Along with a balalaika and a hat with earflaps, the matryoshka is an integral symbol of Russia. Say, its origin leaves no doubt about the primordial Russian roots, and its very existence is hundreds of years old. Alas, as much as one would like it, this national symbol does not at all correspond to such ideas.
In 1870, the industrialist Savva Mamontov acquired the Abramtsevo estate near Moscow. Soon, adherents of the Slavic path of Russia began to gather here, who founded the Abramtsevo circle. Its members promoted the idea of a neo-Russian style in art. Having seen a Japanese wooden doll for the first time, the "Slavophiles" decided to "christen" it in the Russian style.
Greetings from the East
In 1890, the wife of Savva Mamontov, Elizaveta Grigorievna, brought from Japan a wooden figurine - the bald sage Fukuruma. The toy turned out to be with a secret: inside the sage hid his entire big "family" - the seven gods of happiness. In Japan, each of them is a representative of some kind of virtue: Ebisu is the god of luck and hard work, Hotei is the god of compassion and good nature, and so on. It should be noted that the idea of hollow dolls inserted into one another was not purely Japanese fun, its roots go back to China and India, where hollow dolls are also popular.
One Wednesday, when members of the Abramtsevo circle arrived at the estate, the hostess showed them the Japanese "trophy". The detachable "family" interested the artist Sergei Malyutin, and he decided to create something similar. But, of course, in the Russian manner.
Malyutin pondered the appearance of the future Russian "fukuruma" for several days. Going through the options for "animating" the doll, he settled on a sketch of a chubby peasant girl in a bright scarf. And to give her a more economic look, the artist handed her a black rooster in her hand. On another figurine, Malyutin portrayed a young man in a red shirt. Then again there was a young lady in a kerchief and a sarafan. The eighth last doll personified a baby in swaddling clothes. You didn't need to be a professor to figure out that this version of the doll represents the mother and her children.
Malyutin was able to realize his sketches on wooden figurines after their detailed production. Vasily Zvyozdochkin, a turner from Mamontov's "Childhood Education" workshop, took on this work. By analogy with the Japanese model, he carved dolls for Malyutin, and the latter painted them in accordance with the sketches. Now it remained to come up with a name for the toy. Its creators did not rack their brains and adopted the name Matryona, popular at that time. According to another version, Malyutin christened the toy in honor of the beautiful servant Mamontovs, who served tea to members of the Abramtsevo circle. Whatever it was, but the name turned out to be quite apt. Philologists believe that it is based on the Latin word mater - "mother". Because Matryona personified the parent of a huge family, with good health and a burly figure, which was the best fit for a Russian doll. The very first Matryona,created by Malyutin and Zvezdochkin, is now kept in the Toy Museum in Sergiev Posad.
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World success
The new toy came to the liking of both aristocrats and bourgeois in Russia, and her pseudo-Russian popular dress made everyone smile. Therefore, when the Children's Education workshop closed in the 1900s, the manufacture of matryoshka dolls moved to workshops in Sergiev Posad. Here in the 15th century at the Trinity-Sergius Monastery there were carved workshops where monks were engaged in volumetric and relief woodcarving. Along with various details of the decoration of temples, monks often carved intricate figures. So at that time Sergiev Posad was called the “toy capital” of Russia for a reason.
Hereditary artist Sergei Ryabyshkin recalled how in 1902 his father brought a matryoshka from Moscow, for which he paid a lot of money. Its price reached 10 rubles, while boots cost two rubles, barnyard boots - five, and an accordion - eight rubles. All the neighbors came to see the matryoshka as a curiosity and for a long time admired its design and painting. It is not surprising that many icon painters, in an effort to make money, switched to painting matryoshka dolls. It was these masters who gave the doll nobility and detailed drawing of facial features, and also brought picturesque effects to their style. The dolls' blanks were supplied to the artists from the village of Babenki, Podolsk district, where turning production was established.
In 1900, the matryoshka was first presented to the international public at the World Exhibition in Paris. Visitors showed great interest in the toy, followed by large trading houses, which considered it possible to make money on it. An even greater interest in the "Russian miracle" was fueled by the fashion that arose in Europe for the Slavic style, and a little later - a series of ballet performances that went down in history as "Russian Seasons" by entrepreneur Sergei Diaghilev. As a result, in 1904 the producers of matryoshka dolls in Sergiev Posad signed a contract with the French for the manufacture of an impressive batch of dolls.
Not wanting to lose profits, in the same year the Russian Handicrafts Association opened a large store in Paris, where there was a huge selection of not only nesting dolls, but also other samples of Russian artisans: Khokhloma spoons, Palekh caskets, Gzhel porcelain. The annual fairs in Leipzig have consolidated the world success of the Russian nesting dolls, and since 1909 the annual Berlin Bazaar of handicrafts, which took place in London at the beginning of the 20th century. Later, the Russian Society of Shipping and Trade, as part of a traveling exhibition, introduced the Ottoman Empire, Greece and the Middle East to the matryoshka.
Forgeries and originals
The popularity of nesting dolls led to the fact that in Germany the Nuremberg firm "Albert Gerch" and the turner Johann Wilde began to produce the same toys. And little distinguishable from Sergiev Posad. This was mentioned in his report by the Russian Ambassador to Germany Nikolai Osten-Saken. Similar news came from France. And in 1911, a Japanese fake was delivered from the Leipzig Fair, which was a copy of the same Russian nesting doll. Perhaps the Japanese believed that since the Russians borrowed the idea of the sage Fukuruma from them, then they also have the right to make a little money on it. But, as events have shown, the European consumer did not trust fakes, preferring toys from Russia. In 1911, orders for the Sergius matryoshka were received from 14 countries of the world.
In addition to Sergiev Posad, matryoshka production in Russia was carried out in three more places: in the city of Semyonov and the village of Polkhovsky Maidan of the Nizhny Novgorod province, as well as in the city of Vyatka. Each of these places has developed a unique style of painting dolls.
So, the Sergievskaya Matryoshka is a chubby girl in a sarafan with an apron and a scarf. In her painting, 3-4 colors are mainly used: red, yellow, green and blue. All the lines on the doll are outlined by Sergiev's masters with a black outline.
Maidan nesting dolls are characterized by the presence on the doll's "body" of a multi-petal rosehip or rose flower, near which half-open buds are drawn on the branches.
Semyonovskaya nesting dolls are characterized by bright colors, among which yellow and red are especially prominent. The craftsman's toy scarf was usually painted with polka dots.
The most "northern" nesting dolls were produced in Vyatka - the center of products made of birch bark and bast. Therefore, the Vyatka matryoshka is characterized not only by painting with aniline paints, but also by inlaying it with straws, which has become the know-how in the design of toys.
After the October Revolution, the production of matryoshka dolls was not only not curtailed, but also expanded many times over. In the 1930s, in traditional centers of production, the toys of single handicraftsmen were combined into art cooperatives and production increased many times over. In 1932, in Zagorsk (Sergiev Posad), the world's first scientific and experimental institute of toys was founded, among the samples of which there was a 42-seat nesting doll made for the 42nd anniversary of Soviet power. The most famous Soviet nesting dolls are toys presented at exhibitions in Montreal in 1967 and in Japan in 1970. The first consisted of 50 collapsible figurines, and the second - of 72. All of the above achievements have forever consolidated the status of the Russian matryoshka in the world. So much so that we ourselves became sure that our ancestors played with this wooden doll long before the XX century.
Magazine: Mysteries of History №6. Author: Alexey Martov