For the New Year holidays, it has always been customary to give beautiful postcards. Bright, colorful, funny, with wishes of goodness, health, luck and wealth. Even now, in the era of the Internet and computer technology, many are trying to send a greeting card by mail or attach it to a gift. Why are New Year's cards so popular and how did they come about?
The history of the emergence of New Year's greeting cards goes back to the distant past. In ancient China, it was customary on the first New Year's day to congratulate all acquaintances who could not meet on New Year's Eve with red cards. On New Year's Eve, a special bag was hung at the door of the house, where it was necessary to lower such a card.
Another story tells that for the first time a Happy New Year was sent in the 19th century, in England, by a certain Henry Cole. A little later, Henry asked his friend to draw a beautiful greeting in the form of a postcard. The artist John Gersla, that was the name of Henry's friend, gladly took up the production of a colorful image. This is how the first New Year's card was created, from a sketch of which approximately 1000 copies were created. Since then, a fashion for New Year's cards was born in England, which gradually spread throughout the world.
In Japan, to this day, it is customary to give postcards that depict an animal corresponding to the coming year. The card itself always contains gratitude for all the good moments that accompanied the outgoing year.
New Year's cards in Russia and the USSR
In pre-revolutionary Russia, New Year's cards were made to order. Most often, they depicted winter landscapes, three horses or churches. Very often, craftsmen used gold stamping and shiny crumbs to create cards.
After 1917, for a long time, New Year's cards were not made. It was believed that this is a bourgeois symbol, which means that the Soviet person does not need it at all. However, the tradition returned, and postcards became very popular in the USSR. Without fail, they depicted the Kremlin stars, and in the future, all significant events. So Santa Claus could be riding on a rocket or an airplane, and drawings of wine glasses and glasses disappeared from postcards during the prohibition period. During the Great Patriotic War, postcards depicted the profiles of war heroes and appeals to the people to defend the Motherland were written.
