Vertep

Vertep (Cyrillic: Вертеп, Батлейка) is a portable puppet theatre and drama predominantly in Ukraine, which presents the nativity scene, other mystery plays, and later secular plots as well. The original meaning of the word is "secret place", "cave", "den", referring to the cave where Christ was born, i.e., the Bethlehem Cave "Вифлеемский вертеп" in the liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. In the 17th century, the vertep arrived in the Russian Empire after of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate, where it was known as szopka, became a Protectorat of the empire in 1654 (it was formally part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth).

In Belarusian culture it was also referred to as Batleika (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. The word itself survived in the meanings of "robber's den" and "the den of depravity".

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