In her early 20th-century memoir, *At the Institute for Young Ladies*, Tatyana Grigoryevna Morozova, a native of Sloboda Ukraine, wrote the following about New Year’s and Christmas celebrations:
We had icons hanging in our rooms. Our family celebrated Christmas, Easter, and Epiphany in a festive manner, but not so much as religious holidays as simply as major celebrations. At least, that’s how I perceived these days as a little girl. On Christmas Eve, we children, under our mother’s guidance and with her help, decorated a large Christmas tree. A festive, meatless dinner was a must, featuring kutia (rice with raisins) and uzvar (dried-fruit compote)—both traditional Ukrainian dishes. Christmas also meant inviting children from neighboring families “to the Christmas tree” and taking a trip, dressed in our finest dresses, to the Officers’ Club, where a large Christmas tree stood in the huge hall, an orchestra played, there was dancing, and modest Christmas gifts were given.
Quite a few of these fascinating Sloboda Ukraine memoirs from the 19th and early 20th centuries—some lengthy, others brief—written by politicians, officials, and cultural figures, have survived. But today, I would very much like for us to see Christmas in Kharkiv through the eyes of the lovely Khrystyna Alchevska, who is widely known in our city primarily for her philanthropic and educational work.
Here is what she writes on this subject in her book *Thoughts and Experiences: Diaries, Letters, and Memoirs*, published in 1912.
The tradition of putting up a Christmas tree, as we know, came to us from Germany. There, it is full of poetry and mystery. As they fall asleep on the eve of the holiday, children believe that tonight the kind Jesus will come to them and bring gifts and surprises. More than one child’s mind is likely filled that night with visions of the sky, angels, and the sounds of heavenly songs. But, transplanted to foreign soil, this custom has gradually lost its original charm. We see lavish Christmas trees surrounded by a crowd of elegantly dressed, dancing children who are jaded and almost indifferent to a tree that is just as elegantly dressed and decorated as they are; we see school Christmas trees where children are given sheepskin coats, boots, and caps; we even observed once how realism in this case went so far that a sausage and French bread rolls hung on the consecrated tree. All of this, of course, is very good and humane—why not give poor children sheepskin coats, boots, and caps? Why not feed a half-starved child with bread and sausage?! But why link all this to the poetic image of a Christmas tree? Why not keep the two separate? Why assume that working-class children need nothing but boots and sausage? why not give their souls a moment of poetry and bright joy, which are so rare in the life of a young male or female laborer living with their employers?..
All of this crosses my mind every time I set up the Christmas tree, and every time I try to come up with some interesting new idea to add to our school celebration—something to delight our grown-up children, whose faces reflect the same innocent joy this evening. Of course, it would be hard to convince them that the good Christ brings gifts to good children on this night, but this legend isn’t the only one that holds the magic of poetry; it isn’t the only one that makes an impression and lingers long in the memory.
Because of all this, instead of rolls and sausage, you’ll see in our large, beautiful hall snow-white boxes filled with treats, each with an elegant picture on top; you will hear a Little Russian song in all its untainted poetry and charm, and there, at the back of the hall, amid an artificial snowy glade, a beautiful Christmas tree, all decked out with garlands of flowers. This year, 1896, shortly before Christmas, I received by chance not one but two enormous fir trees from Moscow, and, wishing to drape the walls and windows—which would have disrupted the overall illusion of the scene—I turned to M. D. Raevskaya with a request to provide us with backdrops painted by the students of her art school. There turned out to be two: one depicting the seabed, and the other—spring. I really wanted to make use of all of this, but there were obvious inconsistencies. How could I reconcile the seabed, two fir trees, spring, and winter with the reality of life? The idea of a fairy-tale world, where anything is possible, came to my rescue. I recalled Professor Topelius’s beautiful poetic fairy tale “The Two Pines,” which features the Baltic Sea, the snows of Finland, and two enormous pine trees—giants— and the poetic heroine Sylvia, at whose glance spring flowers bloom wherever her gaze falls. And so the fairy tale I’ve conceived comes to life, and I stand on a platform and read it aloud to a crowd of five hundred. This winter fairy tale tells how the children of a poor peasant, Sylvester and Sylvia, went into the forest. There they almost caught a hare and a partridge, but took pity on the defenseless animals and let them go.
Seeing their kindness, the giant pine trees struck up a friendly conversation with them; they sang to them amid the roar of the storm:
“Grow up, children,
great and strong,
just like us; do not fear adversity.
The light of truth shines
abundantly upon all of you—
so go forward boldly!”
The story goes on to describe how their father came and wanted to cut down the pine trees, but the children begged him to leave the old giants alone. Touched by Silvestr and Silvia’s newfound generosity, the pine trees offered to do whatever the children wished. The children’s wishes were very modest.
“I wish the sun would come out, even just a little bit,” said Sylvester.
“And I wish spring would come again,” said Sylvia.The pines went above and beyond in granting the children’s wishes: as soon as a boy looked at something, a ray of sunlight would fall in that direction and illuminate the objects; flowers bloomed at the sight of Sylvia, and her breath brought the scent of spring. Everyone felt joy and delight at the sight of these beautiful children; even the stern king and his haughty wife couldn’t help but cheer up as they rode past the poor man’s hut.
I don’t know what the other participants in the school thought, but to me it felt as if I had visited a fairy-tale kingdom and heard the rumble at the very moment when the giant pine trees fell to the ground and my friends showered them with flowers.
My impressions were constantly interrupted, evidently by this crowd of five hundred, since it was quiet—completely quiet—among them, and only when the last sounds of my reading faded did everything come alive again, with people talking and the room filling with noise.
The teachers’ loud voices called out one surname after another, and the groups of students filed by in a long line, one after another, in a rather orderly and proper manner.
But I couldn’t bring myself to let go of the impression I’d just experienced; my gaze was involuntarily drawn once more to the magical scene at the back of the hall. I wanted to glimpse into the future and find there the answer to the question of how deeply all these impressions would be etched into the children’s memories and remain there for many years to come. I imagined a married woman and mother, surrounded by her children on the eve of Christmas. She couldn’t afford to put up a dazzling, ornate Christmas tree for them, but her memory held treasures she could share with them.
These were cherished childhood memories.Even back in school, she had learned to convey her impressions in a fluid, vivid, and imaginative way. And here, in this humble little room with a candle burning down to its wick, they came to life again in the child’s imagination: the hall filled with a cheerful crowd, the giant pine trees against the white snow, and the little hare, and a partridge, caught in a net—and once again, Sylvester and Sylvia’s smiles cast a bright ray of light into this humble dwelling…
The thoughts Christina Danilovna shared about Christmas are still very relevant today. It’s a real shame that her book of memoirs has never been reprinted. During the New Year’s and Christmas season, many volunteers will visit children from low-income families, in the ATO zone, and in orphanages.
In addition to gifts, they will bring the warmth of their hearts to those in need. Therefore—this is dedicated to all who spread magic… Do good.
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