Junta “Decommunisation” Reached New Levels of Surrealism… They Started a “War” Against Ded Moroz

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Well-known Lugansk literary and cultural figure Nina Ischenko pointed up that Ukrainian “decommunisation” hysteria reached new levels of farcical inanity by declaring a “crusade” against Ded Moroz and Snegurochka. She referred to a putschist junta diktat in Ivano-Frankovsk Oblast banning traditional characters such as Ded Moroz and Snegurochka from New Year festivities in local schools:

The [Galician] minority continues to try to impose its ideology on the majority of the Ukrainian population. Therefore, naturally, they intensified their attacks on Ded Moroz right before the New Year holidays. Ded Moroz and Snegurochka were remnants of the former traditional Ukrainian culture; as such, they’re under attack. Yet, the word “remnant” in relation to these most iconic New Year’s figures sounds ironic. For these images existed in not only Soviet songs, poems, films, and cartoons, and traditional New Year’s parties in kindergartens and schools, but also in Russian folk tales, poetry by Nekrasov, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera based on Ostrovsky’s play. Such prohibitions will only expand exponentially, and not only Soviet, but also all Russian, culture will fall under the ban. Some justify the struggle with the Soviet past as rejecting the anti-religious stance of the Soviet government, claiming that such initiatives are a return to the Christian roots of the Ukrainian people.

At the same time, after the coup in 2014 in the Ukraine, radicals destroyed more than one church of the UPTs/MP. In the Donbass, Ukrainian troops distinguished themselves by looting and destroying churches, by torturing and murdering priests. One of the first attacks of Ukrainian troops on Slavyansk took place on 20 April 2014, 20 days before the pro-independence referendum in Novorossiya… on Easter Sunday. In such circumstances, to consider Ded Moroz and Snegurochka a major threat to Ukrainian Christian traditions is arrant hypocrisy. People who support decommunisation on supposed religious grounds should seriously reconsider their views. Now, this tussle over ideologically pure children’s parties is a trifle… but such trifles are drops that wear away the stone. To just follow along is easier and safer for kindergarten teachers than fighting about it, so an important patriotic niche will remain empty.

Earlier, cultural and scientific figures in the LNR repeatedly warned about the complex issues arising in Ukrainian society because of rabid stridency of the junta’s decommunisation programme. Vitaly Darensky (Candidate of Philosophical Sciences), docent of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Lugansk Agricultural University, noted:

Ukrainian decommunisation “laws” have the aim of destroying the historical memory of the people, and the so-called decommunisation programme is nothing but an ideological cover to transform the Ukraine into a mere raw materials-producing colony of Europe.

Aleksandr Protsenko (Candidate of Political Sciences), head of the Special Status Sociological Studies Centre emphasised:

In fact, decommunisation as pursued by the Kiev junta is just an attempt at the de-Russification of the population, but all that it does is to cause irritation to Ukrainians.

2 December 2015

LITs Lugansk Information Centre

http://lug-info.com/news/one/kievskie-dekommunizatory-doshli-do-marazma-nachav-voinu-protiv-deda-moroza-kulturolog-8779

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ITAR-TASS Presents… Memories of Soviet New Years

New Year celebration in 1963 in the Dom Profsoyuzov, Moscow (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) USSR

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Ded Moroz and Snegurochka entertain children in the Kremlin Palace of the Soviets, Moscow, 1977

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New Year celebration in the Kremlin Palace of the Soviets

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New Year celebration in the Kremlin Palace of the Soviets

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Queue at Detsky Mir (Children’s World) toy store, Moscow, 1983

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New Year celebration in the Tbilisi Palace of Sports, Tbilisi (Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic) USSR

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Buying a new TV set ahead of the New Year holiday, 1963

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New Year programme on Estonian TV, 1982

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New Year celebration in a kindergarten, Moscow, 1964

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Sale on the Arbat ahead of New Year, Moscow, 1985

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Ded Moroz at a winter Pioneer camp in Moscow Oblast, 1984

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Antonov An-2 aircraft delivered New Year trees to residents in Bukhara Oblast, Uzbek SSR, 1965

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Ded Moroz and Snegurochka in Altai Krai USSR, 1980

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New Year celebration, 1985

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Ded Moroz leads gymnastics class in Moscow, 1985

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Ded Moroz in Riga, Latvian SSR, 1986

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The first official New Year performance for children in the USSR was in the Column Hall of Moscow’s Dom Profsoyuzov (House of Trades Unions) in 1936. These images recall Soviet New Year celebrations and activities.

29 December 2014

ITAR-TASS

http://itar-tass.com/en/non-political/769813

Editor:

THIS is the “Evil Empire” that pigs like Victor Potapov and Patrick Buchanan expostulated about. Living standards in the USSR were lower than in the USA because the Soviets had to spend huge amounts on armaments to defend against Western aggression and rebuild their war damage, all at once. The USA suffered NO war damage… so American boasting about the Cold War is wrong, not to the point, and mendacious in the extreme. The main Sov forces were in the Western Military District in Byelorussia, that’s where all the most-modern stuff was… the forces in Germany and Czechoslovakia were meant to absorb the impact of a Western attack. The history of the last twenty-odd years proves that wasn’t paranoia… the Anglo Americans are violent and peevish toddlers… ask the Serbs, Afghans, Yemenis, Palestinians, Iraqis, and Novorossiyans… and the Native Americans and Filipinos before them (a Filipino said, “The Spaniards were bad, the Americanos were worse, the Hapons were worse than that, but the worst of all were the New Americanos”).

The USSR was done in by Gorbachyov’s incompetence, not the “superiority” of the West. VVP is right… the fall of the USSR was a historical tragedy. These photos prove it. One last thing… this image set is NOT anti-Soviet… fancy that… it proves that Russians do NOT despise their past, as Anglo Americans do. I think that a new socialism is arising in Russia. A spectre haunts the country clubs and Tea Party haunts… methinks that the prideful rightwing obituaries for socialism were a bit premature…

BMD

14 December 2014. A Multimedia Presentation. Ho, Ho, Ho… po-stilom Russkoye! Dede Moroz in Veliky Ustyug

The one-and-only truly legit and official 100% certified Kosher Dede Moroz House in Veliky Ustyug

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Dede in Belarus… Dede is EVERYWHERE! You don’t have to know Byelorussian to have fun with this one

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Rockin’ the New Year for the kids

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Here’s the New Year Yolka inside the Dede Moroz House… it’s secular, not Christian… PARTY FOR EVERYBODY!

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The Buranovskiye Babushki singing Party for Everybody… and that DOES mean EVERYBODY…

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Russian Ded Moroz… a Russian New Year song

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A modern New Year song (A Forest New Year’s) for kids… good stuff… smile awhile and remember your own childhood

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Just a kids’ song… Two Cats… just fun

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It’s that time o’ year, kids. It’s holiday time… don’t give me that “war on Christmas” crapola. Several religious and secular holidays DO coincide, so, “Happy Holidays” is more appropriate in a secular context. Of course, in Christian venues, “Merry Christmas” is welcome… but even there, one sees a place for “Happy Holidays”… ever heard of New Year’s or Epiphany? Remember, there’s a world of difference between “secular” and “secularist”. Furthermore, there’s nothing wrong with the latter, so long as it isn’t “theomachistic” or “anti-Faith”. I respect all faiths… including Secularism. I don’t hold with many of them, but I do respect the people who hold them.

Let’s keep the spirit of the season (and do pass the spirits, please… 80 proof or better, hon). After all, Dede is watching you… and he’s got a secret line to Santa!

BMD

25 December 2013. RIA-Novosti Presents… Let’s Meet Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost)! Russia’s One n’ Only Answer to Santa Claus…

Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost), the Russian Santa Claus, has two homes, one in Veliky Ustyug, in northwestern Vologda Oblast, and the other in Moscow’s Kuzminki Park, where he spends the New Year’s holidays.

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Dede has a granddaughter, Snegurochka (the Snow Maiden).

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Traditionally, Dede travels by sleigh.

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Ahead of New Year’s, Dede has to morph into as many copies as we need to light up New Year’s Trees across the entire country.

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Dede reads the letters that children send to him to learn what each one of them would like to have for a New Year’s gift.

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Dede’s bedroom in his residence at Moscow’s Kuzminki Park.

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Performances dedicated to Dede are an essential part of New Year’s celebrations at Russian schools and kindergartens.

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Where his sleigh will not pass, Dede uses other modes of transportation, such as this air cushion vehicle in St Petersburg.

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Dede in a vintage car in a parade on St Petersburg’s Senate Square.

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Dede has many foreign colleagues, such as Norway’s Julenissen.

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Dede sitting in his Moscow residence

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24 December 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/photolents/20131223/184781297/Father-Frost.html

Editor’s Note:

Dede is part of the secular New Year’s celebration… he isn’t religious at all. The hyper-religious can all get down from their high horses and they can all sit in the corner with their long faces, tight-arsed attitude, and general killjoy spirit. Meanwhile, the rest of us normal human beings can pop a cork or two and SMILE. God gave us this life, and it’s GOOD. Everything has its place, and the secular is just as important for us as the religious is. In any case, Dede is for EVERYBODY… New Year is a “Party for Everybody” (as Buranovskiye Babushki sang (click here for this fab song)). It’s a time when ALL of us can bow to one another, wish one another a good year, hug one another, be unashamedly happy, and do it as one. I see much good… and no bad… in that. Those who think otherwise can kiss my ass, and that’s that.

BMD