Марина Попова
New Year's story
Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew for "head of the year") is a two-day Jewish holiday commemorating the culmination of the seven days of Creation and marking God's annual renewal of His world. This day contains elements of celebration and introspection, as it is traditionally believed that God evaluates His creation and determines the fate of all people and creatures for the coming year. In Jewish tradition, honey symbolizes a sweet new year. During the traditional feast on this holiday, apple slices are dipped in honey and eaten with blessings recited for a good, sweet new year. Some Rosh Hashanah greetings depict honey and an apple, symbolizing the holiday. Some communities hand out small straws of honey to herald the new year.
Historical dates of the European New Year
During the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, years began to be counted from the date on which each consul first took office. It was probably May 1 before 222 BC, March 15 from 222 to 154 BC, and January 1 from 153 BC. In 45 BC, when Julius Caesar's new Julian calendar came into force, the Senate established January 1 as the first day of the year. At the time, it was the day on which those who were to hold civil office assumed their official positions, and was also the traditional annual date for the convening of the Roman Senate. This civil new year was in effect throughout the Roman Empire, east and west, during its existence and for a long time after, wherever the Julian calendar continued to be used.
The Anglo, Saxon and Viking invasions of England from the fifth to tenth centuries pushed the region back into prehistory for a time. Although the revival of Christianity brought with it the Julian calendar, it was initially used primarily in the service of the church. After William the Conqueror became king in 1066, he ordered the restoration of January 1 as the civil New Year to coincide with his coronation. From about 1155, England and Scotland joined most of Europe to celebrate New Year's Day on March 25, in line with the rest of Christendom.
In the Middle Ages in Europe, a number of significant holidays in the church calendar of the Roman Catholic Church began to be used as the beginning of the Julian year.
In Scotland, the modern New Year's date was changed to 1 January 1600 by order of the King's Privy Council on 17 December 1599. Despite the unification of the Scottish and English royal crowns with the accession of Kings James VI and I in 1603, and even the unification of the kingdoms themselves in 1707, England continued to use 25 March until Parliament passed the New Style Calendar Act of 1750. This law moved the whole of Great Britain to use the Gregorian calendar and at the same time moved the civil new year to January 1 (as in Scotland). It came into force on September 3 (old style or September 14, new style) 1752.
According to Easter-style dating, the new year began on Holy Saturday (the day before Easter), or sometimes on Good Friday. The word was used throughout Europe, but especially in France, from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. The disadvantage of this system was that, since Easter was a movable holiday, the same date could occur twice a year; these two events were distinguished as "before Easter" and "after Easter".
In Nativity style or Nativity style dating, the new year began on December 25th. The term was used in Germany and England until the eleventh century, and in Spain from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.
The Southern Equinox (usually September 22) was "New Year's Day" according to the French Republican calendar, which was used from 1793 to 1805. It was primidi Vendémiaire, the first day of the first month.
Due to the division of the globe into time zones, the new year gradually spreads across the globe as the start of the day marks the beginning of the New Year. The first time zone to usher in the New Year, west of the International Date Line, is located in the Line Islands of Kiribati and has a time zone 14 hours ahead of UTC. All other time zones are 1-25 hours behind, most of them to the previous day (December 31); at American Samoa and Midway it is still 11 p.m. on December 30th. These are one of the last populated places where the New Year is celebrated. However, the uninhabited remote US territories of Howland Island and Baker Island are designated as being within the time zone 12 hours behind UTC and are the last places on earth to celebrate January 1st. These small coral islands are located approximately halfway between Hawaii and Australia, approximately 1,000 miles west of the Line Islands. This is because the International Date Line is a collection of local time zones that cross the Pacific Ocean, allowing each region to remain most closely connected in time to the nearest, largest, or most convenient political and economic regions with which each is associated. By the time the new year arrives on Howland Island, it is 2am on January 2 in the Linear Islands of Kiribati.
History of the New Year in Russia
“The oldest system of counting time among the East Slavic tribes, whose economy was based on agricultural production, most likely was counting by seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter. The complete period of changing seasons was called "summer". Weather records in Russian chronicles began with the words “in the summer,” which means “in a year.” Many ritual pagan holidays, which later became Christian, were associated with the agricultural calendar and the seasons. These are, for example, Maslenitsa, Kolyada (from the Latin “calendar”; another name for this holiday is “oat” – from “o-spring”), which celebrated the turning of the sun into summer, “red hill” – the holiday of welcoming spring, “rainbow” and "Rusalia" – spring and summer memorial holidays and others. Kolyada is a pre-Christian cycle of holidays among the Slavs during the winter solstice. According to ancient views, this is the beginning of a new life, renewal of nature, and therefore the beginning of a new year. Kolyada is accompanied by carols (songs and rituals). In the content of carols and their analogue in Ukraine and Belarus – shchedrivok – researchers identify more than 80 motives, the main ones being: good wishes, glorification and incantation. After the introduction of Christianity, the church included it in its Christmas and Epiphany cycles from December 24 to January 19 (the time of Christmastide – that is, increasing daylight hours). The church contrasted the games and rituals of carols with “glorifying Christ,” walking with a star and other Christian paraphernalia. As a result, a syncretic (mixed) ritual occurred. An inextricable connection with nature is shown by the ancient Russian names of the months: January was called Prosinets (the light part of the day noticeably increased, it became lighter), February – Sechen (this name reflected the practice of slash farming, it was the time of deforestation), March – dry (cut down trees dried out, and in some places the earth), April – birch or birch zol (the beginning of birch flowering in the southern regions, the transformation of burned trees into ash), May – grass (the time of the appearance of grass), June – isok (grasshopper), July – cherven or serpen ( harvest time), August – dawn (from "roar" – probably the beginning of the roar of deer during the autumn rut), September – ryuen (from the verb "ryut" – roar) or veresen (most likely from heather, juniper, blooming in autumn), October – leaf fall, November and December were called gruden ("gruda" – frozen road track), less often – jelly. Together with Christianity, the Julian calendar and Roman names of the months, recorded in one of the oldest monuments of Russian writing – the Ostromir Gospel, spread to Rus'. Many ancient Russian names of months have been preserved in the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages. In Ancient Rus', it was known to count time in weeks, seven days each. This is where the Old Russian name for the week “week” comes from. Unlike many ancient calendars, in which the days of the week were named after the planets dedicated to the ancient gods – Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, the ancient Russian names of the days reflected their ordinal position relative to Sunday, which was called "week" (from "not to do" – do not work, as it was a day of rest). The next day is Monday (after the week), then Tuesday (second after the week), Wednesday (middle, middle of the week), Thursday (fourth), Friday (fifth day after the “week”). Saturday (in Slavic “six” or “six”) got its name from the Hebrew word “sabbath” (Sabbath), meaning rest. The modern Russian expression “six” is also associated with this same day of the week, meaning “incorrect”, “uncertain”, “two-faced”, since the Slavic name of the day of the week was not preserved, but, in fact, the well-known word “Saturday” was forcibly applied to us. Sunday (Resurrection) – a weekly Christian holiday established in honor of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, became the name of the day of the week in Rus.
