Everyday culture

The expression "Everyday culture" (according to Maria Greverus) includes a broad spectrum: house and settlements, tools, popular art, language, stories, songs, music, dance, rituals, as well as livelihood, household, child education, free time activities, participation in religious life and in community activities.

In this everyday culture, Russian-Germans came to a noticeable turning point in 1917, the year of the October Revolution. Due to the upheavals that occurred, the lives of Germans in Russia changed fundamentally.

In the following paragraphs, we will focus on several fragments and observations of everyday life in the German parent settlements. Most of them originate from the time before World War II. In the post-war period the everyday culture of the Germans had adapted to the Soviet and neighborhood surroundings so that the Germans slowly integrated and assimilated into the general Soviet everyday life.

 

Celebrations

Celebrations and their traditions accompany and impact our lives. Until 1917 Russian-Germans held on to the celebrations that they had brought from their homelands. They celebrated their religious holidays like Christmas, All Saints Day, Day of Prayer and Repentance, Good Friday and Easter, Pentecost, Thanksgiving Day and Reformation Day, depending on their denomination.

Next to the regular religious holidays they celebrated secular feasts like New Years and set up the maypole.

Naturally they celebrated big family celebrations like baptism, confirmation or first communion, weddings and funerals as well.

With the revolution in 1917 manners and costumes changed and eventually new politically motivated celebrations were introduced. Russian-Germans as well celebrated those holidays with their fellow countrymen, especially during the late Soviet Union times (1956 - 1992).