Wednesday, April 11, 2018 09:33 ()

Easter cards these days are quite varied. They are bright, colorful, joyful according to the day of Christ's Resurrection. But against the backdrop of all this multicolor, the eyes invariably stop at the reproductions of Elisabeth Böhm’s lovely old postcards. So cute, a little naive, touching. They have that purity and sincerity that is sometimes so lacking these days. Open letters occupy a large part of the legacy of the talented artist.

Elizaveta Merkuryevna Bem (1843-1914) studied in 1857-1864 at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in St. Petersburg and graduated with a silver medal. The artist's talent was versatile. She was a recognized master of silhouette technique, successfully worked in watercolors, illustrated children's books and magazines, and developed sketches for glass products.

However, the name Bem is perhaps primarily known thanks to postcards. More than three hundred of them, based on her drawings, were published in various publishing houses. The first one she started working for was publishing house of the Community of St. Eugenia; she made many postcards for the St. Petersburg publishing house "Richard", as well as for the Parisian company I.S. Lapina.

On Elizaveta Boehm's Easter cards there are no Easter scenes familiar to the eye. The main characters of these postcards are small peasant children, genre scenes from their lives. They are made with gentle humor and warmth and are accompanied by folk proverbs. As is the case with other works of the artist, it is interesting to trace what texts she includes in her compositions. Several are based on the Easter chant, the stichera of the holiday: “Thy Resurrection, O Christ the Savior, the angels sing in heaven, and grant us on earth to glorify You with a pure heart.”

Tuesday, April 10, 2018 10:42 ()

In pre-revolutionary Russia, there was a good tradition of exchanging greeting cards on the eve of Easter. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the post office carried thousands of open letters across the vast country to those whom friends and family members could not personally congratulate. The opportunity to give an inexpensive but nice gift to a relative or good friend, even if he lives on the other side of the empire, attracted the attention of nobles, townspeople, and even peasants. Each postcard became a real printing masterpiece. Boris Zvorykin was one of the most notable authors of Christmas and Easter greeting cards.

Born on September 19 (October 1), 1872 in Moscow. (Extract from a copy of the metric certificate, which is kept in the personal file of the student of the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture Boris Vasilievich Zvorykin, RGALI, F.680 op.2 d.1165)

"His parents: his father is a hereditary honorary citizen, temporary Moscow 1st guild merchant Vasily Vasilyevich Zvorykin, Orthodox and his legal wife Elizaveta Ottovna, Lutheran religion."

After graduating from the 3rd Moscow gymnasium in September 1892, he studied for a year at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Even in his youth, he became interested in the Russian theme, the most harmonious artistic embodiment of which was associated with the work of Elena Polenova, Viktor Vasnetsov and Sergei Malyutin. Love for Russian antiquity, history, legends and folklore, decorative and applied arts, icon painting and wooden architecture, ancient calligraphy, ornamentation and book miniatures became the core on which Zvorykin’s creative destiny was subsequently built. In 1921 he emigrated to Paris. Boris Vasilyevich Zvorykin died at the beginning of 1942 in German-occupied Paris.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018 09:43 ()

In the last third of the 19th century, it became traditional in Russia to send “open letters” with congratulations to family and friends on Easter. These were postcards with colorful drawings depicting Easter eggs, Easter cakes, children, people holding Christ, spring landscapes, flowers, birds, temples. Easter cards were produced in large quantities in pre-revolutionary Russia; they were in demand, popular and loved. Then the best artists worked on them and many of these postcards are small printing masterpieces.

It’s hard to believe, but the first Easter cards in Russia appeared only in 1898. They were illustrated with four “spring” watercolors by the Russian artist N.N. Karazin. The postcards were published by the publishing house of the Moscow Orthodox community of St. Eugenia. The experience turned out to be successful; the cards were eagerly purchased, sent by mail, used to decorate the house for the holiday, and carefully stored. The community publishing house went on to become one of the most respected producers of greeting cards in the country. Over the course of 20 years, this charitable organization, created to help needy sisters of mercy, has produced about 6.5 thousand titles of postcards of various contents. Drawings for them were made by the most famous artists of that time: Bilibin, Pimonenko, Boehm, Zarubin, Zvorykin, Berenstam and many others.

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

Easter, or the Resurrection of Christ, is the largest religious holiday in Orthodoxy, and one of the two main ones in Catholicism. In Belarus, Ukraine and some regions of Russia the holiday is called the Great Day.

On the Great Holiday it is necessary to help... In 1914, before the war, they helped
Like any major holiday, the Russian Empire also issued greeting cards for Easter.

1. The Easter All-Night Vigil began on Holy Saturday

2. We only went out in the morning

3. A white egg that instantly turns red is the main symbol of the Holiday

4. Of course, eggs are featured on most Easter cards.

5. Another symbol of Easter is Easter cake (paska), a yeast product that is decorated with powdered sugar or glaze on top.

6. On postcards, Easter eggs were often decorated with spring flowers or willow branches.

7. Ukrainian old postcard with a decorated Easter egg

8. They gave eggs to each other

9. Another card with biblical motifs. Easter, although the plot is not exactly Easter

10. Children were often depicted on holiday cards.

11. Simple but cute

12. Another Ukrainian postcard

13. Very original

14. Children again

15. If the egg is a symbol of the holiday, then the image of chickens should not be surprising

16. Easter cakes and colored eggs

17. If they draw eggs and chickens, then the image of chickens is very logical

18. There are spring flowers in the basket with eggs. Spring is a symbol of rebirth. Or Resurrection.

19. Christ is risen!

20. Postcards were also printed in the West for Easter. Find the differences... Here, French...

21. It seems like there are eggs and chickens, but it’s immediately noticeable that they weren’t made in Russia.

22. America... The postcard is over 100 years old, but America cannot be confused even after a century

23. Good old England... Or rather,

Publications in the Traditions section

Easter card tradition

In pre-revolutionary Russia, there was a good tradition of exchanging greeting cards on the eve of Easter. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the post office carried thousands of open letters across the vast country to those whom friends and family members could not personally congratulate. How Easter news appeared in Russia, who drew and published them, and what happened to them after the 1917 revolution - the complicated history of Easter cards in the material of the Kultura.RF portal.

Birth of a postcard

Old Easter card. Photo: pinterest.com

Old Easter card. Photo: carkva-gazeta.org

Illustrated postcards, or “open letters” as they were originally called, were first exchanged by mail more than a hundred years ago, but the exact date of the first such postcard is unknown. She also had predecessors - cards with engravings on thick paper. They were invented in the second half of the 18th century by the French engraver Demaison. Popular prints are considered the Russian prototype of postcards.

However, such messages became popular only a century later, and France again contributed to this. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, soldiers sometimes did not have paper for letters, and scraps of paper were used. French bookseller Leon Benardot from the Brittany peninsula was one of the first to realize that open letters could bring a fortune. In 1870, he began producing small rectangular pieces of cardboard, one side for an address and the other for a message.

Some soldiers began to make simple drawings on the second side of such cards: some out of boredom, some in order to take their minds off thoughts about the war. Benardo improved the postcard by decorating the address side with a patriotic vignette - this is how the first postcard with an illustration appeared. Very soon, an accessible, bright and modern card became a convenient way not only to inquire about the health of relatives, but also to congratulate them - happy angel day, Merry Christmas or Easter.

First collection of Easter cards

Old Easter card. Photo: pinterest.com

Old Easter card. Photo: wikipedia.org

Soon the fashion for greeting cards reached Russia. The opportunity to give an inexpensive but nice gift to a relative or good friend, even if he lives on the other side of the empire, attracted the attention of nobles, townspeople, and even peasants.

At first, there was no postcard production in the country, so they poured in from abroad. Most often they depicted Catholic and Protestant Easter paraphernalia - rabbits, lambs, chickens and European cathedrals were alien to Russian people. The Europeans' vulgar parodies of the celebration of Christ - the exchange of kisses on Bright Resurrection - seemed even wilder: they depicted rouged young men with pomaded hair kissing ladies on the lips. As the popularity of postcards in Russia grew, foreign artists began to draw postcards on Orthodox themes.

In 1894, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire allowed the postal transmission of privately produced postcards. The first collection of domestically produced Easter cards was a series with four spring watercolors by artist Nikolai Karazin. The collection was created for charitable purposes after the Russian-Turkish War. The Russian Community of the Red Cross named after St. Eugenie was engaged in publishing the postcards, and Princess Eugenia of Oldenburg led the process.

Later, the publishing house of the Community of St. Eugenia turned to the theme of Easter many times. Each postcard became a real printing masterpiece, because among the illustrators of Easter cards were famous Russian artists Ivan Bilibin, Boris Zvorykin, Ilya Repin , Alexander Benois. All proceeds from the sale of postcards went to the Fund to help poor nurses working in Red Cross hospitals on the battlefields. Each postcard was produced in an incredible for that time edition of 10 thousand copies, which sold out immediately after going on sale. Over the 20 years of operation, the Community Publishing House has produced 6 thousand types of postcards.

Postcard fever in pre-revolutionary Russia

Pre-revolutionary Easter card. Photo: charmingrussia.ru

Pre-revolutionary Easter card. Photo: drevodelatel.ru

Pre-revolutionary Easter card. Photo: charmingrussia.ru

At the beginning of the 20th century, commercial postcard publishing houses appeared in Russia: “Richard”, “Lenz and Rudolf”. Foreign printing houses also sent Easter cards to Russia: the Swedish Granberg, the French publishing house Lapin, the German publishing house Dyakova. Postcards produced by foreign manufacturers were cheaper than domestic ones, and also more colorful and of better quality, because they were printed on the most modern printing equipment.

Popular were images of angelic children playing and kissing, Easter cakes, views of awakening spring nature, lit candles, and Easter treats. Artists also painted folk Easter traditions: rolling eggs, the celebration of Christ, the religious procession. But the main decoration of the Easter card was pysanka, or krashenka, Easter eggs painted with intricate patterns.

During First World War Easter cards included military and propaganda subjects. Their heroes were nurses, soldiers and members of the imperial family. For example, on one postcard, Grand Duchess Tatiana, in the guise of a sister of mercy, visited the defender of the Fatherland and congratulated her on Easter. But the most popular postcard of that time was the card with

The revolution put an end to the bright Easter tradition of exchanging cards. The new government declared them unacceptable propaganda of religion. But the Easter card continued to live in the circles of Russian emigrants. In the 50s and 60s of the 20th century, some French and American printing houses, as well as the publishing house of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, USA, produced Easter cards. They depicted festive dishes and cute Easter-themed everyday scenes. This matter was so important for many emigrants that sometimes they spent their last money on publishing postcards: an Easter card was a kind of thread connecting them with their irretrievably lost homeland.

Only after Great Patriotic War Easter cards began to be printed again in small editions, but they could only be bought in church shops. The final return of the tradition of giving an Easter card for Easter occurred only in the late 80s.

The first Easter cards in Russia were published by the publishing house of the Community of St. Eugenia for Easter 1898 for the purpose of charity: the income went to the fund to help the needy sisters of mercy of the Red Cross. Postcards were produced by publishing houses from St. Petersburg, Riga, Kyiv, Vienna, Paris, etc. After the revolution, the Easter holiday was excluded from the calendar, but in believing families the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ was preserved, and accordingly the tradition of congratulations on Easter was preserved. People kept pre-revolutionary postcards, on which a new congratulatory text was written over the pasted-over old congratulatory text.

During the Great Patriotic War, concessions were made for the Russian Orthodox Church, and by the end of 1941, the Moscow Patriarchate Publishing House began printing Easter cards in small editions.