Midsummer night in Slavic countries

Life's dependence on the Sun is obvious to the farmer. In Slavic countries the most important cyclical feasts were linked with the summer and winter solstices. On 24 June (near the longest day of the year) Slavs for centuries celebrated nocturnal rites of fire and water, life and death, called in Poland Kupala, Sobótka, or Noc Swietojanska.
The focus of the ritual, also known in many other parts of Europe, is the burning of bonfires (in the Krakow area where I come from, on hills). In Stara Ladoga on the Pobiediszcze mountain, fire was made in a ritual way - rubbing wood - up until the 19th century. Fire kindled in this way was known as 'living fire'. Women girdled in motherwort / mugwort (motherwort wormwood, Artemisia absinthium), a magical and healing herb, danced around the bonfires. Men jumped over the fires, singly or in pairs, and songs were sung whose 'texts are wideranging, from incantation with sun symbols to fortune telling and matchmaking of young couples'. (Aleksander Gieysztor 'Mitologia Slowian', Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, Warszawa 1982)
Songs and dances of erotic character were often accompanied by orgiastic behaviour of the young participants in the ritual.

During the feast of Kupala, along with rites linked to life and fire were those linked to death and water: the custom of drowning in the river or lake 'Kupala' or 'Marzanna' - the personification of death - a straw effigy/doll (known in other Slavic areas as Mara, Marena, Morena, Muriena - a name deriving from 'mar' or 'mor' meaning death; the same root led also to 'spectre' - Polish 'mara' means dream, nightmare, ghost). According to Natalia N. Wielecka, a Russian researcher, dolls burned on bonfires or drowned in water are symbolic traces of ancient human sacrifices. This custom has been maintained best in Ukrainian, Russian and Bialorussian folklore.
What's interesting is that in some parts of these countries, instead of burning or drowning a doll, a circle on a pole is burned - symbol of the sun.