The desk calendar as an attribute of west Siberian holidays in 1920-30-s

This article is devoted to the little-known attributes of city holidays; it studies desk calendars, common in West Siberia in 1920-1930-s. It is showed that the structure of the desktop calendars was almost universal during the 19th and 20th centuries. As a rule, it includes details of the socio-political nature and the calendar grid. There were portraits of the Communist Party and the Soviet State leaders - Lenin, Stalin, Kalinin, Rykov and others in the Calendars, published after the Revolution of 1917. In the calendars of 1930-s only Lenin and Stalin' portraits remained. These images formed the first block of calendars. The second part of the calendars included the actual calendar block; it was a table for each month of the year. Calendar grid reflected those changes, what took place in the lifestyle of the population, and in the system of chronology. Suggested, for example, to rename the months and reflect the new revolutionary reality in new names. Therefore, it was proposed to call January as month of Lenin, February - month of Marx etc. Renaming of days of the week were planned: Monday would be a day of Commune, Tuesday - day of Marx. Still all of those proposals had failed. As to the number of weekends and holidays in the calendar it was dynamically changed, and that changing showed its depending on the socio-political situation in the country. During 1920-s there were marked not only Soviet holidays, but also religious. Although they were not present in the calendars. In the 1930-s, the number of official holidays was reduced to six days a year: they were January 22 (Lenin's Memory), May 1 and 2 (Labor Day), November 7 and 8 (Great October Socialist revolution), December 5 (Day of the Soviet Constitution). All of other holidays were celebrated in working time. The third block of desktop calendars included essays on major events of Soviet history and of Soviet and revolutionary leaders. As a rule, that publications were confined to historical dates of the current month. The content and nature of the information allows you to subdivide the desk calendars of 1920-1930-s on national and special. Special calendars included anti-religious, agricultural, baby issues. Special calendars information was designed for different social groups. Such calendars allowed Party-and-State agencies to use the calendar and holidays dates for the sake of extending its influence among the population. The desk calendars served as one of the most important tools of holiday technologies. They were used in the organization and carrying out of holidays in West Siberia, and thus may be considered as an obligatory attribute of leisure and festive culture. A variety of information about the holidays in calendars provides the opportunity of transformation of the calendars into museum subjects and using them in museum studies.

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