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Soviet Santa

atlasobscura.com

31–40 of 70 posts

Re: Soviet Santa

#31

Correct artice and being from ex communist country even after more than 25 years I certainly have issues celebrating christmas. "They were able to celebrate Christmas, but they had never done it before." most resonates with me. Makes me realize the importance of traditions and how fragile they are.

Mostyl correct but it somehow gives impression that religon pracitce was banned in USSR ("After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, religious practice became legal again."). Which is not true. There were still churches and priests and religious practice. While being religious was seriously frowned upon and would not allow you to have any serious hopes for making a bigger career it was legal. I remember my mother telling stories about "Christmas patrols" but I guess those were the years around the WWII, because we used to have a Christmas tree and Christmas Eve celebration without much fear.

New Year was still wayyy bigger deal.

Re: Soviet Santa

#32
post #2

As a Russian, can confirm this article is quite accurate - my family only ever celebrates New Years, it's the same as Christmas is usually in the West, and Ded Moroz is totally a thing.

But do you celebrate New New Year's or Old New Year's?

Both, naturally.

Re: Soviet Santa

#34
post #23
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All: come on you guys. Let's not have nationalistic flamewar for Christmas please. Nor any other day on HN.

You dont have any right for tone policing. And i find your comment extremely offensive.

I'm a moderator here; it's my job to prevent this site from destroying itself, which is what subthreads like this converge to.

I said "all" as a way of addressing every commenter who was posting in this spirit—not just you. Your comment wasn't so bad, since you were simply describing your experience and your feelings. But it's the root of exactly the sort of flamewar we don't want on HN. The internet can't handle arguing about this kind of thing without losing its mind.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Soviet Santa

#35
post #26

[flagged]

Please don't copy/paste comments here. It strictly lowers the signal/noise ratio. Especially please don't do it as an end run around moderation—that's not cool.

Re: Soviet Santa

#36
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on "Poland was occupied by Russia"? Let's put alone that in 89 it was USSR so Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, etc. all together. In any case there were no Russian troops stationed in Poland. Quite opposite, Poland and its army was one of leading members of Warsaw Pact (the name, sic!). So what does "occupation" mean in your statement?

Not OP, but see Hungary '56 and Czechoslovakia '68 for what happens to 'leading warsaw pact members' who decide they want to deviate from the soviet party line.

Yes, we should be so sad that fascist uprisings threatening to exterminate the poor, disabled and non-native were instead defeated with help from friendly socialist countries.

Not all protests, uprisings and revolutions are good. Look at their class character and composition.

Re: Soviet Santa

#37
post #4

I live in Poland. Before 89 when my country was occupied by Russia, "Soviet Santa" was forced here to replace Santa Clous. It was one of many things that was made to erase Christianity and replace it with atheism and communism. Fake Christmas, fake Santa, zero beliefs. I was young back than but i felt its shallow and dark. So for me Soviet Santa is a symbol of the occupation and Russian tyrrany Poland was under until…

I did not know about Poland to be occupied, but recall myself when Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) had similar fate for almost 50 years - everything related to Christmas was translated somehow to New Year and real christian celebration was effectively banned. I remember having strange remarks in school (in mid-80ies) when we had Santa Claus instead official DedMaroz in home secretly. Nothing serious anymore then. Next interesting time was in 90ies with re-independence, all it was converted back to very christian and churches were packed in Christmas eve. New Year was regarded as soviet thing for some time. Now we see some revival of more joyful new year celebrations and current agnostic president did not even go to the christmas mass. Which was small scandal but a sign of times also.

Re: Soviet Santa

#38
post #31

Correct artice and being from ex communist country even after more than 25 years I certainly have issues celebrating christmas. "They were able to celebrate Christmas, but they had never done it before." most resonates with me. Makes me realize the importance of traditions and how fragile they are.

Mostyl correct but it somehow gives impression that religon pracitce was banned in USSR ("After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, religious practice became legal again."). Which is not true. There were still churches and priests and religious practice. While being religious was seriously frowned upon and would not allow you to have any serious hopes for making a bigger career it was legal. I remember my mother tell…

Religious practice was certainly illegal, unless it was official Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish etc. There was no way to organize a non-canonical congregation, unless it was a clandestine operation for a dozen people.

There was an article in the RSFSR Felony codex ("breaking the laws of separation of the church from the state, and of the school from the church", #142) the sole purpose of which was to outlaw religious congregations.

Many baptists (mostly Ukrainian) were imprisoned indefinitely - well into eighties - for refusing to obtain passports.

Finally the idea of "legality" of something for which you get persecuted and mocked by state and party officials (as part of their line of duty), and get auto-fired from a significant part of the economy in a state with no (legal) private economy seems a little twisted.

Re: Soviet Santa

#39
Even though we're behind Europe in religiosity and far behind the US, Orthodox Christianity was alive and well here after the fall of the SU, and Christmas and Easter are variously observed. It's rather notable that despite the Bolsheviks' no-nonsense and literal approach to eradicating religion, Christianity and the church have survived the Soviet era pretty well. One reason for this is said to be that in the ramp-up to the Great Patriotic War, the government dropped the anti-religious rhetoric and adopted instead the position of ‘unite and defend your motherland and the people’.

Add to this the fact that in the 70s and likely later, people were still migrating from rural villages to the cities, with the whole baggage of inherited religiosity and mishmash of folk beliefs. My grandmother put in plenty of time in prayer each day. Icons or whole arrangements of them are a feature in many homes, cars and sometimes, more rarely, offices. And I still receive messages from my parents each year, commemorating birth and then the resurrection of Christ. Folk culture doesn't tend to follow an official doctrine, as exemplified by troves of Soviet jokes—and is also not big on ideological clarity, so many didn't see a problem in subscribing to both socialism and Christianity, along with crystal healing, magical powers of thought and a bouquet of other fringe beliefs.

In the 90s, my home city already had a bunch of churches including at least one large temple, and one or two monasteries—and I don't think they popped up recently.

Notably also, even Bolsheviks preserved old and unassuming Karelian wooden churches, recognizing them as architectural and cultural monuments—while demolishing some huge temples in Moscow. Like the Kondopoga church, built in 1774 and which somebody burned down in August of 2018: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Church_of_the_Do...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dormition_Church,_Kondopoga

Re: Soviet Santa

#40
post #27
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do? We (Russian Americans in the US) celebrate two Christmases and two New Years, both by the "new" calendar (Dec 25/Jan 1) and by the old (Jan 7 Christmas, Jan 13 "Old" New Year). Because, as they say in Russia, "there's no reason not to drink".

Serbians also still celebrate Christmas and New Years according to the old Julian calendar. In a few thousand years they really will have Christmas in July.

It moves 3 days forward versus the Gregorian calendar every 400 years. So about 24,000 years (a little less) to hit July
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