New Year tree in Russia: the history of bans. How they fought the Christmas tree in the USSR Who forbade Christmas trees in 1924

Christmas tree- one of the symbols of the New Year's holiday in Russia and some other countries. In Russia, this symbol has a long and difficult history.

New Year tree in tsarist Russia

The first Christmas tree in the Russian Empire was decorated by the St. Petersburg Germans in the 1840s. The custom quickly spread among the upper strata of the then Russian society. However, even among the representatives of the ruling classes, there was no unity on the “Christmas tree issue”: many landowners, for example, disliked the “German idea”.

As for the Russian peasants and proletarians, they might be happy to celebrate Christmas with dressed-up fir trees, but the landowners, capitalists and the tsarist government that expressed their interests "took care" of the masses so zealously that for proletarian and peasant children happiness was to get to a charity tree, which was organized by some kind-hearted merchant. In most cases, however, they had to be content with peeking into the windows of wealthy houses and contemplating Christmas trees decorated for Christmas by wealthy people.

Representatives of the advanced Russian intelligentsia, many of whom were from the upper strata of society, realized the injustice of this situation and, to the best of their ability, sought to correct it, even under tsarism. It is known, for example, that for the new year 1901 he arranged a Christmas tree with an electric garland for one and a half thousand children of the Nizhny Novgorod poor.

The first ban on the tree

The First World War began. Realizing that the German army could not be defeated, the tsarist government (and also the not very tsarist Synod) began to think in the same way as: if we cannot defeat our enemies in battle, we must, at least, overcome them morally.

So, the moral and psychological confrontation with Germany began. First, on 18 (31 in a new style) August 1914, the name of the capital of the Russian Empire changed: from St. Petersburg it turned into Petrograd. And then it was the tree's turn. It is difficult to establish exactly when the tree was declared an “enemy German idea”. Some researchers claim that it happened in the winter of 1914-1915, others, closer to the Russian Orthodox Church, claim that it happened in 1916. Whom to believe is a difficult question, since the first group of researchers seems to have less relation to the Holy Synod, and the second group mercilessly distorts history, claiming that "the Bolsheviks have tacitly extended this ban."

New Year trees under Lenin

Many ridiculous measures are attributed to the Soviet power today, while the implementation of these events is trying to "tie" not so much even to the Soviet power as to,. In particular, they are trying to "deduce" the "war with the trees" from Marxism-Leninism.

In fact, in the first years of Soviet power, despite the presence in the Soviet government and others, there was no war with the trees at all. On the contrary: as early as December 31, 1917, in all districts of Petrograd, “proletarian Christmas trees” were organized for the children of workers.

On January 7, 1924, Vladimir Ilyich, already terminally ill and living without a break in Gorki, organized a Christmas party for the children of the state farm and sanatorium.

The second lightning of the tree

If the first ban on the Christmas tree is rarely remembered now, then the second, allegedly taking place in Soviet years, on the contrary, remember every new year. The memories of the "repressions against the tree" turned into the same New Year's tradition, like the tree itself.

True, when it comes to facts, it turns out that the Soviet ban on Christmas trees is like the legendary lieutenant Kizhe: there are many mentions of its existence, and the cat cried out for reliable evidence.

Some researchers, as mentioned earlier, argue that the Bolsheviks tacitly extended the ban on Christmas trees, which was born in the bowels of the Holy Synod, apparently to commemorate loyalty to Russian traditions and the continuity of the “Red Empire” from all others. It is even puzzling why, or have not written anything on this topic until now, because they could kill two birds with one stone: and once again “expose the regime” (see below), and show themselves as experts in Russian history.

In part, the reasons for the silence of Zyuganov and Prokhanov can be clarified if we consider that both of them are supporters of unity, and the patriotic forces have their own views on the “Christmas tree question”, formulated in the works of such researchers as Doctor of Historical Sciences Yuri Zhukov and simply historian Sergei Semanov. Both of them argue that the circular of the People's Commissariat for Land of the RSFSR of December 11, 1928, decisively forbade citizens of the RSFSR (or, perhaps, the Ukrainian SSR and the BSSR, and at the same time the ZSFSR, too?) To cut spruce. Both of them do not quote any quotes from this circular (which would at least make it possible to understand: it was forbidden to chop spruce only "for Christmas purposes", or from December 11, 1928, they were also forbidden to be used for firewood). Yuri Zhukov does not say anything more about the "Christmas tree repressions", Sergei Semanov is more talkative:

By January 1, 1936, the entire Russian, all Christian population Soviet Union received an unexpected and joyful gift - permission to celebrate New Year with a Christmas tree. Here again clarifications are required. Under Lenin and Trotsky, the New Year holidays were equated with religious prejudices, even with a Black Hundred smell, and were prohibited. In 1928 the People's Commissariat of Agriculture Russian Federation by a special strict circular he forbade the felling of firs for the holidays, the guilty were punished.

As for the anti-popular regime, it has its own version of "Christmas tree repressions":

Naturally, the anti-popular regime and its minions do not say anything about which of the Plenums of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) that took place in 1926 (April, July, October or, perhaps, November) declared the tree “bourgeois”. We do not know about this either, but we do know that neither the collection "VKP (b) in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee", nor in the collection "CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee" traces of such decisions it is not possible to find it. And we also know that in 1926 the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) had affairs (both in the economic life of the country and in the internal party struggle) that were much more important than the fight against Christmas trees.

However, all that has been said does not indicate that the myth of the "ban on trees" in the USSR arose from scratch. The disapproving attitude towards the trees did indeed arise shortly after Lenin's death. The symbol of the New Year has again become a victim of a moral and psychological struggle, this time against religion. Alas, not everyone who in the Soviet Union in the late twenties and early thirties was engaged in anti-religious work, had enough talent and tact necessary for this work, so they appeared in Soviet funds mass media similar "letters of workers":

The poet Boris Verevkin added fuel to the fire, who wrote poems in 1929 for the Day of the Forest, in which the trees also got it:

This poem caught the eye, who made sure that they became known throughout the country.

But nothing hits the writers of the legend about the “ban on the Christmas tree in the USSR” as painfully as the story of its “resolution”. And if there are many versions about the "prohibition", as the reader could see above, then on the issue of "permission", on the contrary, there is unanimity: the overwhelming majority of researchers admit that they "returned" the Christmas tree to Soviet children.

The most curious thing is, of course, the way in which Postyshev, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, stopped the “Christmas tree repressions”. On December 28, 1935, Postyshev's note “Let's organize a good Christmas tree for the children for the New Year!” Appeared. Here is its full text:

In pre-revolutionary times, the bourgeoisie and bourgeois officials always arranged a Christmas tree for their children for the New Year. Children of workers with envy looked through the window at the Christmas tree sparkling with colorful lights and the children of the rich, having fun around it.
Why do we have schools, orphanages, nurseries, children's clubs, palaces of pioneers depriving the children of the working people of the Soviet country of this wonderful pleasure? Some, not otherwise than the "left" benders denounced this children's entertainment as a bourgeois venture.
Follow this misjudgment of the Christmas tree, which is great fun for children, to end. Komsomol members, pioneer workers should arrange collective Christmas trees for children on New Year's Eve. In schools, orphanages, in pioneer palaces, in children's clubs, in children's cinemas and theaters - there should be a children's tree everywhere! There should not be a single collective farm where the board, together with the Komsomol members, would not arrange a Christmas tree for their children on the New Year's Eve. City councils, chairmen of district executive committees, village councils, bodies public education must help arrange a Soviet Christmas tree for the children of our great socialist homeland.
Our children will only be grateful to the organization of a children's Christmas tree.
I am sure that the Komsomol members will take the most active part in this matter and eradicate the absurd opinion that the children's tree is a bourgeois prejudice.
So, let's organize a fun New Year party for children, arrange a good Soviet Christmas tree in all cities and collective farms!

According to the aforementioned researchers, the USSR was a kind of state entity in which the decisions of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the circulars of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the largest Soviet republic could be canceled through such newspaper notes.

However, at a time when the minions of the Russian anti-popular regime are inventing "Stalinist Christmas tree repressions", which has more experience and, as a result, somewhat more outstanding intellectual abilities, admits:

The point is that, apparently, no special decision on the "rehabilitation" of the tree has been made. There are no traces of this decision in the materials of the Politburo, or in the materials of the Central Executive Committee, or the Council of People's Commissars. Our archivists have specially dealt with this issue, but have not found anything. And for formal reasons, there was no point in "restoring the rights" to the tree - on such high level... Because there was simply no official ban on it. There was a general anti-religious campaign, there were decisions by local authorities to stop selling Christmas trees, Christmas tree decorations, etc. But for the Politburo to “take care of” the tree, this was not the case. And it could hardly be.

One way or another, after Postyshev's note appeared in print, the moral and psychological war with the Christmas tree stopped. The tree again became a full symbol of the New Year, which it is to this day.

Notes (edit)

Voltskaya T. For the 300th time - in European style // Nevskoe Vremya no. 242 (2123), December 31, 1999.
Nefedova I.M. Maksim Gorky. Writer's biography: A manual for students - L .: Enlightenment, 1971
Perhaps for some it will be news, but during the preparation and implementation of the February Revolution, the Holy Synod came out sharply against not only Nicholas II (the members of the Synod recognized the powers of the Executive Committee of the State Duma even before the tsar's abdication), but also the tsarist power in general - and where only these figures, with their condemnation of "Caesaropapism", were in 1905, when the tsarist troops were killing Petersburg workers, when the artillery of "Caesar" fired at the Presnensk barricades ...
Nikitin V.S. Broken conscience // Soviet Russia № 168 (13066), December 15, 2007.

Throughout the history of the existence of the tradition of decorating a Christmas tree for the New Year in our country, it has been banned several times.

During the First World War, the Christmas tree evoked associations with the German Lutherans, and the sale of trees for the New Year was banned.

The tradition returned after the revolution and until 1924 the New Year tree again delighted with its brilliance. Vladimir Ilyich himself loved the New Year holidays, his Sokolnicheskaya Christmas tree for children in Moscow was held even in the year of his serious illness in 1924.

After Lenin's death, along with everything traditionally religious, they took up arms against the Christmas tree with renewed vigor: "You and I are enemies to the priests, we don't need Christmas!"

There were also those in the Bolshevik government who loved to decorate Christmas trees. A Bolshevik with an impeccable reputation Postyshev published an article in the Pravd newspaper at the end of December 1935, where he called for the children to return the New Year tree, arguing that in the “bourgeois” past they did not have the opportunity to dance around it:

“The children of the workers looked through the window with envy at the Christmas tree sparkling with colored lights and the rich children having fun around it ... let's organize a merry New Year party for children, arrange a good Soviet Christmas tree in all cities and collective farms ... I am sure that the Komsomol members will in this matter the most active participation and will eradicate the ridiculous opinion that the children's tree is a bourgeois prejudice ... "

Stalin supported this "good" initiative and the sale of Christmas trees was again allowed. Throughout the country, they began to arrange children's New Year's Trees, and Postyshev was portrayed in caricatures as Santa Claus.

Christmas bazaars - traditionally began to work in the USSR in the last days of December, not like today - from the middle. Trucks piled high with Christmas trees of all sizes and dignities came to the cities. It was inexpensive to buy a Christmas tree, the main thing is to get it “more fluffy”.

Over time, the population in the cities grew and there were not enough trees for everyone. Then, in the industry of the 60s of the USSR, they adopted the "Western" tradition of making artificial Christmas trees. The population actively supported this innovation, although, of course, the first Soviet artificial Christmas trees resembled natural ones a little and the demand for a "live" Christmas tree was great.

There have been no more bans on the sale of the fluffy-scented symbol of the New Year in the entire subsequent history of our country. Only bans were introduced on the unauthorized felling of spruce in protected areas, although it is clear that they were violated for many decades. They hunted for Christmas trees on pain of administrative fines some 20 years ago.

Today we offer for sale the whole range of spruce trees - both domestic and foreign "growth" and production. The holiday these days has become more flashy and less long-awaited, because the first decorated Christmas trees appear in mid-November, and by the time the New Year comes, they are already boring.

New Year's traditions with a tree, a feast and speeches of a political leader, although they are considered habitual attributes of the holiday, are by no means deeply historical phenomena. The first half of the 20th century was the time when the New Year tree was either allowed or prohibited, and the holiday itself changed its status several times and only in the post-war period became exactly what we all know it. Real material dedicated to the history of the "struggle" for New Year's celebration and a Christmas tree both in the all-Russian (Soviet) context and on the scale of the Vyatka land.

The tsar forbade, but Lenin allowed

As you know, during the First World War, which Russia entered in 1914, an active anti-German campaign began in the country. In the spring of 1915, Nicholas II approved a "Special Committee for Combining Measures to Combat German Dominance"; closer to winter, the liquidation of German colonies in the Volga region, southern Ukraine and the Caucasus began, as well as the forced resettlement of colonists to Siberia. Plus, we can note the renaming of St. Petersburg to Petrograd - a purely symbolic phenomenon. The New Year was then also perceived as something brought from Germany. On the eve of 1915, German prisoners of war in a Saratov hospital held a holiday with a traditional Christmas tree. The press called it "Blatant fact", the journalists were supported by the Holy Synod and Emperor Nicholas II. Following the lead of public opinion, the tsar called the tradition of the new year "enemy" and categorically forbade it to follow.

However, after the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, the ban was lifted. In Germany, as you know, a revolution took place in 1918 and now this country has become our closest friend in the communist international movement. But, apparently, among the Bolsheviks themselves there was no consensus about the new year. As always, a radical-minded faction was found in their ranks, whose members considered the holiday a "bourgeois prejudice," "a relic of the pre-Soviet past," etc. On the other hand, there is evidence that Lenin himself loved New Year's festivities. Take, for example, the famous Lenin's Christmas trees in Sokolniki, which Vladimir Ilyich personally arranged. Despite some ideologism, the writer Alexander Kononov still quite reliably described this event in the story "Christmas tree in Sokolniki". In addition, the holiday had an interesting social connotation. Children saw the New Year tree for the first time, because before the revolution for Russian peasants the New Year with a Christmas tree decorated with toys was "lordly fun" and "foreign innovation".

By the way, it was on the way to such a tree on January 6, 1919 that the Soviet leader was attacked. On that day, Lenin was driving from the Kremlin to Sokolniki for the first New Year's children's party, but suddenly the car was stopped by the raiders of the famous Moscow bandit Yakov Koshelkov. They literally threw Ilyich out of the car, put a revolver to his temple, fumbled in his pockets, took away money, documents, "Browning". Lenin's armed guards and his personal chauffeur did not resist, so as not to endanger the life of the leader. Koshelkov did not recognize Lenin, which he later regretted: he told his accomplices that if he had taken Lenin hostage, they could have demanded that the entire Butyrka be released in exchange for him. Lenin, having gone through the stress, immediately took a new car and arrived at the children’s Christmas tree. He joked, danced in circles, treated them to sweets, gave each of them a gift - a pipe and a drum. In general, he behaved like a real Soviet Santa Claus.

1920s: GUBLIT and his "red trees"

However, after the death of V.I. Lenin in 1924, the position of the ruling party began to change by the new year. He was not banned, but he was no longer the same happy holiday with all the necessary attributes. How did the transformation of attitudes towards the New Year take place in the 1920s in Vyatka? This can be seen most vividly on the basis of the archival documents of the Gublit fund preserved in the State Autonomous Region. This body regulated the activities that took place in the field of culture and education. So, in 1925, among the documents, there are many petitions and requests for permission to hold the New Year. For example, these are:

Most documents from that period use the term "Red Christmas tree". The very celebration of the new year in the mid-1920s. in fact, it turned into an extremely regulated ceremonial meeting, diluted with reports on topical socio-political topics and amateur performances. Of course, the main motive that ran through everything holiday programs, was the topic of abandoning traditional religious festivals. Here is an example of a typical schedule of New Year's celebrations from 1925: in the 1st part - the report "Does the proletariat need religion?", In the second - concert numbers, games and even dances.

Let's give one more interesting example, which will allow you to understand how the New Year trees were held in educational institutions Vyatka. In 1924 Gublit authorized the staging of the children's opera "Old Year's Dream" on January 11, 1925 in one of the city's schools.

The script for the opera has been preserved in the Gublit Foundation; it is a document very characteristic of the era. It clearly shows the confrontation between the old and the new year, which is coupled with an acute class struggle, condemnation of the bourgeoisie, calls to join the MOPR and develop agriculture. The main characters, in addition to the old and the new years: Komsomol members, Red Army men, workers, minors.

Since the document is extensive, we publish only scans of the beginning and end of the opera, they give a clear understanding of what children's fairy tales were staged in the 1920s. New Year's party... The final monologue of the new year is so programmatic that it would be more suitable for a responsible party worker.

1927: New Years as a Daring Bolshevik

In 1927, the tone of the New Year rhetoric changed. If you open the newspaper "Vyatskaya Pravda" for January 1927, then already in the first issue you can find several articles and feuilletons directed against the established ideas about the new year. The strongest of them in meaning was placed on the front page. It said that “The working class has a new chronology - October 1917, its really New Year, when for the first time Comrade. Lenin became the helm of the proletarian state "... Then there was a story about the endless problems of the capitalist world, foreign policy threats to the young Bolshevik country and the prospects for the victory of communism throughout the world. On the second page, there is a very funny feuilleton: the New Year in the image of an all-pervading Bolshevik alternately comes to the enemies of the USSR and leads them to clean water... Here's a quote:

“New Year's Eve at the reception at the lady of emigration.
The old, graying emigration, with obvious holidays of neurasthenia, was impatiently awaiting his visit. He entered hastily and without a report:
- Oh, is that you? 1927? Well, finally, you will please me with news! What is there in the homeland?
- Oh, there every day is celebrated with colossal achievements. Volkhovstroy was launched. Construction begins on Dneprostroy. They take seriously the industrialization of the country.
Madame Emigration was hammered in a nervous fever and languidly asked for "water."

Published in 1927, Materials for Anti-Religious Propaganda on Christmas Day, it was said: “The guys are deceiving that Santa Claus brought them presents. The children’s religiousness begins with the Christmas tree. The ruling exploiting classes use the "cute" Christmas tree and the "kind" Santa Claus also to make obedient and patient servants of capital out of the working people. "... Thus, having existed with the Soviet regime for 10 years, the New Year and the New Year tree were banned. Those interested, of course, celebrated, although if the authorities found out about it, then, of course, this act was regarded as "irresponsible."

1935: the return and victory of the Christmas tree

As already mentioned above, at the turn of 1926 - 1927. the new year as a holiday began to transform. As a result, all this led to the prohibition of the New Year's celebration for a long 8 years. It is believed that the rehabilitation of the holiday and its attributes (Christmas tree) began with a small note in the newspaper Pravda, published on December 28, 1935. It was about an initiative to organize a good Christmas tree for the children for the New Year. The note was signed by the second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Pavel Postyshev. Already on December 30, 1935, in Kharkov, where Postyshev had recently worked as the first secretary of the regional party committee, the first New Year's carnival ball in the USSR was held. About 1200 schoolchildren took part in it. Postyshev's initiative was recognized as timely, and after 11 months the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions secretariat decided: "Since the celebration of the New Year has become and is a national holiday, and is celebrated by the working people, this holiday must be legalized".

New Year trees gradually began to take root, and over time, celebrating the new year became the norm in the USSR. A number of historians call Postyshev "the man who returned the tree to the people." The thesis is certainly controversial. The initiative on the part of Postyshev really took place. But on the whole, the revival of New Year trees and traditions should be considered as components of the general course of the policy of “Stalinist traditionalism” of the mid-1930s. The first Soviet New Year trees were rather politicized. The performances in one way or another touched on the topic of class struggle, and children came to them in the costumes of the Red Army or shock labor. The achievements of the hero pilots, the conquerors of the Arctic, were also sung. By the way, the "father" of the Soviet New Year, Pavel Postyshev, did not really have time to celebrate the holiday: in the second half of the 1930s. when the internal party struggle intensified, Postyshev fell into disgrace and in 1939 was shot.

Pavel Postyshev

Since 1937, the New Year has been widely and pompously celebrated. In Moscow, in the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure and on Manezhnaya Square, two of the most big trees... On January 1, 1937, a carnival ball of excellent students took place in the House of Unions. In the same 1937, from among the paratroopers of the propaganda squadrons, detachments of Santa Claus began to form in order to throw new Year gifts to the most inaccessible corners of the country. This action, according to its organizers, clearly promoted the capabilities of Soviet aviation and paratroopers. On the eve of 1938, agitation trains, agitation cars and snowmobiles left for other settlements, civilian planes took off, skiers and even special couriers on reindeer sleds went. But out of competition was the luxurious Christmas tree in the House of Unions, on which ten thousand sparkled in the beams of searchlights Christmas tree decorations with workers 'and peasants' and communist symbols. By the mid-1950s. New Year's holiday has finally formed and has grown with the usual amount of traditions, so now it is difficult to imagine the life of the population of the countries of the former USSR without it.

The tradition of installing a Christmas tree in our country dates back less than 200 years. However, practically throughout this period, the fate of the Christmas tree was more than easy - representatives of the church, cheers-patriots, communists and simply lovers of wildlife tried to ban the custom one by one. It is no less curious that decisions on the prohibition and rehabilitation of this seemingly completely harmless custom were made at the highest level.

As you know, the custom of decorating a Christmas tree in honor of the New Year was brought to Russia by Peter I, who had spied on it during a trip to Europe. However, over the next 100 years, the foreign tradition continued to be alien to the exotic. First, in Russia, the spruce was historically considered a symbol of death, which is why the peasants shunned the new custom. Secondly, according to the Peter's decree, it was ordered to decorate the roofs of taverns with fir branches. This led to the fact that drinking establishments began to be called "Christmas trees" everywhere. It is clear that with such an image of the New Year tree, the nobles also did not seek to install it in their homes.

As a result, the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree was strengthened only at the beginning of the 19th century, after the St. Petersburg aristocracy decided to adopt the beautiful custom of setting up a Christmas tree from the Germans living in the capital. On December 24, 1817, at the initiative of Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna, the wife of the future Emperor Nicholas I, a home tree was arranged in the Tsarevich's chambers. It was already fashionable to imitate the example of the authorities in Russia at that time, and therefore the trees quickly became the everyday life of the capital's nobility.

"You can hang a white one on each tree!"

Finally, the tree blended into the Russian New Year's interior only by the end of the 19th century. The tradition has become so deeply rooted that, as Vasily Rozanov wrote, it would never occur to anyone to call it non-Russian. However, as it turned out, there were still some.

The reason was the world war that began in 1914. In the wake of anti-German sentiments, the ultra-patriots demanded to completely abandon everything German, down to tooth powder and beer. They also remembered the Christmas tree. “It can be considered almost established opinion that the Christmas tree is an invention of the German people, that Russian antiquity did not know it,” wrote the “Stock Exchange”. The priests added fuel to the fire. As noted by Doctor of Historical Sciences Anton Ivanov, the Holy Synod did not fail to clarify that the church has always been wary of the Christmas tree tradition. And the rector

At the Petrograd Theological Academy, Anastasiy directly stated that the custom brought from the Germans should be eradicated and returned to "scrapie" - caroling, singing songs and sprinkling rye on each other.

However, the initiative was still not widely disseminated. The Bolsheviks who came to power dealt a much stronger blow to the established tradition.

“There is an opinion that the Soviet government banned the tree immediately after the October coup. However, it is not. Immediately after the seizure of power, the Bolsheviks did not encroach on the tree, ”writes Doctor of Philology Elena Dushechkina. A large-scale attack on custom, inextricably linked with religion, began only in 1922, when it was decided to oppose Christmas with “Komsomol Christmastide”.

On December 25, declared a non-working day, an action swept across the country. Komsomol activists walked the streets, dressed up in the costumes of bourgeois, kulaks and priests, arranging the burning of "divine images" and reading topical poems:

Christmas is coming soon

A disgusting bourgeois holiday ...

The one who cut down the tree

He is ten times more harmful than the enemy,

After all, on every tree

You can hang a white one!

At the same time, the Komsomol members were advised to go around the house and carry on "antiyokh" campaigning. Apparently, it was carried out with such revelry that even Lenin condemned the zeal of the Komsomol members, calling it "harmful mischief." Nevertheless, the propaganda did not stop - two years later the Leningrad newspaper Krasnaya Gazeta reported: “It is noticeable that Christmas prejudices have almost ceased. There are no trees in the bazaars - there are few unconscious people! "

"Proposed Kobe to allow the celebration of Christmas."

The tree was rehabilitated in 1935. On December 28, the country's main newspaper, Pravda, published an article signed by Politburo candidate Pavel Postyshev, in which he recalled how, before the revolution, the children of peasants and workers looked enviously out the windows of wealthy houses at the children of the bourgeois dancing around a decorated Christmas tree. "Let's organize a fun New Year party for children, arrange a good Soviet Christmas tree in all cities and collective farms!" - called Postyshev. The very next day, Christmas tree bazaars were opened in Moscow and Leningrad, and Christmas trees were arranged in houses of culture and schools for children.

Such a quick organization, coupled with an unexpected change in attitudes towards the "relic of the past", immediately led many to the idea that all this was not done by chance. Indeed, many years later Nikita Khrushchev revealed a secret in his memoirs: it turns out that the idea to remove the taboo from tradition came personally from Stalin, and Postyshev was chosen only as a “talking head”. The fact is that a month and a half before that, Stalin made a keynote speech about the successes in building socialism, ending it with the phrase that has gone down in history: “Life has become better, life has become more fun!”. The New Year's celebration with a shining Christmas tree was supposed to confirm the leader's thesis. Now the celebration of the New Year was not only not prohibited - it has become a mandatory event for all schools, kindergartens and clubs.

It is interesting that Stalin later acted in a similar way with Christmas, about which much less is known. Its public celebration remained virtually banned, but since the mid-40s, the authorities began to turn a blind eye to the fact that the priests in the churches after the service arrange Christmas celebrations for their flock. The underlying reason for this became known from the memoirs of Lavrenty Beria, published already in our time. It turns out that it was he who, in March 1943, turned to Stalin with the idea of easing the pressure on believers. Naturally, also with a long-range scope. “He proposed to Kobe to allow the celebration of Christmas by the end of the year,” Beria wrote in his diary. - By this time, we will liberate many new territories, the Germans opened churches there, and the priests supported them where, where how. If we return and the temples remain, they will appreciate it. And we'll add Christmas. It will turn out well. Allies will appreciate it too. Koba listened, said: what, on the road and the rope will come in handy, come on ”.

"Isn't it time to stop cutting spruce in the USSR?"

At the end of the Great Patriotic War, a slender fluffy forest beauty became an indispensable attribute of the New Year's celebration - now anyone who doubted the advisability of her presence in the hall would be looked at with amazement. Nevertheless, in 1959 another attempt was made, if not to break, then somewhat modify the tradition. However, this time it was not the ideological component that was questioned, but the economic one. The Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR sent a letter to the Union Council of Ministers in which it proposed to prohibit the felling of conifers for christmas decoration... “As a result of increased exploitation and in places of irrational forestry management, the forest area of the Soviet Union is rapidly decreasing,” wrote the chairman of the academy's nature protection commission H. Mirimanyan. - The amount of spruce is cut down, which, according to the minimum estimate, is 15 thousand hectares. In light of all this, the question arises: Isn't it time to stop felling trees for trees throughout the Soviet Union? " As an alternative, a representative of the academy suggested setting up the production of artificial trees, growing Christmas trees in tubs, or setting up special nurseries. True, the latter idea was questioned, as it did not exclude the possibility of abuse. And although in subsequent years all three initiatives were implemented, the main tree of the country still has a natural origin, because the real smell of the holiday cannot be replaced by any ersatz.

BY THE WAY
Elena Dushechkina writes about a curious curiosity associated with Soviet New Year's propaganda in her book "Russian Christmas Tree". Every child in the USSR knew from childhood how Lenin arranged a Christmas tree in Gorki for peasant children living in the district. Numerous stories and poems were dedicated to this event. However, the authors diligently kept silent about the date of the holiday. And not without reason - the tree was held on Christmas Eve, which did not fit with anti-religious propaganda. Another problem was the description of the celebration. It was usually reported that Lenin had invited a whole bunch of children, had fun with them, and handed out gifts. However, attempts to find the participants in the celebration did not lead to anything. “In 1938, the artist E.S. Zernova turned to Krupskaya with a request to tell about how the Christmas tree was held in Gorki. In response, Krupskaya wrote: “Dear comrade, I would not advise you to take this topic. He was at the Christmas tree in Gorki, but then he was seriously ill, he was taken out in a chair, there were very few guys there, ”Dushechkina writes. This gave the researchers reason to believe that in reality at the Christmas tree in Gorki there were no more than five or six relatives, pupils and loved ones of the Ulyanov family, as well as several children of the attendants.

Traditions section publications

Just a century ago, Christmas, which had been a universal favorite holiday for hundreds of years, lost its significance in a couple of decades. The country was changing, and along with it traditions and foundations were breaking. We propose to follow how this happened using the example of works of art and documentary materials.

"Komsomolskoe Christmas"

Christmas tree in Sokolniki (1919)

Ticket for festive evening (1923)

Calendar (1922)

In the new Soviet state, everything was new - both everyday life and holidays. The traditions of Christian Christmas and the Secular New Year have changed and mixed, sometimes in bizarre ways. In the 1920s, eradicating religious holidays and replacing them with civil ones became part of the philosophy of the "new way of life." Having provided citizens with the usual days off, it was necessary to fill them with new, atheistic, useful content for the collective.

The Soviet press claimed that people go to church "like a club or a cinema" - in order to spend free time, have fun, chat. “And the rest of the holiday time is being killed absolutely senselessly or downright disgusting: cards, toss, moonshine,” wrote in the newspaper Pravda in 1922.

Vladimir Mayakovsky in the poem "Whose Christmas?" described holiday atrocities:

A rumble will float out of the church -
very cheerful.
There will be more than a hundred cheekbones
torn apart in a fight.
I look at a joyful celebration
I don't dare to take my eyes off ...
But why is it called "Christ's nativity",
and not a "green snake christmas" ?!

In order to distract the people from the church celebration and the accompanying "outrages", they arranged a "Komsomol Christmas". The main events were "godless carnivals", "red carols" and educational talks. Activists explained that there is nothing special about Christian Christmas: this holiday has pagan roots, its analogues exist in all religions. This is how the Komsomolets newspaper described the 1923 Christmas carnival in Kursk: “There is a whole heavenly collection: different gods of all times and all peoples. There is also the god Capital. Nearby are the priest, the tsar and the bourgeois, and at a distance a worker with a hammer, a peasant with a plow and a Red Army soldier with a rifle. Next is a boat with members of the Komsomol, mummers, magicians, etc. We approach the monastery with the singing of anti-religious songs. Many outsiders look at this procession with surprise, and then they got out of the monastery and, not understanding what the matter is, began to be baptized (they thought that there was a “living church”). The burning of all the gods began, and the youth arranged dances and dances around this fire, jumped over the fire, etc. ".

Leaflet "Down with the Christmas tree" (1927)

Anti-Christmas propaganda. Photo: back-in-ussr.com

Anti-Christmas campaign in December 1924

Many willingly joined the holiday, but, as experience has shown, did not understand the true meaning of the scenes shown by the Komsomol. In some areas, "godless carnivals" provoked conflicts between representatives of different faiths, clashes between believers and atheists. Therefore, starting in 1924, the party leadership recommended abandoning street events and focusing on scientific propaganda in workers' and village clubs.

For several more years the Nativity of Christ remained the “red day of the calendar”. Along with this, a fine was imposed for the celebration, as for absenteeism. Formally, the decision on the status of the holiday was left at the mercy of the local authorities in accordance with the "local national living conditions, the composition of the population, etc."

The official history of Christmas in Soviet Russia ended in 1929 when it ceased to be a day off. "The irrevocable and complete elimination of the celebration of 'Christmas', begun this year, its transformation into a working day is one of the major new achievements on the path of restructuring the working life on new cultural and socialist principles," wrote Krasnaya Gazeta.

Christmas tree adventures

Unknown artist. V. I. Lenin at the Christmas tree in Sokolniki.

Kononov A. Yolka in Sokolniki (1954) Fig. N. Zhukova

Nikolay Zhukov. Lenin at the Christmas tree in Sokolniki (1919)

During the First World War, the Christmas tree was fought as a "German invention", in the 1920s and 1930s - as a "bourgeois relic". But to no avail: the ornate tree was too attractive a symbol for tired and disadvantaged people.

Before the revolution, decorating a Christmas tree was a rather expensive pleasure, it was mainly wealthy citizens who were engaged in it, and the custom was not close to the majority of the population. This allowed the Soviet government to borrow an advantageous image from a religious holiday. An elegant Christmas tree with sweets and gifts made a huge impression on children from poor families.

New tree - new heroes. Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich left a textbook story about how Vladimir Lenin visited a school Christmas tree in Sokolniki in 1919: “At this time, the tree suddenly flashed with multi-colored lights. It was the school's fitter who arranged it. He got hold of small electric bulbs and the night before, late in the evening, when everyone was asleep, he skillfully ran a cord and woven the bulbs into the branches of the tree. There was no end to the exultation and joy of the children. Vladimir Ilyich rejoiced with all his heart and sang with them. He chopped walnuts for them, poured tea from hot glasses into saucers, added sweets and kindly watched everyone, as if they were all his family. "

It is easy to see here the features of the classic Christmastide story - about a miracle on Christmas Day, which changes the fate of the heroes. Indirectly, Semyon Kirsanov recalled this outdated tradition in his "Christmas tree verse":

It used to be on the night before Christmas
read in any magazine
a story about a Christmas tree, a master's table
and about the frozen boy.
Now there are no such magazines, -
the frost is enough for the ears,
but boys all over the country
not seen freezing.

Over time, the position of the Soviet leadership changed, and the tree was declared a harmful relic. In 1927, the Ogonyok magazine published a critical article: “Until now, along with circling around the tree, parents are trying to instill in their children the seeds of religion. Religious parents, under the guise of a "merry Christmas tree," impose on children "God" and other fables like "Christmas grandfather." The cult of the Christmas tree brings great harm to the forests. It would be long ago to put a limit to the mystical harmful worship of the tree, and the destruction of forests. We hope that the agitation of the union of the atheists will finally break the senseless custom. Instead of putting the tree on the cross, let's put the cross on the tree! "

Vladimir Mayakovsky supported the anti-religious agitation with the poem "Christmas wishes and gifts":

Why did I stick with the trees?
My answer is short-lived:
nothing because of the dubious birth of Christ
millions to exterminate the trees born.
I formulate, breaking all the questions
(unhook, doubt a tick!):
Christ is a myth
and the tree is a thing.

Christmas bazaars were banned; those who nevertheless decorated the tree at home did it in secret and took great risks. However, in 1935, the official propaganda made another somersault. On December 28, the newspaper Pravda published an article signed by Pavel Postyshev, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks: “Follow this misjudgment of the Christmas tree, which is great fun for children, to end it. Komsomol members, pioneer workers should arrange collective Christmas trees for children on New Year's Eve. In schools, orphanages, in pioneer palaces, in children's clubs, in children's cinemas and theaters - there should be a children's tree everywhere! Let's organize a merry New Year party for children, arrange a good Soviet Christmas tree in all cities and collective farms! "

Fir trees returned to the streets and houses, the production of Christmas tree decorations resumed, Soviet poets urgently composed poems and songs for children's parties. Here is another fragment of the aforementioned "Christmas tree verse" by Semyon Kirsanov:

Dressed in glitter, lit the balls:
"I'll come to you on New Year's Eve! .."
And she entered our rooms
coniferous girlfriend.
The whole city rustled in the Christmas trees
in the ringing of New Year's midnight, -
the lantern swings like a ball
both street and Christmas tree.

New holiday

Alexander Gulyaev "New Year" (1967)

Peter Kozlov "Old toys"

Tatiana Eremina "New Year's Eve" (1953)

The tree is again the queen of the holiday, but not Christmas, but New Year's. She began to look different: red five pointed star at the top replaced Bethlehem, instead of angels on the branches - pilots, tanks, rockets.

Alla Andreeva, the wife of the writer Daniil Andreev, who spent several years in the Mordovian camps in the 50s, recalled: “Then we endlessly did Christmas decorations... No matter how much I told the “citizens to the bosses” that toys are cherished all their lives, that for decades every year the same favorite Christmas tree decorations were taken out of our family, nothing helped. Everything that we did was thrown away, and next New Year (and they had a tree not for Christmas, as expected, but for New Year) again we made endless toys. "

So, Soviet people (and not only children) got used to celebrating the New Year on January 1. Instead of Christ, the hero of the day was Santa Claus, whose image combined the features of the European Saint Nicholas, folklore Frost and the kind "grandfather Lenin". In 1937, Snegurochka was given to him as an assistant - she first appeared at a holiday in the House of Unions.

Celebrating the New Year was supposed to be noisy, active, with music and dancing. In the story of Arkady Gaidar, The Commandant of the Snow Fortress, which takes place during the Winter War with Finland, children arrange a Christmas tree for the wounded soldiers: "Thunders funny music... The door slams every minute. The guys are running in fancy dress... Inside, the children hastily hang pictures and garlands of greenery on the wall. Two girls are sweeping the floor. Nina, with a stray hairdo, in a working dressing gown, commands the guys decorating the Christmas tree. Jazz is rehearsing in the corner. "

On December 31, 1941, Mikhail Kalinin addressed the Soviet people on the radio: “Dear comrades! Citizens of the Soviet Union! Workers and women workers! Collective farmers and collective farmers! Soviet intelligentsia! Soldiers, commanders and political workers of the Red Army and Navy! Partisans and partisans! Inhabitants of the Soviet regions temporarily occupied by the German fascist invaders! Let me wish you a Happy New Year. "

During the Great Patriotic War there was a short renaissance of Christian Christmas, there is evidence of Christmas services in churches. But after decades of prohibitions and persecutions, the religious holiday could not return to daily life of people.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his novel In the First Circle, mentioned the celebration of Christmas in a sharashka by captured Germans and Latvians. Alla Andreeva described the festive performance, which was staged by the prisoner believers of the Ukrainian women: “Little by little, everyone sits down, and the mystery begins. Nativity. The angel sings, the mothers cry, whose children Herod killed. Then everything that relies on this simple and pure Christmas mystical performance. While the barrack informer was running to watch — and the barrack was getting out the most distant — while the warden was getting ready, he walked through the entire zone, everything was already over a long time ago, and we sat quietly. "

The canon of the Soviet New Year was being formed throughout the country at this time. Since 1954, the main children's Christmas tree of the country has been held in the Kremlin. In 1964, the first New Year's "Blue Light" was released on television. Leonid Brezhnev becomes the ancestor of the tradition of the head of state's annual televised address to the people. Olivier salad, herring under a fur coat, champagne and tangerines appear on festive table, where they remain to this day.