ABSTRACT
From 1956, and more particularly 1961, Soviet official festivals went through a significant process of transformation. 2 The main ‘high days and holidays’ [krasnye dni] remained the same – 7 November, 1 May, New Year, while Victory Day was reinstated as a public holiday in 1965. However, numerous new festivals were added to the calendar (Soviet Miners’ Day, Fishermen’s Day, Alphabet Book Day for primary schoolchildren, among many others). Though not public holidays in the strict sense (because they did not bring a day off work), such festivals were widely publicised and appeared in official printed calendars. Alongside new calendar festivals, a large number of new rites and rituals were also invented, such as ‘First Pay-Packet Day’ [den pervoi poluchki], ‘Ceremonial Presentation of the First Passport’, ‘Baby Naming’, and others. Both the new holidays, and the new rituals, were described in the voluminous normative literature dedicated to ‘new Soviet traditions’. 3
