Why thirteen?
In a few days, some of us will celebrate the “old New Year” out of habit. It's a strange “holiday” whose meaning is hard to explain to foreigners - there are very few countries in the world, except for those that were once part of the Russian Empire, where something like this exists. Most educated people in Ukraine, of course, know that the 13 days that now separate the real New Year from the so-called “Old” New Year were inherited from the calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 B.C., which was called the “Julian” calendar. The year in this calendar was 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the tropical year (the time interval between two consecutive passages of the center of the solar disk through the midpoint of the vernal equinox), which is the main calendar unit of time today. Gradually, these “extra” minutes added up to weeks, months, and years. Finally, in 1582, on the initiative and with the participation of Pope Gregory XIII, a calendar reform was carried out that corrected this mistake. At that time, the difference between the dates of the vernal equinox was 10 days. The new, more accurate calendar was called the Gregorian calendar.
The Russian imperial authorities were stubbornly reluctant to switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, which most civilized states adopted from the end of the sixteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century. In Russia and in the territories that were part of it as colonies, this happened only in 1918, after the “October” coup, when the time difference between the count of years in the “old” (i.e., Julian) and “new” (Gregorian) styles was 13 days. This difference, by the way, continues to grow, and after 2100 it will reach 14 days.
I wonder if anyone will still celebrate the “old” New Year? And in general, how correct is it to call only the Julian New Year this way?
Which “old New Year” is the correct one?
The answer is not as obvious as it seems. After all, our ancestors celebrated the New Year not on January 1, but in the first days of spring, closest to the vernal equinox, which was associated with the rebirth of Nature after the winter storms. Only after the adoption of Christianity in Russia was a clear date for the beginning of the year set - March 1: according to legend, this corresponded to the day of creation. Later, the New Year's Day was moved to September 1. It was not until 1700 that the inhabitants of the Russian territories first celebrated it, along with most other Christian nations, on January 1. So which New Year should be considered “old” and celebrated accordingly? Especially since there may have been other dates that were once considered the beginning of the year. For example, one exhibit at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine prompts certain reflections.
Is it a jug? No, it's a calendar!
It is an ancient jug that was found in 1899 during excavations near the village of Romashky in the Kyiv region by the prominent Kyiv archaeologist Vikentii Khvoyka (see photo). This seemingly ordinary clay pot has become one of the most famous artifacts of the Chernyakhivska culture.
Why? Because it is not just a pottery vessel of a rather elegant shape made on a potter's wheel: as the researchers found out, it is a sacred calendar jug. And the two unequal widths of the stripes of dashes and signs on its steep sides are not really ornaments or fancy decorations, but calendar and magical symbols.
In fact, historians quickly realized that the raw clay was not ornamented before it was fired, as those hundreds of icons and large and small geometric shapes were squeezed out without a system or rhythm, which is the basis of any ornament. It was more difficult to decipher them. The famous historian Borys Rybakov succeeded in doing so several decades later.
In his reasoning, the scientist started from the geometric figure depicted on the upper belt of the jug - an irregular circle with 6 spikes, known as the “Thunder Sign” of Perun, the supreme god of the ancient Slavs, the lord of thunder, lightning and rain, the god of fertility. On the right side of the same belt were two crosses, a Slavic symbol of the Kupaila (or Kupala) holiday, which was timed to coincide with the summer solstice and celebrated on the night of June 24. These symbols were separated by 27 tiny squares, the number of which corresponds to the number of days between the two holidays. To the left are two stylized sickles and three sheaves, symbolizing the beginning of the harvest, which was in late July or early August. And a few dozen more icons that can tell an attentive researcher a lot. So the jug served as an agricultural calendar! And it is considered sacred or cult because the signs of the lower band or, rather, the belt can be used to determine the number of rainy days in the months. They coincide with the four rainy periods that are optimal for growing spring crops in the Kyiv region, which means that the clay calendar indicates the amount of rain needed for a good harvest! This is the perfect picture of the weather that people should ask Perun for.
However, this calendar covered only about 4 months, from May to August, the period of agricultural work in the Kyiv region. It was the most important period of the year, because the main work of farmers was done in the summer. It is not for nothing that the Eastern Slavs even counted years by summers - hence, by the way, the synonymous meaning of the word “summer” to the word “year.” Remember, Taras Shevchenko said: “And day is not a day, and goes not a day,//And the summers fly by like an arrow...”.
Nevertheless, you can read about the disclosure of the secrets of the Romashkivsky jug in special historical works, but we are interested in the answer to the question: could those people who lived according to this calendar have considered the beginning of the new year to be the onset of summer? Most likely, they could.
Therefore, anyone who is going to celebrate the “old New Year” either as a joke or seriously should ask themselves when it should actually be done.
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