New Year's: From Pagan to Present

When I was a child, we always cooked a duck for New Year’s Eve. This is a very vivid memory for me – we never ate duck on ordinary days, probably because it was so fatty and so hard to find in stores. But on December 31, it somehow miraculously – like all Soviet era treats – appeared in our home, was roasted on a bed of potatoes, stuffed with apples, and became as standard a feature of our holiday table as Salad Olivier. This was not quite correct in terms of Russian tradition, but nobody gave this a second thought. 

In Rus of yore, as in many other countries, pork was the main course on this winter’s eve. Pigs have plenty of offspring, so having pork on the table was seen as helping to assure that the following summer would bring an abundant harvest and plentiful broods in the farmyard – in short, that life would prosper and thrive. This is why the man of the house pretended to hide behind the stacks of pasties, while the lady of the house would pretend that she could not see him behind such a heavily laden table. 

So, in a way, our duck was in keeping with tradition – we had something unusual on the table, something rich, and therefore “festive.”

Of course, this is not just a Russian tradition. Throughout history, wherever December nights were cold and dark – dating back to the Ancient Romans and Scandinavians – whatever they might have called the holiday, people have feasted on rich, sweet foods, brightening their celebration with plenty of illumination, and giving one another gifts. 

Something important happens in the world during these cold and gloomy hours. There is a turning point, a rupture – but it was not always considered the start of a new year. In fact, the Ancient Russian belief that the new year started on March 1 seems a great deal more logical, since in March the days begin to grow longer and nature awakens, representing a truly new beginning. 

Another timing for the celebration of the new year took root in the late Middle Ages: the beginning of September. This also made sense, since the harvest had just been brought in and it was time to celebrate, feast, sprawl on the reaped fields, performing a strange ritual in tribute to Veles, the pagan god of prosperity and fertility, for whom a little patch of sheaves was left uncut.

You would not think that cold Russian winters were the best time for celebrations. You barely ever see the sun, most of the supplies garnered in summer have been eaten, and spring is still a long way off. In 1699, when Muscovites heard the shocking news that their sovereign, Peter the Great, who had recently returned from Western Europe, was ordering them to celebrate the new year on January 1 – and that this celebration was supposed to be marked by the peculiar practice of launching some strange fireworks – they must have been quite taken aback. 

They already celebrated a holiday around that time, but it was not New Year’s. It had long been known, dating back to ancient times, that on those days when the sun was at its weakest, right before it began to regain its strength, some sort of a crack or fissure temporarily opened up in the fabric of the world and the spirits of one’s ancestors emerged onto the Earth. They had to be cordially received, and shown warm hospitality. Most important, they had to be made to feel that they were among their own. 

In order to achieve this, people had to dress up like the forces that dwell in the forests or underground – by turning their fur coats inside out, wearing goat masks (an animal renowned for its sexual prowess), or dressing like a bear (the master of the forest and all nature). This is the origin of the practice of dressing up and going from house to house, singing off-color songs and demanding some sort of reward (something tasty, of course). Those spirits that remained underground also had to be shown respect. Huge bonfires were lit in the yard – a practice that was even called “warming the ancestors.” In many places it was believed that the spirits of dead parents stood invisibly near these bonfires and examined the lives of their children. And of course food had to be left out for one’s ancestors at night. Traditional foods were always used for this purpose: pancakes and kasha with dried fruits. 

The crack did not stay open for long, just a few days, so this was the time to take advantage of the presence of the important and unusual guests, who were being so lavishly entertained and indulged, by consulting them about the future. Between Christmas and Epiphany has always been a time when people not only went house to house in costumes, but had their fortunes told, hoping to find out the name of their future husband or hear predictions of prosperity and health. 

Of course, Peter the Great’s strange innovation shocked the Church – with all sorts of wild parties, accompanied by the extravagant drinking bouts that came to be a hallmark of Peter’s reign – coming as it did just a few days after Christmas. On the other hand, it is not surprising that this new holiday caught on so quickly and easily, since pagan traditions had always been celebrated in parallel with Christmas anyway, or rather, since Christmas had grown out of these traditions and transformed them, yet never entirely replaced them. Christmas, yuletide, and New Year’s easily fused together into a succession of joyous winter holidays, an excuse to overindulge after a long fast and to make merry on cold, dark nights.

The next new twist to be added to the Russian celebration of this season was also rather easily and painlessly adopted. The Christmas tree, which arrived in Russia only in the 19th century, was introduced by the wives of Russian emperors, who brought their customs with them from Europe. For a while, the Christmas tree was considered a German form of merrymaking, but the speed with which this custom spread – first to urban households and then to the rest of the country – might suggest that memories of ancient tree-decorating rituals were still lurking in the national subconscious. The heartless Bolsheviks – who in the 1920s forbade the practice of decorating Christmas trees, labeling this tradition “religious” (which was perfectly reasonable) and fabricating the notion that it oppressed and demeaned poor children, who were bound to envy the rich – were forced, after a few years, to relent (undoubtedly their own children had something to do with this), and in the 1930s the yolka made a triumphant return as the “holiday tree” (instead of the “Christmas tree”). 

By this time, an anomalous situation had taken shape in Russia. According to the Orthodox calendar, New Year’s Eve comes a week before Christmas. In the Soviet era, this was not so noticeable, since only a handful of the truly faithful celebrated the religious holiday. Yet today, now that January 7 is a national holiday, people are forced to remember the difference between the “old style” and the “new style” calendars, and those who observe the Nativity Fast are not able to cut loose on New Year’s Eve. In recent years, admittedly, the situation has changed somewhat. 

Officially, the last days of December are workdays, but everyone begins celebrating well before the end of the month. Cities are festooned with lights and New Year’s dinners – now called “corporate parties” – come one after another. “Catholic” or “European” Christmas, as December 25 is often called, winds up being a sort of threshold leading into the holiday season, followed by January 1, and then the endless days off before Orthodox Christmas. Finally, anyone who still has the strength, and whose stomach is still functioning, celebrates “Old New Year’s Eve” on January 13.

You could say that all this represents an absurd mix of calendars and rituals. But we can also rejoice in the fact that the ancient and eternal element of the winter holiday has triumphed over all eras and political regimes.