The New Year Tree and the Foil Icon: Non-Obvious Kinship and Social Biographies

Abstract

The article examines two objects that spread in the Russian Empire in the first half of the XIX century and, it would seem, had little in common: Christmas trees and kiotki icons (religious images in wooden kiotki decorated with foil). As the author shows, from the very first decades of their existence, these hybrid artifacts turned out to be related to each other in many ways. They were united by the materials used — foil, paper, chromolithographic images, etc.; The principles of decoration are, first of all, imitation of precious metals, the use of inexpensive sparkling decorative elements; crafts and production practices that supplied them with these elements. The morphology and symbolism of the Christmas tree were closely tied to the Christian context and obviously converged in this with the icon. Finally, the practices of interacting with these objects and the emotional registers associated with them also had a lot in common. The religious and near‑religious home object developed along similar trajectories throughout the 19th century. After the revolution, in the wake of anti‑religious campaigns, the Bolsheviks tried to destroy these artifacts and the rituals in which they were involved. However, both the icon and the Christmas tree survived the persecution of the 1902s and 1930s, and adapted to new cultural and material conditions. The morphology of the Soviet Christmas tree and the Soviet icon turned out to be related again. Later, the icons began to borrow elements first from pre‑revolutionary, and then from Soviet Christmas trees, which brought these bricolage objects even closer. Finally, in recent decades, the Soviet Christmas tree toy and the Soviet icon have been experiencing similar scenarios, turning into a cultural, scientific and museum object.