This is our New Years tree.It is crowned with a Rat-Angel, that we got on the Chinese year of the Rat.
Дед Мороз gave me a moleskin notebook :P
There is some history before this (pagan, tzar, Germany, ect), but overall: how Russians ended up with a New Year's Tree:
It was a Christmas tree, like any other, for the orthodox Christians. Then in 1917, the revolution happened and all religious holidays were forbidden.
Communists, yeah. But people need a winter festival of lights. So New Years became popular.
(and now i give up on re-wording it myself)
"However, following the article “Let’s Organize a Nice Fir-Tree for Children for the New Year!” by Pavel Postyshev, published in the major Soviet newspaper Pravda in the end of 1935, fir-trees and New Year festivities returned to people’s homes on December 31, 1935. Yet, it was not until 1949 that January 1 became an official day-off."
from here
An interesting note -- while the annual holiday gift-giving function of the character were entirely appropriated by the New Year through the authority of the USSR, the character of Дед Мороз (Ded Moroz, or "Grandfather Frost") existed long before that in Slavic folklore. The same transformation that happened when SinterKlaas of Dutch folklore (probably stemming from the Norse God Odin) became appropriated by the Western Christian tradition and blended with the Father Christmas character of British custom is evident here, as an old traditional character and a desire for religious holiday gift-giving are blended into one!
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Frost and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_claus were particularly interesting. =)
S novym godom!