The secret of the most famous Russian deck of cards

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

This deck of cards can rightfully be called classic, not only because almost every Russian person has seen and held it in his hands.

Playing cards or even solitaire cards depicting figures are much closer to a Russian person than you might think. A Swiss, French or German deck, for example, is quite different in appearance, and now you are more likely to come across ordinary drawn cards. But this deck was in almost every home.

The kings, queens and jacks familiar to the eye are people who actually existed! Not only that, they really were kings and queens.

In fact, the maps depict members of the royal family who once gathered for a costume masquerade ball. It was one of the last magnificent balls - soon the empire fell under the onslaught of the revolution, but the memory of the celebration was preserved in such a miraculous way!

The Imperial Ball took place in 1903 in St. Petersburg, and the dress code was the era of the 17th century. Noble people dressed up in luxurious stylized costumes, and photographers captured it all. The card images faithfully reproduce the images of the guests.

It should be noted that 390 guests gathered and they were all dressed up in the style of courtiers of all stripes, boyars and boyars, streltsy and townspeople, governors and peasants of pre-Petrine Rus. The sketches of the costumes were developed by the artist Sergei Solomko, and were made by the best tailors of the Russian Empire.

The most interesting thing is that the deck of cards "Russian Style" was printed and released for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty at the Aleksandrovskaya Manufactory. After the revolution, it was closed, and a little later the factory resumed its work and continued to produce maps based on pre-revolutionary sketches. Later, the deck for offset printing was adapted by the Soviet artist Yuri Ivanov.

It is surprising that this particular deck became the most popular in the former USSR - no others could compete with it, although there were anti-religious, anti-fascist and many others. Among other things, it turns out that we all know what the "Russian style" is.

Card suits. Versions of origin

As such, there is no "official" version of the origin of the card suits. There are several hypotheses.

According to one of them, the Chinese invented the cards. According to another, the Egyptian priests drew 78 tablets - tarot cards. On 56 tablets (the so-called "Minor Arcana"), modern cards were drawn (where are there four more virtues?! Approx. Harm.) And 22 more tablets ("Major Arcana") made up Tarot cards. The hypothesis was voiced in 1785 by the occultist from France Etteila, and continued to be promoted by the Anglicans Crowley and Mathers, the French Levi and the doctor of magic Papus.

According to another, Charles the 6th (a schizophrenic patient) had a jester Jacques Gringoner, who in 1392 entertained the king with a deck of 32 cards: no queens.

Another hypothesis says that in India on the cards the multi-armed Shiva, in his hands was holding a rod, a goblet, a coin and a sword. The suits were drawn in the same way in Italian card decks.

The Germans still call suits spears, flowers, squares and hearts. There are also leaves, acorns, bells and hearts.

Heart, tambourine, cross and lance. In English, worms are hearts. Tambourines diamonds, diamonds. Clubs (crosses) - clubs, tubers. The peaks will be so - spades.

Card suits and crosses on temples

Let's pay attention to the crosses of Orthodox churches:

On old crosses, not remakes, made before the 1917 revolution, card suits are present and clearly stand out in the design of the ornament.

One of the variants of semantic reading is according to the nesting principle. The "end" of the beam on the cross is made in the style of a heart or a spades suit. On each ray of one cross, there may be a smaller "cross" from one of these two suits. And this small "cross" merges into a tambourine suit (see figure).

From afar, the entire pattern of the cross merges into the actual cross suit.

Based on this arrangement of the elements of the cross, we can conclude that the black (lance) and / or red (worm) elements are constituent parts of a larger red element (tambourine), which, in turn, is a constituent element of a larger black ensemble - clubs, the actual cross.

Some researchers, for example, Aleksey Kungurov, argue that, in fact, the suits symbolize the worlds in the ancient Vedic beliefs that existed in Russia and have survived in this form to our times. These are the worlds of reality, navi, glory and rule. According to the researcher, reality is a peak, glory is a tambourine, nav is clubs, rule is worms. The world of reality is our manifest world. The worlds of Navi and Slavi are dark and light otherworldly worlds. And, finally, the world rule - the highest divine world.