The desire for victory, gain, success is in the blood of every person. In big or small - the essence does not change. After all, the achievement of any goal set for oneself is already a victory, and the desire to achieve it is always associated with passion. Excitement is a strong feeling and is characteristic of a person in the same way as love or hate. Someone with excitement watches the game of their favorite football team, someone makes bets at the racetrack, and someone puts everything down to roulette or at the card table.
Mankind has played gambling games and will always play. Some games have a history of thousands of years. But, without fear of being mistaken, we can say that the most popular and widespread among them are entertainment using cards. These are fortune-telling, and solitaire, and various card games - from the simplest ones for luck to those requiring extraordinary intellectual and psychological abilities. Some games - bridge, poker, preference - have won such great recognition that they even host championships of various levels up to the world ones.
Deck magic
What attracts in cards? Why are they so attractive? And how is it different from other desktop entertainment? It turns out that a deck of playing cards is not just a collection of pictures. It can be said to be a model of the world. So.
There are 52 cards in a standard deck. Among them, 12 pictures are 12 months. Red and black - day and night.
52 cards correspond to the number of weeks in a year, four suits represent the four seasons, and since each season consists of 13 weeks, therefore, there are 13 cards in each suit. In addition, each suit, as is well known, consists of points from 1 to 10, and then from images of jack, queen, king. If instead of them we take further numbers 11, 12, 13 and add up all the points, we get the number 91, corresponding to the number of days in one quarter of the year. Thus, the sum of all points of the four suits will be 364, that is, the number of days in a year minus one, plus a joker - a leap year. After all, earlier decks were issued with one joker.
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State model
Today it is difficult to find a person who has never held a deck of cards in his hands. At the same time, the attitude towards cards for their entire 900-year history of existence was very ambiguous.
In the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, it is suggested that cards were possibly invented in China and that it happened in 1120 (according to Christian chronology), and in.1132 they became widespread there. The Chinese and Japanese, even before the advent of cards in Europe, already played with ivory or wood tablets with drawn figures. In the opinion of many experts, playing cards were brought to Europe by the Saracens, an ancient oriental people.
The first official mentions of playing cards, or the devil's prayer book, as they were sometimes called, are related to demands for their complete ban. So, during the reign of Saint Louis in 1254, a decree was issued prohibiting the game of cards in France on pain of punishment with a whip, and the Italian manuscript of 1299 speaks of the complete prohibition of playing cards.
However, there were times when they tried to give the devil's prayer book an official status in public affairs and to involve him in governing the state. Two Jesuits tried to do this on the grounds that the cards symbolically express instructions about the management of the state and the solution of war and peace.
They supported their proposal with the following conclusions.
Ace. In Latin, As is the name of one coin. In picket, aces have an advantage even over kings, to show that money is a lever of control, especially in war, and if the king does not have enough, then his power is illusory.
Trefle - meadow grass in France - reminds that a skilled commander should not place his army in the country, it may need forage.
Spades (Piques) and Diamonds (Carreux) remind that arsenals should always be well stocked. Everyone knows a weapon called a pike: as for the carreux, this was the name for heavy arrows with quadrangular iron tips, which were thrown from a crossbow.
Worms (Coeurs - "hearts") represent the courage of chiefs and soldiers.
Great on the cards
In the XIV century, kings, queens and jacks began to be depicted as legendary heroes of antiquity. So, for example, the king of hearts appeared in the form of Charlemagne - the ruler of the Franks. The Hebrew king David became the king of spades, Julius Caesar became the king of tambourines, and Alexander the Great became the king of clubs. They stand at the head of the four quadrille and show that no matter how numerous and brave the troops are, they need leaders - careful, courageous and tested. The lives of these leaders are precious. We must try to prevent them from being captured. And when you have to withstand a strong attack, the whole point is to give the king defenders.
Two-headed cards, that is, those in which one half, as it were, reflects the other, appeared in Italy already in the 17th century, but entered everyday use only by the middle of the 19th century.
In general, historical figures appeared on the cards immediately, from the moment of the appearance of playing cards in Europe. Before the invention of the printing press for royalty, decks were drawn by the finest court artists. The cards depicted legendary personalities or persons of royal blood. During the French Revolution of 1789, the leaders of the uprising appeared on the maps instead of kings. Later, probably, there was not a single significant event that would not be reflected on playing cards. Wars, revolutions or inventions immediately became the subject of a card drawing. For example, during the Great Patriotic War in 1942 in besieged Leningrad, cards with caricatures of fascist figures were issued for distribution among German soldiers.
Now on the cards you can find any theme, often a deck of modern playing cards is used as an advertising medium, as a souvenir showing cities, countries, historical figures or political figures of today. In addition, animals, technology, money, works of art are depicted … In general, any area of human life.
Three kinds
China, Japan, India have their own national playing cards, which are very incomprehensible to Europeans. In Europe, there are three types of cards.
German suits: leaves, acorns, hearts, bells. Spanish and in a sense Italian: swords, cups, coins, clubs. French: hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds. The most widespread are French, as well as Spanish suits. This is due to the fact that Spain pursued an active colonial policy (Latin America, Africa). In fact, it was the Spaniards who were the first European gamblers. Then the cards got to Italy, Germany and only then to France. It was here that the suit icons were simplified and took on the look we were used to.
Maps in Russia
In Russia, cards and card games have been known since the 16th century. Some researchers believe that they came to us through the Cossack troops located in Little Russia. After Sch time, Bishop Kassian of Ryazan, denouncing the world's sins, will say about Kar- / | tah: "Chess is played with tavlei and faces (cards). In the Code of 1649 of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich it was forbidden to “play at grain and cards” under the threat of severe punishment. It ordered the card players to act "… as it is written, about the tats," that is, beat them with a whip and chop off their hands and fingers. By decree of 1696, it was ordered to search all those suspected of wanting to play cards. "… And who has the cards taken out, beat with a whip" However, the epidemic of gambling quickly spread across Russia, and already in 1675 in Tobolsk, Surgut and Verkhoturye, enterprising officials introduced the practice of farming and setting up gambling houses at the expense of the treasury. Nevertheless, attempts were made to prohibit gambling, and in 1717, playing cards was prohibited under the threat of a fine. In 1733, a prison or batogi was defined for repeat offenders. At the end of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (1761), for the first time, a distinction was established between forbidden gambling and legal commercial games, and Peter III replaced batogs and prison with a monetary fine: only those players who played for big money or on debt were subjected to the latter. In general, during the study of prohibited games, it was ordered "to proceed with caution, so as not to cause unnecessary slander, offense and anxiety." The deanery charter of 1782 prohibited the construction of gambling houses. And for participation in gambling, penalties were established, however, rather moderate.and in 1717 the game of cards is prohibited under threat of a fine. In 1733, a prison or batogi was defined for repeat offenders. At the end of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (1761), for the first time, a distinction was established between forbidden gambling and legal commercial games, and Peter III replaced batogs and prison with a monetary fine: only those players who played for big money or on debt were subjected to the latter. In general, during the study of prohibited games, it was ordered "to proceed with caution, so as not to cause unnecessary slander, offense and concern." The deanery charter of 1782 prohibited the construction of gambling houses. And for participation in gambling, penalties were established, however, rather moderate.and in 1717 the game of cards is prohibited under threat of a fine. In 1733, a prison or batogi was defined for repeat offenders. At the end of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (1761), for the first time, a distinction was established between forbidden gambling and legal commercial games, and Peter III replaced batogs and prison with a monetary fine: only those players who played for big money or on debt were subjected to the latter. In general, during the study of prohibited games, it was ordered "to proceed with caution, so as not to cause unnecessary slander, offense and concern." The deanery charter of 1782 prohibited the construction of gambling houses. And for participation in gambling, penalties were established, however, rather moderate. At the end of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (1761), for the first time, a distinction was established between forbidden gambling and legal commercial games, and Peter III replaced batogs and prison with a monetary fine: only those players who played for big money or on debt were subjected to the latter. In general, during the study of prohibited games, it was ordered "to proceed with caution, so as not to cause unnecessary slander, offense and concern." The deanery charter of 1782 prohibited the construction of gambling houses. And for participation in gambling, penalties were established, however, rather moderate. At the end of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (1761), for the first time, a distinction was established between forbidden gambling and legal commercial games, and Peter III replaced batogs and prison with a monetary fine: only those players who played for big money or on debt were subjected to the latter. In general, during the study of prohibited games, it was ordered "to proceed with caution, so as not to cause unnecessary slander, offense and anxiety." The deanery charter of 1782 prohibited the construction of gambling houses. And for participation in gambling, penalties were established, however, rather moderate. In general, during the study of prohibited games, it was ordered "to proceed with caution, so as not to cause unnecessary slander, offense and anxiety." The deanery charter of 1782 prohibited the construction of gambling houses. And for participation in gambling, penalties were established, however, rather moderate. In general, during the study of prohibited games, it was ordered "to proceed with caution, so as not to cause unnecessary slander, offense and anxiety." The deanery charter of 1782 prohibited the construction of gambling houses. And for participation in gambling, penalties were established, however, rather moderate.
The passion for the game, which could not be destroyed by any of the most stringent measures of Anna Ioannovna and Elizabeth Petrovna, reached even greater development under Catherine II. Moreover, the people closest to the empress played for huge sums in the bank, and her favorite Zorich even opened a kind of card academy in the town of Shklov, which was granted to him, where all the noble players of that time gathered. Nevertheless, the fight against the addiction continued, and Emperors Alexander I in 1801 and Nicholas I in 1832 drew the attention of local authorities to the need to combat the addiction to the forbidden game.
Art to the masses
The very first maps were drawn by order of famous artists and, in essence, they were miniature paintings. The cards were so rare and expensive that they were included in the inventories of the property of kings and princes, presented as a gift, passed on by inheritance, and ended up in princely collections. In the Russian Empire, at first, they played with cards imported from Europe or manufactured by small manufacturers who took over the production rights. The quality of the cards was poor, they were clearly not enough, and in 1817 a card factory was opened at the Aleksandrovskaya Manufactory in St. Petersburg, which had a monopoly on the manufacture and stamping of playing cards. Only in the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Finland was it allowed to release their own decks. Gradually Russian cards acquired their own style and quality. Here is what Alexander Lutkovsky, a connoisseur and collector of playing cards, says:
- Outstanding artists took part in the creation of playing cards. Unfortunately, until the middle of the 20th century, card publishers did not consider it their duty to indicate the author of the drawings, and some names are known only thanks to historians and collectors of playing cards. In Russia, this is Adolphe Charlemagne, whose drawings for maps are known to almost every inhabitant of the former USSR. But few people know that the basis was the maps created back in 1860. I. Ya. Bilibin, P. D. Bazhenov is a painter, master of lacquer miniatures. The most famous foreign artist is Salvador Dali. But as the author of the deck, he is almost unknown to anyone.
The engine of progress
As mentioned, maps were originally drawn by hand. Since the work of artists was expensive, and the popularity of the card game became huge, it was the need for cheap cards that drove the development of print production. In 1423, after the invention of woodcutting, card production spread to all of Europe. At first, maps were printed in one ink and colored by hand, and later, in fact, until the end of the 19th century, they were stencilled. The invention of multicolor printing made playing cards a complete work of artistic printing art. Thus, from the very beginning, cards have been a means of introducing beauty, and their ever-growing popularity has contributed to the development of printing technology.
The cards printed in the printing house were always (plus or minus) 50 × 100 mm. This is due to the size of a person's hand. The usual A3 size in printing is not accidental either. On three sheets of this format, exactly a deck of 54 cards of the usual size 60 x 90 mm is placed. For solitaire, solitaire decks were made, and their size was exactly half of the standard.
Typography appeared much later. Indeed, the cards are clear to everyone. Indeed, to play them, you do not need to be literate, know the letters or language of your partner on the card table. Maps have always been and remain a kind of means of interethnic and inter-social communication, bringing people of completely different nationalities, ages and religions closer.
Do you know that…
Unlike roulette, in cards, not everything depends on luck. It requires intelligence, composure, calculation. Famous fans of card battles were F. M. Dostoevsky, A. S. Pushkin, N. A. Nekrasov. Moreover, the latter, thanks to his remarkable card talents, not only returned everything that his grandfather and father had lost (also great fans of the card game), but also managed to amass a very, very decent fortune, which allowed him in difficult times to even keep his card winnings magazine Contemporary”and don’t skimp on generous fees for novice writers.
Journal: Steps of the Oracle # 4. Author: Alexander Dzhuga