Presidential Library tells about Christmas celebrations

Christmas, which Orthodox Christians celebrate on the night of January 6-7, is a special and solemn occasion. The materials from the New Year and Christmas in Russia collection on the Presidential Library's portal tell us about the history and traditions associated with this holiday.

In the Russian Empire, the celebrations of New Year and Christmas were actually combined. Thanks to Alexandra Feodorovna, the wife of Nicholas I, a Prussian princess, the festive Christmas tree finally became popular. It was decorated in the German style. In 1897, another tradition came from Europe - the sending of greeting cards. Some of these cards are presented in the Pre-Revolutionary Postcards 'Merry Christmas' section.

Special attention was paid to the content of the greetings. At that time, reference books were used, which detailed how to write exemplary letters, official documents and business correspondence.

In the Complete Collection of Russian Letters in 4 parts (1887) examples of congratulations on New Year and Christmas are presented. For example, they wrote to friends like this: "I congratulate you on the upcoming Christmas holiday, I wholeheartedly wish you to meet it as joyfully as you spend it, I take this opportunity to express my deep sense of gratitude and respect, with which I remain your humble servant."

Christmas was celebrated as a symbolic restoration of paradise on earth. We read about this in the historical essay by art historian Ivan Bozheryanov How the Russian people celebrated and continue to celebrate Christmas, New Year, Epiphany and Maslenitsa (1895).

In our country it is used to start telling children about the most important holidays from a very young age. To help parents, Archpriest John Bukharev published the publication The most basic religious and moral conversations with children (about God, prayer at home and in church, about the most important holidays), set out in the form of conversations between mothers and children. The same author in his book Stories about the holidays of the Orthodox Church writes about Christmas: "It illuminated the world with the light of knowledge of God."

The December 1899 edition of the literary and artistic magazine Rodina was entirely devoted to celebrating the birth of Christ, extolling him in prose and poetry: "This sacred night, the night of Christmas, will awake in the hearts of people the wonderful, full of love and humility, covenants of the God-man that he bequeathed to the world."

After the establishment of Soviet power and the switch to a new calendar, holidays also changed. Before 1919, Christmas was observed on December 25, but after that, it began to be observed on January 7.

In 1929, both Christmas and New Year's were abolished and became ordinary working days. At the same time, special teams were formed to identify those who chose to decorate Christmas trees.

In 1935, Christmas trees for children were reintroduced, but the holiday remained exclusively secular. In the early 1990s, the tradition of celebrating Christmas began to revive.

The collection New Year and Christmas in Russia consists of several sections. One of them is called Season's Greetings and includes rare editions from different years. Among them is The Word for the Nativity of Christ, spoken by the rector of the Kronstadt St. Andrew's Cathedral, Archpriest Fr. John Ilyich Sergiev, published in 1896.

Another section is called Artworks. It features the little-known prose poem Christmas Eve written by the famous lawyer and writer Anatoly Koni, as well as other publications. The collection also contains pre-revolutionary calendars and postcards with a Christmas theme.