Youngwood, Ben. “Revisiting Pumpkins in Ukraine Amidst a Gruesome War.” brown politicalreview.org, 15 Feb 2023, https://brownpoliticalreview.org/2023/02/pumpkins-in-ukraine/. Accessed 11 Feb 2024.
