Weddings in the USSR how it was. Interesting about Soviet weddings and wedding traditions

Today, a wedding is often a large-scale event with hundreds of guests, chic outfits, stylish decor and well thought out organization. But in the USSR, everything looked completely different and was once the rage!

The USSR existed for 70 years, during which time the images of the bride and groom changed, but characteristic features can be distinguished.

Soviet-era brides were guided by minimalism in their attire: modest Wedding Dress, high Wedding hairstyle, shoes with heels. It is worth noting that the image of a Soviet bride is unthinkable without a veil - it can be both long and short.

As for the groom, his outfit was traditionally decorated with a boutonniere made of artificial flowers, usually white color. The groom's suit was strict: two, sometimes three.

In the USSR, floristry in general, as well as the art of decorating bouquets, has not yet been developed at such a level as it is today. For their bouquet, brides often chose not roses, but gladioli. different colors, carnations - red, pink, white.

Oh yes, decorative grass and transparent foil were used to decorate the bouquet.

All Soviet weddings had an obligatory photograph: newlyweds, witnesses, parents, other relatives and guests - all lined up in several rows. All couples who got married in Soviet time. These group photos were the most popular. By the way, the photographers at the Soviet wedding were relatives and friends who were lucky enough to have their own camera.

As for the wedding walk of the newlyweds, it was popular to be imprinted on the memory with a city monument, near the railway.

Rich citizens of the USSR celebrated their wedding in a restaurant, and those who were poorer - in the dining room. This was not at all considered shameful, because in Soviet times canteens were widespread and popular.

Champagne and vodka were served from spirits, so that by the end the wedding turned into a noisy fun. Restaurant celebration could not do without live music. By the way, a lot of this is still there!

Wedding decor in the USSR

Artificial flowers were often used to decorate the hall, since it was simply difficult to get a large number of fresh flowers. It was very popular to make decorations from paper, as well as from spruce branches and foil. Often on the walls of an apartment or a dining room one could see perky posters with inscriptions flaunting on them: “With a dear paradise and in a hut, if a dear attache.” The main thing is to be bright!

You can not talk about the brand of car for the wedding procession of newlyweds - "Moskvich", "Zaporozhets" or "Zhiguli" (who is richer - "Volga"), but let's try about the design! wedding cars in the USSR, doll-brides were always decorated, which were seated on the hood. Also, there must have been Balloons- though scarce, but beautiful!

Wedding in the USSR

It is worth saying that in the days of the USSR no one got married. Since the government immediately "quarreled" with the church, in some years an attempt to perform a church ceremony could even lead to severe punishment. Frightened people stopped going to church, and often the believers remained only to themselves.

The wedding ceremony was revived only after perestroika. Then this beautiful tradition began to be remembered, gradually acquiring all sorts of necessary details.

Honeymoon trip to the USSR

A honeymoon trip to the USSR is a vacation at one of the Soviet resorts, famous for its mineral waters or healing springs and mountain air, or on the sea, at some recreation center, where they gave free vouchers from work.

In general, weddings during the Soviet era, and some of today's traditional weddings are largely similar. The same classical rituals, the same contests for newlyweds. In fact, little has changed. True, weddings of those times had to be organized on their own, but today you can organize a chic celebration with the help of specialists (if only there was money!). But the essence remains the same: a wedding is a joyful and cheerful celebration!

See photos of weddings in the USSR in the gallery:

IN different years In the USSR, there were quite a few wedding traditions that differed from each other. In this article you will read Interesting Facts about wedding rituals and traditions of the peoples of the USSR and you will see some rather interesting archival photographs. Of course, a wedding half a century ago and a modern wedding celebration

On November 1, 1959, in Leningrad, in a magnificent mansion at 28 Angliskaya Embankment (then the Red Fleet Embankment), the first Wedding Palace in the USSR was opened.

The news of this event instantly spread throughout the country, which, apart from strict registry offices, knew nothing. It was a very unusual and really important event for Soviet citizens ...

On November 1, 1959, at exactly 12 noon, in front of the Kalashnikovs Vadim Iosifovich and Lyudmila Vasilievna, to the sounds of Mendelssohn's march, the doors of the solemn hall of the Wedding Palace opened wide.

Everything was modest - a dress without a crinoline, a single ring for two, and a Komsomol-style restrained kiss. But you can imagine how happy the newlyweds felt! Until 1917, the Leningrad Wedding Palace or the “Palace of the Happy” was the mansion of Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich Romanov. Of course, a wedding half a century ago and a modern wedding celebration are completely different things.

After the Great Patriotic War, the building housed a design bureau. And for the opening of the Palace, the building was decorated in a proper, “Soviet” style: a bust of Lenin stood on a table covered with a red tablecloth, and portraits of members of the Politburo hung on the walls. Above all this was a pulpit, also painted red with the coat of arms of the Soviet Union.
Of course, many grooms and brides dreamed of getting into the first in the country “Wedding Palace”.

1963 According to some wedding witnesses of that time, a visit to the Leningrad Palace with direct "participation" in the ceremony was even included in the program of stay of Finnish tourists in the northern capital.

60s, an ordinary Soviet bride was brought to the place of marriage registration.

Of course, on the most “ceremonial” car - “The Seagull”.

Cars were usually decorated with multi-colored ribbons, balls, sometimes a doll. In the photo: Wedding in 1974.

And this is the signature of the certificate in the average registry office.

By the way, since the 50s, in order to increase the birth rate in the country, the Soviet state in every possible way supported the desire of citizens to formalize relations. For bachelors who wish to live in " civil marriage and feel single it was taxing.

And families, on the contrary, helped: the state welcomed everyone new marriage and even paid money for the purchase wedding rings. Young families had benefits and free housing.

Khrushchev at the wedding of Valentina Tereshkova.

Wedding in the Ryazan region in 1965.

From time immemorial, a girl did not marry alone, but with a dowry - property that the bride's parents began to prepare almost from the day of her birth. If the dowry was measured by carts, like this Kyrgyz bride, the chances of finding good husband were high.

A wedding as one of the main events in the life of newlyweds and their parents is a mass event. So, the bride depicted in the photo was envied by the entire collective farm. After all, in the 30s of the last century "to enter" family life not everyone has ever been on a tractor.

Speaking about the tradition of the wedding ceremony itself, it is worth noting that despite the wholesale “standardization”, the republics of the former Soviet Union retained their folk and religious customs: in Tajikistan, even 40 years after the victory of Soviet power, no one could see the bride’s face during the ceremony.

By the end of the last century, scenarios for holding urban Tajik weddings approached European ones, girls began to marry with open faces.

In some regions of the multinational Union wedding ritual looked very bright and colorful. For example, a Georgian bride had to be able not only to stop a galloping horse, but also to saddle it if necessary.

And in the Baltics, on the contrary, the groom had to impress the bride by washing her feet.

In many nations, on the eve of the wedding, the bride must braid not one braid, as in girlhood, but two. According to the Kyrgyz tradition, braids are decorated with beads, shells and copper buttons. The ends of the braid should hang below the waist. If the length of their hair is not enough, a horse hair is tied to it, on which keys are hung.

In Ukraine, according to ancient tradition, it is customary to knock on the door with a special carved cane before the newlyweds enter the house.

At a Nenets wedding, the bride is supposed to jump over a rope. In a heavy coat, this is not easy to do. But grazing reindeer in the tundra is no easier. The groom must be sure that his future wife will cope with this task.

The youth, in turn, also tried in every possible way to diversify the wedding: it was believed that in order to protect the future wife from evil spirits, the husband should bring her into the house in his arms. The BAM builders did just that, but for somewhat different reasons - to protect the wife's white shoes from dirt.

Photograph of a Soviet wedding taken in 1977 for National Geographic magazine.

IN Slavic tradition newlyweds are greeted with a loaf. Whoever - the bride or groom - bites off a larger piece, he will be the head of the family

After solemn marriage usually went with flowers to the monument to Lenin, to Eternal fire, on the Kremlin square.

Mandatory photo shoot on Red Square in Moscow.
An interesting detail about "marriage" terminology: they began to designate cohabitation as "civil marriage" relatively recently. In Soviet times, a civil marriage was called a marriage recorded in the civil status acts of the registry office (hence the name came from ...). In essence, there were only two types of marriage in the USSR: civil and church ...

In order not to completely get confused during the last census, two types of marriages were introduced in Russia: “civil” and “official”.

In modern serials about life in the USSR, they often show how a guy and a girl ran into the registry office on a weekly basis, signed, received a certificate, and in the morning, as if nothing had happened, they went to work. In this series, they do not sin much against the truth. For a long time in the Soviet Union, weddings were not made into a cult.

The Soviet government took care of family and marriage issues from the first months of its existence. On December 18, 1917, the Decree "On civil marriage, on children and on the maintenance of books of acts of state" was issued. According to this document, a single form of marriage was established for all citizens of Russia, regardless of religion. In order to be considered husband and wife, it was enough just to register in government bodies authorities. It was not forbidden to additionally get married in the church, but the ceremony had no official status.

Getting married has become very easy. The age of marriage was set at 16 for girls and 18 for young men. The only reasons why marriage was not allowed were the presence of a mental illness in one of the spouses, the fact that the future spouses were in a close degree of kinship, and the presence of an undissolved marriage. After the adoption of the decree, legitimate and illegitimate children became equal in their rights. Democratized and divorce. Decree "On the dissolution of marriage" was adopted on December 19, 1917. According to him, not the church, as before, but local courts began to manage divorces.

The so-called "red weddings" no longer resembled pre-revolutionary celebrations. Young people often simply did not have the money to arrange even the most modest banquet. Therefore, they often simply signed in the registry office and began to live together, and then they gathered relatives and friends for some Soviet holiday.

Attitudes towards marriage changed due to the growth in the well-being of Soviet people after the war. These changes began as early as the 1950s, when brides increasingly began to wear white dresses again, and after registration, the young went to sumptuous feasts. Registry offices also began to change. In 1959, in Leningrad, at the suggestion of the Komsomol members of the production association "Svetlana" and with the support of the regional party committee, the country's first Wedding Palace was created. IN next year in Moscow, in the Gorbunov Palace of Culture, a mass exit registration of marriages was held. 80 pairs were combined at the same time. And back in 1960, the Wedding Palace No. 1 opened in Moscow - the only place where marriages with foreigners were registered.

Legislative basis for the changes was given by legislation. On February 18, 1964, a resolution of the Council of Ministers was issued under an interesting title: "The introduction of new civil rites into the life of Soviet people." This ruling gave marriage ritual new frontiers. Now the marriage required the presence of witnesses from both sides. And the newlyweds were given the opportunity to celebrate the wedding. From now on, special bridal salons were created for them, and officially they were supposed to have 2-3 days off from work. But as if in order to increase the responsibility of the spouses, now they were painted not on the day they applied to the registry office, but only a month later.

The "new civil rites" demanded money from the people, and a lot of it. But not saving on a wedding very quickly became fashionable. It was considered sacred for the groom to buy rings and a suit. And for the bride - get a wedding dress. Since there was a shortage in the country, the newlyweds, when applying, were given coupons for the purchase of wedding suits and shoes, as well as rings in bridal salons. Only money was needed. In the 1960s, brides considered the most fashionable dress made of thick fabric called "cosmos" - dense, inflexible, similar to a waffle. But no liberties in the form of a neckline, trains and bare shoulders were allowed.

On the day of the wedding, the young people met at the registry office. The ritual with the ransom of the bride arose later. First, they listened to a pathetic speech about the importance of the family as a cell of society for the builders of communism, then they exchanged rings, signed the registration book and officially became husband and wife.

The tradition of traveling around the city has been around for a long time. It was prestigious to ride the young on the Volga or the Seagull. Cars were decorated with ribbons, rings and dolls. The obligatory program included a patriotic visit to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with the Eternal Flame.

And then the main thing began - a festive feast. On it, friends and relatives excelled in inventing rituals. For example, it was customary to put a loaf in front of the young, and for gifts to give guests cones - baked sweet buns that were ordered along with the loaf. If the wedding was celebrated at home, they tried to seat the young against the backdrop of a carpet - as a symbol of future prosperity.

No wonder they said not to “visit”, but to “walk” at the wedding. The parents of the young got into debt, but turned inside out, extracting, by hook or by crook, scarce gourmet foods. As a result, the tables were bursting with an abundance of food and alcohol. The wedding really looked like a feast for the whole world. For her, they rented a cafe or a dining room, and the guests were stuffed there to the eyeballs. Sometimes several hundred people. During the holiday arranged for them, the guests did not skimp on gifts. Weddings were especially popular among young people. For her, it was a kind of dating club. Many subsequently married themselves, having met at someone else's wedding. Usually the Soviet wedding sang and danced for two days. The second day began with a friendly hangover after the first. But the people had enough strength to drink and have fun for two days in a row.

With the increase in the well-being of the Soviet people, their stratification also began to occur. Elite weddings appeared, distinguished by their special scope and ambition. Parents flaunted in front of the guests, inviting celebrities as "wedding generals", surprising those present with chic, a motorcade of foreign cars and "live music". For mere mortals, the path to such events was practically ordered, and therefore rumors were born. The most famous of them was the rumor about the wedding, which was allegedly arranged in 1974 by the head of the Leningrad regional committee, Grigory Romanov, for his daughter Natalia. The next day, radio stations "Freedom" and "Voice of America" ​​reported that the wedding of Romanov's daughter was celebrated in the Tauride Palace, and the guests on it split the royal service, specially taken from the Hermitage storerooms! Information about the service was later repeatedly refuted, but the legend of the "Romanov wedding" still circulates.

The antipode of the elite were modest Komsomol weddings. Often they coped somewhere in a hostel, without parents and relatives. During Gorbachev's dry law, non-alcoholic Komsomol weddings were set as an example.

In the villages, weddings were played in the fall, after the harvest. And they thoroughly prepared for them, stocking up on meat, pickles and moonshine. On the day of the wedding, tables were placed in a row on the street, and all the inhabitants of the village came to the wedding. Usually they didn’t even need a special invitation - everyone was around friends and relatives. In village weddings there was more ritualism, which has ancient roots. For example, tying the bride and groom with an embroidered towel, pouring water in front of the newlyweds, sprinkling them with cereals and much more. But their main feature was the accordion and the sea of ​​moonshine. From this, the sayings arose: “What is a wedding without a button accordion” and “What is a wedding without a fight.”

Fragments of the book "Soviet traditions, holidays and rituals" 1986 edition. The 300-page illustrated work is an instruction for all occasions - from a wedding to a ceremony of initiation into a grain grower. The book was printed in Moscow with a circulation of 70 thousand copies and cost 2.5 rubles at that time ...

Before the war, no one made a cult out of a wedding - it wasn’t before that. People just went to the registry office and put their signatures without thinking about the outfits. In the post-war 50s, almost no one had money, so they did not spend money on celebrations. Men often married military uniform or the most decent suit, women took out their, often the only, evening dress.

If they celebrated, then at home. No frills - a small party. In the 70s, when the well-being of the Soviet people began to grow, the first problems appeared.

In the 80s, a wedding in the USSR became a really troublesome business. In conditions of shortage, the newlyweds had a lot of problems. It was difficult to get both a dress and a decent suit. During the anti-alcohol campaign, another problem arose - where to get vodka? It was during these years that a book was written on Soviet traditions and rituals.

The chapter on wedding celebrations begins with an explanation of the seriousness of everything that happens.

A separate place is reserved for the description of the head of the regional department of the registry office and his subordinates. So the head of the registry office should ensure “exemplary work of all services involved in ritual services to the population, provide methodological assistance to performers of rituals ...

He must have sufficient knowledge and experience to conduct ceremonies himself at a high ideological and artistic level.” To the question of what specialty the registrars have: “the performers of the rite have a special education, which is established by the regional and district commissions.

To perform these functions, especially in rural areas, along with full-time employees of the registry office and deputies of local councils, cultural workers, teachers and other persons who have the necessary abilities are also involved. Unfortunately, there is no explanation of exactly what abilities they should have.

Since the registrar at the wedding symbolizes state power, his outfit was also regulated.

Apparently, the form of registry office workers has not changed. Women still dress in shapeless, but very solemn robes. light colors.

It is desirable that a torch bowl be installed in the living room of the House or the Wedding Palace.

Today, torches are not burned in registry offices for safety reasons, and at youth holidays too, with the exception of football, and then on the sly.

The performer of the ceremony addresses the bride and groom:

The bride and groom repeat the words of the oath after the registrar:

After pronouncing these words, representatives of labor collectives and the public congratulate the newlyweds and give them gifts. After the newlyweds leave the ritual hall, they are congratulated by relatives and friends. Relatives and friends are encouraged to give not only small bouquets of former roses to the bride and carnations to the groom, but also viburnum and mountain ash berries.

Collective farm chairman CM. Kirov Voznesensky district of the Nikolaev region Hero of Socialist Labor N.N. Ryaboshapka gives the young people bread and salt.

On the day of the wedding, the newlyweds must visit the monument to V.I. Lenin, a monument or a mass grave of fallen soldiers and lay flowers there "as a sign of deep respect for people whose life was a great feat and an example of serving the sacred cause of the October Revolution and defending the socialist Motherland."

This tradition has not disappeared, but has been transformed. Until now, each city has its own wedding route. Delegations of newlyweds practically line up to take a souvenir photo at various cultural heritage sites.

There are really sensible, eternal remarks in the book:

Soviet paintings often depict wedding celebrations. Children must be present at them - preferably in school uniform, as well as people in national costumes. Often this is a woman in an embroidered Ukrainian shirt and a scarf or ribbons on her head. If the wedding takes place in a village, then they walk with the whole village, with an accordion, neighbors and moonshine.

After the wedding, a young family is recommended to go on a "wedding tourist trip to the capital, to hero cities, home country". This tradition is still alive today, only the directions have changed. Today, few people go to see the hero city, the newlyweds choose the sea and tan ...

Wedding rituals are one of the most stable components of traditional everyday culture. She picks up the pieces different eras from beliefs and magical actions past to patterns of ceremonial behavior developed in modern times. social entity marriage is determined by the prevailing relations in society.

In the pre-revolutionary years, Russian family law was the object of serious criticism from society. Registration of acts of civil status was administered by religious institutions, and legal practice constantly revealed a discrepancy between the real state of affairs and the declared postulates. church rules distinguished between first, second and third marriages, marriages of persons of the same faith and mixed marriages. For a number of categories of the population there was church ban for the registration of marriage and for the recognition of paternity or motherhood. The imperfection of the procedures for concluding and dissolving marriages led to the fact that by the beginning of the 20th century, about 1/6 of those born in Russia as a whole and more than 1/4 in the capital, St. Petersburg, were illegitimate. At the same time, such children and their mothers were affected in civil rights.

The actions of the new government to reform the family were dictated by the communist ideology, which declared the “bourgeois” family guilty of the moral and social pathology of the old society. One of the first Soviet laws were decrees of December 18-20, 1917 on the dissolution of marriage and on civil marriage as an act establishing the civil and moral equality of spouses, on the equalization of rights illegitimate children with legitimate births, as well as on maintaining civil status books (work with registration books was assigned exclusively to the Soviet authorities; pre-revolutionary marriage registration documents issued by the church were equated with documents issued by Soviet registry offices subordinate to the NKVD).

The new way of life made changes in the symbolism and rituals of marriage and family. They were based on the ideological guidelines of the ruling party, aimed at establishing the Soviet way of life, behavior and norms.

A counterweight church wedding in the 1920s began to practice the so-called. "red weddings" They were considered primarily not as a family event, but as a socio-political event, as an occasion for anti-religious agitation, and as a mass phenomenon lasted until the first half of the 30s. The first red wedding was the wedding of people's commissars Alexandra Kollontai and Pavel Dybenko (the marriage lasted from mid-March 1918 to 1923).

On November 19, 1926, the Code of the RSFSR on marriage, family and guardianship was adopted (entered into force on January 1, 1927). According to this code church marriage became a “private affair of the spouses”, and living together spouses without registration in the registry office e was equated to a marriage officially registered by the state (the actual marriage was recognized as having legal force according to judgment). This was also declared by the laws of a number of union republics, except for the Azerbaijan, Tajik, Uzbek and Ukrainian SSRs.

IN fiction and the cinema of the 20s there are no descriptions of the wedding ceremony, and this is no coincidence. The Soviet family was not a value in itself (some of the Bolsheviks advocated the elimination of the institution of the family as such), but was perceived as part of a team of like-minded people - builders of a new society, and the main responsibility for educating the younger generation was assigned by the state to preschool and school institutions designed to correct the “negative” impact of the family on the development of the child's personality.

However, by the 1930s, the Bolsheviks were forced to abandon radicalism in the topics of family and gender relations. It is important to note here: the complexity of talking about the Soviet wedding ceremony is due to the basic phenomenon Soviet culture– the impossibility of trusting the “official word”. The rhetoric of marriage and family that arose in the early years of Soviet power persisted in official culture until the mid-1950s, but the real state of affairs was not so revolutionary.

On March 20, 1933, in addition to the Code, an Instruction was adopted on the procedure for registering acts of civil status ( new edition entered into force on August 29, 1937), and on June 27, 1936 - the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On the prohibition of abortion, increase financial assistance women in childbirth, establishing state aid multi-family, expanding the network of maternity hospitals, nurseries and kindergartens, increasing criminal penalties for non-payment of alimony, and some changes in divorce laws.” The legislation of 1936 essentially restored, albeit in new forms, the pre-revolutionary institution of the family. The ideology of the “proletarian marriage of love” failed. This was also shown by statistics: the percentage of registered unions between very young women and elderly, well-to-do men has steadily increased in the country; abortion and even advice to do it were severely punished (in the early 1920s, about 2 million abortions were carried out in the country annually). The Soviet government actively opposed only two traditional phenomena in a number of regions - polygamy and forced marriage.

The threat of a depopulation catastrophe, which became apparent during the years of the Great Patriotic war, predetermined the adoption of laws aimed at strengthening marriage and family relations. So, on September 8, 1943, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, it became possible to register adopted children as relatives while maintaining the secrecy of adoption (in the 1920s, “postscripts” in determining paternity and motherhood were condemned). And on July 8, 1944, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was adopted “On increasing state assistance to pregnant women, mothers with many children and single mothers, strengthening the protection of motherhood and childhood, establishing the honorary title “Mother Heroine”, establishing the Order of Mother’s Glory and a medal” Motherhood medal. In accordance with this document, mandatory registration of marriage was approved. Expression " legal marriage” became common again. All married couples in unregistered de facto marital relations, for their official recognition they had to visit the registry offices. In the event of the death of one of the spouses or his disappearance at the front in wartime, the other spouse had the right to apply to the court for recognition of his spouse as a deceased or missing person. On March 14, 1945, a Decree was adopted establishing that parents who married after the birth of a child had the right to recognize him as legitimate. The divorce procedure became tougher (mandatory proceedings were introduced in the people's court). Marriage without registration in the registry office began to be officially called the word "cohabitation" (this term existed until the end of the 1990s - only in the last decade the expression "actual marriage" is used).

The mid-1950s were marked by two landmark events in the field of family and marriage.

Firstly, abortions were again legalized (by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of August 5, 1954, criminal and administrative prosecution of women was terminated, and by a decree of November 23, 1955, abortions carried out at the request of a woman and exclusively in medical institutions, were re-allowed).

Secondly, in 1956, the registry offices were transferred from the subordination of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the jurisdiction of local Soviets of Deputies. Registry offices previously located in police stations received separate rooms and were staffed by a more qualified contingent of employees (most clerks had a complete secondary education; whereas before, employees mostly had Primary School or seven years).

In the registry offices of large cities, it was allocated special time for registration of births and marriages: these acts were registered from 15:00 to 19:00 on all days of the week except Wednesday, and other acts (death, divorces, corrections in documents, etc.) - from 10:00 to 14:00.

The solemnity of the registration of marriages was provided by the district Soviets of People's Deputies and their civil registry offices. In settlements where there were no registry offices, civil ceremonies were carried out by rural, settlement Soviets of People's Deputies. And in 1958, at the suggestion of the Komsomol members of the Leningrad Production Association "Svetlana" and with the support of the Leningrad City Party Committee, the first wedding palace in the USSR was created.

As for Moscow, they began to practice here field registrations marriage: in 1959, a massive one-time registration of marriages was carried out in the Gorbunov House of Culture (80 couples).

On December 15, 1960, by decision of the executive committee of the Moscow City Council, the Wedding Palace No. 1 (Griboyedovsky) was opened in the capital, in which it became possible to register marriages with foreigners.

The general methodological guidance of the civil registry offices in 1956-1971 was carried out by special legal commissions.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, changes were again made to the marriage registration procedure aimed at “introducing new civil rites into the life of Soviet people” (the so-called resolution of the Council of Ministers, issued on February 18, 1964, on the basis of which large-scale work began to be carried out on the creation of a system of rituals accompanying acts of civil status). Was installed a certain period waiting for marriage registration (one month from the date of filing the application), the institute of certificate has been introduced (the presence of witnesses from both newlyweds has become mandatory). To help organize wedding celebrations bridal salons were created. At the place of work, the newlyweds were given 2-3 days off - “for the wedding”.

Gone are the years when those entering into marriage celebrated their wedding only in a modest family setting - now the company "Spring", Yuvelirtorg, Tsvettorg, management worked for them. road transport, photography factories, etc. wedding ceremony became an industry.

Weddings tend to be played with an invitation a large number of people. At the same time, rituals imitating centuries-old folk traditions. These included, in particular, parental blessing, decoration of the wedding procession (the car was decorated with ribbons, toy bears were put on the bumper, and later - dolls in the costumes of the bride and groom), Komsomol parting words, as well as semi-legal fortune-telling on happy life(which became popular at the turn of the 1970s -80s astrological forecasts).

In the 1960s-80s, a number of obligatory ritual elements were introduced into the wedding procedure: a trip to “places of memory” (visiting the monument to the leader of the world proletariat V.I. Lenin, a monument or mass grave of fallen soldiers and laying flowers), a symbolic farewell to the young ( reading the “Vow of allegiance”, handing over the “key” from family happiness, “Chronicles of the family”, medals “Advice and love”), planting a “family tree” or participating in the creation of an “alley of newlyweds” ... Popularity began to enjoy Honeymoon to the capital, to hero cities, in their native country (they received a ticket in bridal salons or in public organizations of institutions at the place of work or study). The printing industry produced millions of copies of postcards “Invitation to the wedding” ( traditional decoration- flowers and two connected rings) ...

In the 80s, marriages began to be introduced folk elements: so, at the meeting of the bride and groom, laudatory songs were sung, bread and salt was presented on an embroidered towel. In the same years, it was given great attention silver and gold weddings, marriage anniversaries.

In addition, during wedding celebrations, relevant socially significant events and campaigns were often taken into account. For example, during the active struggle against drunkenness and alcoholism, weddings were held that excluded the use of alcoholic beverages.

In 1968, the Fundamentals of the Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics on Marriage and Family were adopted, on the basis of which Codes on Marriage and Family (KOBIS) were developed in the republics.

In 1977, family norms were first included in the Constitution of the USSR: “Article 53. The family is under the protection of the state. Marriage is based on the voluntary consent of a woman and a man; spouses are completely equal in family relations. The state takes care of the family by creating and developing a wide network of children's institutions, organizing and improving the service of everyday life and public catering, paying benefits on the occasion of the birth of a child, providing benefits and benefits to large families, as well as other types of benefits and assistance to the family”, “Article 66 Citizens of the USSR are obliged to take care of the upbringing of children, to prepare them for socially useful work, to raise them as worthy members of socialist society. Children are obliged to take care of their parents and provide them with assistance” (Chapter 7 “Basic Rights, Freedoms and Duties of Citizens of the USSR”).

In the second half of the 1980s, the Soviet marriage ceremonial, like society as a whole, was undergoing a crisis: the years of perestroika were marked, on the one hand, by a rise in the popularity of church rites of legitimizing marriage, and on the other hand, by an increase in the percentage of refusals from state registration of marriage relations.

Armand I.F. communist morality and family relationships. - L., 1926.

The evolution of the family and family policy in the USSR / Ed. ed. A.G. Vishnevsky. – M.: Nauka, 1992.

Family ties: models for assembly / Comp. and ed. S. Ushakin. - M .: UFO, 2004. - In 2 books.

Tatiana Vorontsova