Аннотация: Maxim Gorky and a New Year Tree holiday. A literary and historical note.
Maxim Gorky and a New Year Tree holiday. A literary and historical note.
From time to time a memories appear - how a New Year holiday was restored in the USSR.
In Russia, the beginning [the start] of a year since January 1 was established by Peter I (1699). The Tsar commanded the residents of Moscow to celebrate a meetings of the New Year holiday: to decorate the houses with greens and to congratulate each other.
Since October 1917 the holiday was not widely celebrating, a New Year Tree holidays have not been arranged.
On December 28, 1935, the note "Let 's organize the New Year Tree holiday for children!" appeared in Pravda, where it was stated that before the revolution the bourgeoisie and officials were arranging a New Year tree holiday for their children. And the children of the workers looked at the New Year holiday through the winter window from a street and envied. The author of the note asked: why now, under a Soviet rule, not to organize a New Year holiday for the Soviet children? Under the note in Pravda was the signature of the former Far East guerrilla, the provincial party worker Pavel Postyshev. (Pavel Postyshev - later - received a friendly caricature, on which he is depicted in the form of Santa Claus [Grandfather Frost], who presents - returns - to a children a New Year holiday).
A New Year holiday was restored, and from January 1, 1936 they began to organize a New Year tree for a children.
To some extent, the restoration of the New Year holiday can be linked to the Constitution of 1936 and to the distancing of the USSR from the extremes (cretinism?) of the class approach.
But it is also possible to recall the words of Nikolai Teleshov from his biographical essay "Maxim Gorky" (the essay was completed in the 1950s):
"Alexei Maximovich was arranging in those [pre-revolutionary] years in Nizhny Novgorod the famous "trees" [a New Year holidays] for children from slums, organizing funny holidays and shows for children who had never seen or knew entertainment, and endowed them with gifts, shoes, shirts and pants, and also books, sweets and food.
"Save me. Because I die [I set myself too complex a task], " - he wrote to me in December 1900. - "the success of last year's tree, arranged for 500 children from slums, captivated me, and I in this year started to prepare a Christmas tree holiday for 1000..."
He later writes about the same New Year Tree holiday:
"For money, for books -- thank you, buddy... Do you have "The Christmas Tree of Mitrich" in a separate edition? This thing here is often read on a public readings, children love it very much and would be happy to get as a gift... [Traditional, as a rule, friendly and respectful treatment by (through) a patronymic (a middle name) (a second name); in some cases, this middle name sounds in abbreviated form, which, as a rule, emphasizes a positive attitude towards a person; Dmitrievich - (Mitrievich - a transitional, an unused form) - Mitrich].
Alexei Maximovich was a man of a wide initiative who knew how to implement this initiative into a practice and who was able to select the right people for this." (Nikolai Teleshov "Maxim Gorky").
In 1931 Maxim Gorky returned forever from Italy to the USSR. There were a lot of different problems and challenges. And holding the First Congress of Soviet Writers (1934), and the distancing from the class approach (preparation of the Constitution of 1936), and the restoration of a New Year holiday [a New Year tree holiday] for a children...
February 16, 2020 17:35
Translation from Russian into English: February 17, 2020 03:40.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Максим Горький и новогодняя елка. Литературно-историческая заметка'.