In December 1699, by an official imperial decree, the celebration was scheduled for January 1
In an effort to synchronize the Russian calendar of holidays with the European, at the end of December 1699, Emperor Peter I ordered to postpone the celebration of the New Year to January 1 by an official decree. And although the emperor did not succeed in achieving his main goal, it was thanks to this document that the foundations of the main New Year's customs were laid in Russia: from decorations made of coniferous trees to long New Year holidays.
Izvestia remembered how Peter I brought up the habit of the holiday in the inhabitants of the Russian Empire.
First day of the year
Apart from the transition from the old style to the new, to which the Russians owe the appearance of the old New Year in our holiday calendar, the date of the new year in Russia changed three times. They began to celebrate it in Russia long before the holiday attracted the attention of the emperor, who opened a window to Europe: the first mentions of this holiday are found in chronicles already at the end of the 14th century. Then it fell on March 1 - this date successfully coincided with both the Orthodox calendar (the countdown of new years went from the day of the creation of the world), and with the life of the majority of the population engaged in agriculture. On the day of the onset of spring, the celebration of the New Year, as it was then called, looked more than logical.
In 1492, the first changes awaited the New Year - the date of its celebration, in accordance with the definitions of the Nicene Council, was postponed by the church to September 1. However, this did little to correlate with the way of life of the peasants, for whom the year of active agricultural work at that moment, on the contrary, was ending. And this holiday on a nationwide scale, which, according to the "Parisian Dictionary of Muscovites" that has survived to this day, was called "The First Day of the Year", never received. The main celebrations then took place on the Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin. The patriarch, accompanied by the clergy, addressed the tsar with a speech in which he inquired about his health. The Tsar delivered a speech in response, ending with the words "God gave, he is alive." After that, representatives of the clergy approached the tsar and the patriarch with a bow,and after that all those present in the square were beaten with their foreheads.
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Moving the boundaries of time
Peter I, having occupied the Russian throne, set out to not only bring the New Year tradition in Russia in line with the European calendar and the calendar of most Slavic countries, where the New Year was celebrated by this time on January 1, but also, in fact, finally turn it into a large-scale folk celebration.
A good opportunity for such a truly epochal change presented itself just at the end of 1699, when the brilliant 18th century came to replace the 17th century. Like most of the undertakings of Peter I, the cultivation of the holiday habit in the Russians demanded a certain severity from the emperor. And at the end of 1699, the emperor issued a decree in which he ordered to change the date of the celebration.
“Next January, from the 1st, a new year 1700 comes, and a new century will come; and for that good and useful deed, he indicated that henceforth the summers should be counted in orders and in all deeds and fortresses to write from this January from the 1st date of the Nativity of Christ, 1700,”in particular, the first part of the document said.
To make decorations from pine trees
Peter I did not limit himself to a simple transfer of the date - in the decree, the sovereign, among other things, described in detail how the inhabitants of the empire should celebrate the coming of the new year and century. The Russian New Year's tradition was to be based on the customs that the emperor himself met in Germany.
On the eve of the holiday, the noble inhabitants of houses located on the big streets should have made some decorations from the trees and branches of pine, spruce and juniper before the gates. People who were "poor" were given indulgence - they could limit themselves to installing "at least by a tree or a branch" on the gate.
Those wishing to do everything at the highest level could check the samples exhibited specifically for this purpose in the Gostiny Dvor in St. Petersburg. But on the whole, citizens were allowed to show their imagination and, when coming up with decorations, proceed from the fact "who is more comfortable and decent."
On Red Square, fiery fun will light up and there will be shooting
With the light hand of Peter I, fireworks also came to the Russian New Year tradition, which, according to the emperor's idea, should have been in scale with the occasion. The time for them was already on January 1.
“Yes, January, 1 day, as a sign of joy; Congratulating each other on the New Year and the centenary, to do this: when the fiery fun is lit on the big Red Square and there will be shooting, then on noble courtyards, boyars and okolnichy each in his own yard from small cannons, if anyone has, and from several muskets or some other small gun, to make,”- said in the tsar's decree.
At the same time, large bonfires were planned to be lit on the streets of St. Petersburg, and especially at the crossroads.
Tradition for all times and eras
But the main thing is that thanks to the efforts of Peter I in Russia in 1700, for the first time, many-day New Year holidays appeared, because, according to the decree, the festivities were supposed to last until January 7.
And although he did not succeed in achieving his main goal, to synchronize the Russian New Year with the European one, by this moment most of the European countries had already switched from the Julian, which they were guided by in Russia, to the Gregorian calendar and marked the beginning of the new century 10 days earlier. - the emperor managed to establish the tradition of the New Year holiday, which has passed almost unchanged through the most different times, eras and stages of national history.