For many centuries, humanity was unthinkable without games and toys - they helped properly form the psyche of children.

According to psychologists, toys are extremely important for the development of the child's facial expressions, with their help you can develop certain psychological qualities, and it is possible to improve its physical development. Interacting with its own world, which is represented by toys, the child gradually learns to communicate correctly with peers and adults.

HISTORY OF RUSSIAN WOODEN TOY

Russian folk wooden toys are known with deep antiquity. They are inextricably linked with cultural, household and folk characteristics of the corresponding historical era and the region where their production was. Archaeologists have found evidence that wooden toys were in East Slavic tribes in the 9th century AD. However, the confirmation of this can be found only in historical documents, samples of such toys have practically not survived due to the peculiarities of the tree as a material. Even the works of the masters of the toy business of the XVIII century reached modernity in very small quantities. In museums and collections, toys from the XIX century are mainly represented.

The most simple copies are the bitch of the tree, only a little applied using a knife. In some regions, fir bumps used in the creation of toys, which served as arms or legs for wooden figures. Since the wooden toy is inextricably linked with the forest, the figures are presented mainly in the form of forest inhabitants. These are birds, animals or fictional folklore characters - "Mochoviki", depicting woodcutters or old women with knitting rods on the back. It is known that in the Paris exhibition of 1890 "Mokhoviki" were met with a foreign public with the enthusiasm.

Historical Centers for the production of wooden toys in Russia

There are three most well-known historically established regions of the manufacture of wooden toys. The first one is known since the XIX century. He was located on the shores of the White Sea, on the Onega Peninsula, in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda province. Toys made by northern masters are very characteristic. Experts believe that their appearance is due to the influence of the cultic heritage of the ancestors. Such toys are reminiscent of the ancient northern idols with their stupid pillars. The features of the face are not too expressive, the figures are mostly cone-shaped, with flat facial parts. The main motifs of the production of toys for the northern masters are horses, birds, boats, women dolls and a variety of rattles.

Another historic region of wooden toy production was in the Nizhny Novgorod province. This region was generally famous for the wood carvings, here the best samples of the ship and house thread were produced, "places" (the manufacture of wooden spoons) was well developed, the sharpness of the spindle and Gorodetskaya carving. A considerable role was also played by the production of carved toys from a tree. The artistic level of this fishery was extremely high. Centers, Semenov, Lyskovo, Purech, Fedoseevo and some other cities are made by the centers for making traditional wooden toys.

Well, the third, the most famous center for the production of traditional Russian wooden toys is the area of \u200b\u200bSergiyev Posada - the city and the village of Bogorodskoe, located twenty-seven kilometers from him. Masters of these places preferred to use genre images to create images of their toys. These are the so-called "baryni fools" - figures of lush, doodle women created with the help of a multicolored conditional painting. Equally popular were the figures of hussars, popov, monks. Mandatory characters - a hardworking man and its mighty worker-horse. And of course, the most main character of Russian folklore is a kind and lazy closure bear. Bogorodskiy toys were often manufactured in the form of plot compositions, they included several "acting persons". Sometimes such toys were made moving to enhance the effect.

Wooden toy in the modern world

With the development of industry and the invention of plastic, wooden toys gradually moved to the background. Their place was taken by bright and light plastic dolls, cubes and pyramids. For a long time, toys from wood remained just souvenirs, but they were not intended directly for the game. Recently, in connection with the enhancement of attention to the environmental friendliness of products for children, wooden toys conquer the previous popularity. In addition, according to psychologists, simple and even primitive on-shaped wooden toys have a better influence on the child than plastic toys with a lot of small details. The child, building a house from simple cubes, can infinitely fantasize on its external and interior decoration. And taking a plastic house in the hands, in advance to the smallestly worked by the designer of the toy factory, the child soon begins to miss, because he has nothing to think and add to the toy.

We told about Soviet toys more than once, and many of our readers played themselves in them. Today I propose to look at those toys that you most likely have not even seen. After all, they all over 100 years old and our grandparents and grandparents could play in them. True, provided, of course, that they were children of prosperous parents, as the selection will tell about the toys from behind the ocean.

1. Teddy Bears or Teddy Bear

Now they felt tight in modern life. Almost every American child has at least one teddy bear from this collection.

The origin of the name is not prosaic - they say, Teddy Roosevelt somehow spared the bear, drunk by dogs and tied to the tree, which resulted in a lot of cartoons. Well, after this story, Morris Micht, the owner of the store of the toy, made a stuffed bear, and then, having enlisted by the resolution of the president about the use of his name for a soft toy, began selling bears everywhere. Micht did not make a patent for a toy, so they began to sell the neighboring factories, and there was a huge number of completely different Teddy bears.

Here are a couple of caricatures on Roosevelt:



(1902)

... Iii Teddy Bears:

Girl with teddy bear (1900):

Strong family \u003d)

Two girls play with bear (1909)

Bear (1900th)

Bearing a bear at the factory (early 1900s):

Well, I think about the teddy bear enough, because about their history and how they changed through the years, you can write infinitely.

2. Designer (ERECTOR SET)

One of the most popular toys of all time, also with success who lived to us, the dream of any boy.

The first designer was established in 1901 by Frank Hornbi, an English inventor, an engineer and a politician not having engineering education. This invention made it a millionaire.
It was a metal designer consisting of nuts, bolts, overlap, wheels and other parts. The kit also included a screwdriver and wrench. There was no certain schemes - everyone could show a fantasy and do everything that would be pleased. It was possible to create a whole city with bridges, cars, airplanes and even flying plates.

It looked all like this:

And the first color details appeared only in 1926.

3. Laonel Train

It is difficult to imagine that Lyonel's trains began to exist from about 1901. Of course, the first train was used to attract customers through the famous showcases of New York, but it was shortly before they appeared in houses from buyers.

Electric Express, the first train model Joshua Lionel Kaen, was created in 1901 by installing a small engine under the model of the railway platform. The engine was equipped with a battery and an electric express ran a thirty-salted track. By 1953, Lionel Corporation became the largest manufacturer of toys in the world.

4. Raggedy Ann ("Rag Ann")

In 1914, the newspaper caricaturist Johnny Gruell made Marsell Doll for his daughter and called her "rag Ann" in honor of the two poems of James Rally - the "rag man" and "Little Orphan Ann". Two years later, Little Ann appeared Brother - Raggy Andy in a sailor suit and a hat. In 1918, Johnny Gruell, besides, also a writer, began to invent and publish children's fairy tales with these characters. In the fairy tale, the doll lived and with her friends helped the girl.
Gradually, the popularity of the two reggaed dolls began to increase, and many parents sewed them for their children. On the industrial scale of these dolls began to be released only in 1935. But all the feus of Raggeda has one feature - a small heart embroidered on his chest, with the inscription "I love you." At 13, Marsell died due to improper vaccination from smallpox. Marsell's parents organized a movement against forced vaccination, and in memory of a small daughter, Raggy Ann was made by a symbol of this movement.

Raggy Ann Handmade (about 1930)

Girl with doll:

Modern Raggy Ann:

In the 50s, items with the logo of the Raggya Ann type of dishes and tea sets appeared, and people began to actively collect numerous dolls and everything connected with them.
Surprisingly, an ordinary rag doll has become a symbol of hope for the whole country. For example, in the second world war, the families sent by the military of these dolls as a talisman.

That's so simple doll became an important part of American culture.

5. Tinkertoys.

Also the constructor, but for the most young. It consists of numerous details from which you can do anything:

Tinkertoys (1900)

Later version:

Modern Tinkertoys:

But what can be done from it. To confess, there is no limit to my surprise, I hear about this toy for the first time. I asked S. - he has a little brother, he also does not know anything about her. In short, here:

6. TiddlyWinks.

The game in which I myself played in my childhood, but until today I did not know how it was called:

Today:

Player's task - throw your chip as close as possible to the target. Initially, there was a glass, but now there are different rules of the game.

That's how the game in the 1900s looked like this:

The same glass (in English - "A POT")

The same game in the 1930s:

7. Lincoln Logs.

Another constructor. Surprisingly, how they were popular then \u003d). The details of this designer were gear decorative logs to build small fortresses and buildings.
The toy was invented in 1916 by John Lloyd Wright, the second son of Architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
The logs themselves have a width of approximately two centimeters in diameter. By analogy with real logs used in log buildings, Lincoln logs are bodied so that they can be installed at right angles to each other to form rectangles resembling buildings. Additional parts of the kit toys include roofs, pipes, windows and doors that give realistic to the completed building. Later in the sets were added figures of animals and human figures. Sets of toys were originally made of mahogany, with roofs of different colors. In the 1970s, the company introduced the sets made entirely of plastic, but unsuccessfully, and Noni continued to produce sets of wood. Over time, the sets became more and more complex.

John Lloyd Wright somehow confessed that he called his designer in honor of Abraham Lincoln, who was born in a log hut in connection with increasing patriotism during the First World War.

Lincoln Logs and John Lloyd Wright were introduced into the "National Hall of Fame of Toys" in 1999.

The houses of those years did not find, so only modern:

Here is better visible structure:

8. Melki.

Crayola Crayons released their first 8 chalks in 1903 and did not regret. The creators of Edwin Binnie and Harold Smith could not imagine that their product would be necessary in every class of the country.

9. Radio Flyer Wagon (Red Metal Trolley)

Anton Pazin, Italian Emmigrant, decided to call his toy so as to catch the spirit of the era. In 1917, the radio was the newest invention and everyone spoke about him. She quickly became one of the favorite toys of that time and remains popular so far in American families.

20th:

50th:

10. Tiny toys
Despite the fact that for many years they did Germany, at the turn of the centuries, America began to do it, which made it possible to spread these toys throughout the country. They were made of metal and painted. At this time, mechanical toys were also popular. And however, see for yourself:

Music box with pupae from biscuit porcelain:

Cracking monkey volume (fur., Early 1900s):

Smart Madushka / Multiplication Table (Early 1900s):

Mixed cow (1900):

Dancing ballerinas (Germany, 1900):

Dancer (early 1900s):

Mechanical duck on wheels (Germany, 1900):

Monkey-acrobat:

Playing at billiards:

Horse:

Toddler at the table:

Papay:

Jack out of the box:

Wonderful composition:

Mechanical African American. Also started, as I understood, I asked: "Give Me A Penny."

Boy on a horse:

Little sewing machine:

Jumping girl:

Piggy banks:

26.05.2008 10:44

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Toy story in Russia

At the first levels of development, all the peoples of the globe were given to children what amuses them themselves - images of birds, animals or creatures in which they believe.

The toy is the most important component of any culture, reflecting national traditions and geographical features. Children's toys are life in miniature, it is possible to say the foundation on which the child's globility is being formed, according to this, the formation of personality depends on them.
People since the ancient centuries understood this and gave their children exactly what was close to themselves: swords, animal figures, elegant dolls, etc.

Pushed toys from any girlfriend. First bones, wood, clay and plants, later from rags, glass, leather and iron and is already significantly later, rubber, plastic and other chemical materials went into the move.

Previously, toys were very respectful. They were never left as fell, but stored in special baskets or chests. Moreover, the toys carried not only an educational element in themselves, but sometimes they were deified, participating in numerous rites or speaking by chambers. But we will tell you more about this a little later. The history of Russian toys is interesting from the first pages.

Of course, a distant past is connected with endless wars. The boys from an early age represented themselves sitting on horseback, and in their hand instead of a stick had to shine a sword.

Such toys did not come out of fashion many centuries. The first exhibits of toy museums are dated 12-13 centuries, although it is safe to say that such toys were before.

Girls were mainly played by figures depicting people and animals reflecting the lodges of the class to which the family beloved. A similar tradition has been preserved until now, they just look different.

As mentioned earlier, the dolls in ancient times were not always only fun, sometimes they were given a very significant role. For example, on beliefing our ancestors, the birth of a new life was perceived as the mercy and the location of the Divine Forces, but the birth process itself was associated with something sinful and unclean. In generic torments, people saw the presence of evil forces tormented by a fever and baby.

The man, in this process, was given an active role, he was always attended at birth and should have been protected against unclean strength, making various rites. These rites were called "Kuwad". Lukoshko was exhibited in the pre-eggs with chicken eggs, to which a man sat down, pretending to surfaches them. At the same time, the father was supposed to shout as frantically, imitating the woman in labor than the evil spirits lured evil spirits.

So that the deceived spirits do not return, the man was put on special ritual dolls - Kuwada, whom Pelenali and kept like a baby. It was believed that it was in them evil spirits, confusing them with a real child, and on this Kuwad had burned after the birth during a special clarification.

By the end of the 19th century, people forgot the origins of an ancient rite, and dolls remained and acquired a new mystical orientation. Now they hung over the cradle after the baptism of the baby, everything also protects him from the goous evil spirits. After these dolls served overalls for children and at home, while parents went to work. As a rule, these toys were small and all different colors, which helped the development of the infant.

If you notice, toys still hang around the cradle, only no longer attributing to mystical properties.

The same dolls of the columns received a lot of distribution in those days. They received such a name due to the fact that their base was a birch column, dressed in a dress. A distinctive feature of such toys was that they could steadily stand, so they were eagerly decorated at home and used for drawing various scenes on youth walks.

According to the evidence of the ethnographers of the beginning of the 20th century, in some peasant houses there were up to hundreds of cakes.

In ancient times, the toys practically did not change, but by the end of 19, the beginning of the 20th century in this area there was an unprecedented horse racing, which is primarily associated with the fact that the toys have become a product that has found their buyer.

With each decade, the toys began becoming more beautiful, brighter, more difficult and close to reality.

Again, in many respects, the features of the toys drowned on what classes they were made. Simultaneously with such uncomplicated skates, there were already porcelain dolls in expensive outfits of identical real, in their hands that could have just as real veins or umbrellas.

In the twentieth century, the toys began to change at such a speed that they needed to consider them already separate decades. And here you can still talk about fashion on toys.

Fiftieth

Mobile Christmas toys, plush bears and of course soldiers entered the fashion. Also in all houses the standard decoration of the chest and the ship were porcelain figurines.

Sixtieth

In the sixties, the sixties were reflected, as a rule, two topics are agriculture and cosmonautics, because the symbol of the sixties became gold cobs of corn and happily smiling gagarin.

Seventies-eighty

The toy industry of this time reached his heyday. Plush replaced an artificial fur, and the modest tonal range of past decades is inferior to bright colors.
The main images of toys are taken with cartoon characters, it is both Winnie the Pooh, and the Kitten Gav, and the Burenka from Maslenkina, and of course they are loved by all uncle Gena and Cheburashka.

Ninety

This decade can be safely called the time of foreign toys, the fashion for which changed more often than once a year. Here and Barbie, and Ninja Turtles, as well as jumpers, lysuns, rainbow and other strange fun in the company with Kinder surprises and forever dying Tamagotchi.

All the same, all these toys were undoubtedly made for something and for some reason: to develop children physically and intellectually to teach respect their country and her story. Childhood has passed many centuries in motion and immerse into their own fantasy. Whether it is a rag doll or fashionable Barbie with a bright pink kitchen garnitour - the essence of the game did not change. The child created his world, his stories, learned to be friends, loving, quarrel and put up, and most importantly, all this was inextricably with real household subtleties. The dolls ate, slept, went to school and to work and the child was ready for the fact that once the game in the daughter of the mother would become a reality, moreover, he wanted it and his desire was proud of.

And what are the children play now?

The material is based on information and photos from resources:
www.rustoys.ru, bibliotekar.ru, www.talantik.ru I.Dra.

An important role in the process of upbringing noble children was given to toys. They were carefully chosen according to the child's age. Toys, starting with the very first rattles, were not chosen for the sake of jellis and fun, but also in view of educational purposes.It is not surprising that in noble families, and especially in the families of the highest aristocracy and monarchs, old toys were not thrown away, but carefully stored and passed in inheritance. As a result, the children absorbed a sense of continuity, responsibility, the inviolability of traditions and orders and the continuity of communication with their valiant ancestors from the diaper.

Preliushki

Starting from the XVI century, rattles for children of noble families were made of silver and gold, decorated with precious stones, carvings, chasing and engraving. The rattle itself was multifunctional and combined the whistle and a wand for Chesania Dysen. Handles for adhesion were made of corals or pearl.

Precious rattles were inherited. She was rather a symbol of kind than toy. It was characteristic of the royal family. So, Nicholas II was captured in a portrait with a rattle with which "played" Alexander I himself. The rattle was transferred to each newborn heir to the throne of the Romanov dynasty.

Rattle-whistle. Gold, coral. London, John Ray & James Montague, 1811-1812 Museum of Victoria and Alberta, London Portrait of Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich in childhood. 1778 G. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg Zesarevich Nikolay Alexandrovich with a rattle. Lithography. 1869

Horses

Wooden rocking horses were very popular. With the help of such a toy, the children were taught holding in the saddle from the very old age.The rocking horse was made mainly of wood, which or painted or offended with a porous cloth or leather. The eyes were made of glass, and the tail and the mane were made from a real horse-hairy. All the gear of a children's horse completely copied the ammunition of a real horse.

Rocking horse - our days. Products of the company Classic Rocking Horses, United Kingdom Princess Elizabeth and Margaret on the horse. 1932 Robert Pekham. Rocking horse 1840 canvas, oil. National Art Gallery, Washington
Rocking horse. Tree, leather, metal. United Kingdom, 1800-1850. Museum of Childhood "Victoria and Albert", London

Soldiers

A very popular toy for boys was wooden and tin soldiers. The form of soldiers copied the form of the real army, and playing with them the child learned to distinguish the form of various kinds of troops and understand the military ranks.

At all times, the boys have a favorite toy toy weapons: swords, sabers, rifles, spears, onions and arrows, etc. They were a reduced copy of the real weapons and were manufactured in accordance with the age of the child, that is, for the little ones, the saber, sword, rapier were made of wood, and for older children - already from metal.

Dolls

Girls played with dolls. In rich families, the holidays were given expensive porcelain dolls of famous French and German factories. Then two types of dolls were popular: a doll-lady, for which the name "Fashion Parisian" and a doll, which was called the French manner "Bebe".

Porcelain Fashion Natives repeated toilets of adult ladies. The chests were kept in the chests, gloves, laorn, jewelry, linen, toilets for walking, picnics, theaters, balls, visits, etc. Such porcelain dolls were considered the subject of luxury, and they were removed from the chests to special cases.As a rule, girls played such dolls under the supervision of adults, who were taught during games a child, to properly pick up outfits and accessories.

Playing with a doll-child, girls acquired the care skills. Such a doll was supposed to be a stroller, money care products, various clothes and toys, as well as magazines with extensions of outfits for beb dolls, designed for the fact that the small mistress herself can sew outfits for their favorite.

"We are with Dmitry (the younger brother of Mary) cluttered the toys of our young cousin; They could not bother - they were beautiful. Especially delicious to me seemed to me the gift of President France (Felix Fora), which he presented Olga (the royal family visited France in 1896, then their daughter Olga was fulfilled only a year), when she with her parents first went to this country. In a soft skin case, there was a doll with a full dowry: dresses, linen, hats, shoes, full of a set for the toilet table - everything was done amazingly skillfully as the present. " – From the memories of the Great Princess Mary Romanova. "Memories of the Great Princess. Life pages Cousin Nicholas II. 1890 - 1918.

Dollhouse

One of the most desirable gifts For girls was a puppet house. Initially, miniature houses were passionate than rich adults, but soon the less costly configuration of puppet houses began to produce for children. Such houses were unique and built according to an individual order, and their decoration was repeated details of the family of the family. The size of the house, of course, was directly proportional to the status of a family, for example, a whole palace was made for the imperial daughters. The houses had its own state of servants in the form of porcelain or wooden dolls, dolls, personified family, furniture sets, technical innovations at the time of order, dishes (tin, copper, porcelain, table silver) and much more. It is with the help of doll houses girls have suffered the foundation of the household.

Dollhouse Victorian era
Puppet house made for Drew family (DREW). OK. 1860 Museum of Childhood "Victoria and Albert", London Puppet house made for Drew family (DREW). OK. 1860 Museum of Childhood "Victoria and Albert", London
Puppet house American actress Colin Moore, Chicago Museum
Dollhouse Sarah Roth
Puppet house 16th century
Puppet House Queen Mary

Sets

Invitations for tea or coffee was mandatory in the rhythm of secular life of the time. Therefore, it is not surprising that in children there were always entire services from the finest porcelain with the necessary cutlery. After arranging doll tea drinking, the young lady was recognized by etiquette, honed their manners and studied to be hospitable hostesses.In addition to doll tea and coffee sets, dizzy sets were made.

Everywhere where people live, children play ... jump on the riders' rides, fly with arms outstretched to the sides, jump, pressing two fingers, cowardly "hares." There are much more bold reincarnations than on the theatrical scene, fill the world of childhood. But the child cannot create himself. He must necessarily need something that would help him in his plans. And this is "something" - toy.

There are several points of view in science on the origin of the game and toys. Some believe that labor directly gave birth to the game, others believe that in the life of a primitive person, the elements of the game, the third, distracting the history of the birth of the game, see the beginning of art in the toy. Ethnographers adhere to the theory according to which the toys first had a cult value and only later turned into a piece of children's fun. There is a more flexible theory that suggests that in conditions of primitive existence, items could be multi-valued. "How to qualify them - as objects of art, or decoration, or a cult, or magic, or how toys? "This sometimes an unresolved question in real reality could have a completely different solution: both, the other, and the third," Professor E. A. Arkin writes.

The first toys were still in animals. Observations of scientists and travelers say that animals are not only playing, but also use various items in the game. So, the monkeys dig up the land with a handful of sand, paint clay, jumping with a stick as in stilts, decorate themselves with flaps of matter and branches. But these games are fundamentally different from the games of even the smallest child.

Scientists conceived to teach a monkey to play like a person, but attempts turned out to be in vain. Very intelligent monkey could not create the most primitive turret from bricks, although the experimenter was not once built on her eyes one day. But the same bricks in the hands of a three-year-old child come to life, growing in the houses, bridges, fortresses, fabulous palaces. At a very early age, the child through the game and the toy will not only know the world, but also mentally converts it.

Perhaps the first toys to our distant ancestors gave the Nature itself: shells, stones, leaves and flowers, bones of animals or bizarre tree bones. However, this can only be guessing. By analogy with modernity, it can be assumed that any subject of serious appointment in everyday life of adults, getting into the hands of the child, became a toy. And maybe the first "real" toys began to make children themselves, and then adults, watching children, understood the need for toys and began to make them specially. Archaeologists found only those of toys that they did not succumb to the destructive point of time. In addition, there are very few such finds to build a version completely reliable.

There was a change of civilizations, they died some and new ones were born. Children changed, and adults changed. Toys changed. But there are among them common for the entire history of mankind.

Rattle, ball, top and doll. These toys arose during the times of human childhood. Passing through the multifaceted kaleidoscope of morals, styles, habits, tastes, religions, they live now. However, with all their amazing similarities, there is no less amazing deep difference in the content of the game with these toys from different peoples.

No baby grows without rattles. Archaeologists have learned from the graves of the millennial prescription. In Peru during the excavations of the ancient city, Pahatan was discovered by the Mummy of the child, next to which the rattle was lying - marine sink with sands inside. The hole was filled with a substance resembling tar. Archaeologist Schliman when excavations of ancient Troy found a wonderful rattle with metal particles inside. Rattles were made from the fruits of trees, ripe heads of Poppy, weave from the rods, sculpted from clay ... Undoubtedly, the rattle was associated with the cult. For example, Bakairi and other tribes of South America decorated their religious dance noise of rattles. She was "faithful" - her noise had frightened evil spirits. But only in the world of adults possessed the rattle of this mysterious force, for the child she was just a toy - joy and fun.

Leader with a bear (Zagorsk) - from Papier Masha ...

The same double was the ball. In the American Indians, he was a sacred subject, to which it was impossible to touch his hands. He was a symbol of the Sun, Moon and Earth. And the Eskimos play the ball in the ball was met by strangers. They at the end of the year, also playing, celebrated victory over the sinister mythical being of the Zedna. In ancient Greece, the ball was also simultaneously toy and an offer, pleasing gods that the Greeks attributed his invention. Aphrodite's beauty goddess says Eros: "I will give you a wonderful toy: this is a ball quickly flying, other better fun you will not add yourself from the hands of Hepesta." The balls stitched with a rope from the skin were found during excavations in Egypt. The Australian balls made from the bladder of animals are reached and the Australian balls from the blades, twisted from the hair.

And one more example is a top. In his sleepy buzz, in a sliding movement, doubt and even, unearthly sounds were killed once. His and used on holidays in honor of the dead. But the same top was one of the favorite toys in Egypt, Siam, Burma, Eskimos and Negroes of South America, where he was driven by a cat and fled. The manufacture of wolfes was simple. In the tribes of East Africa, they were made from a round piece of pumpkin peel, in which the wand did, in the Indians - from a wax plate or an empty fetus planted on a stick.

But nowhere among the toys there was no anything equal to the doll. Brighter, the magical power was intertwined in it, which adults and touching attachment towards her children were invested. In the earliest steps of civilization and in the epoch of the most highly developed cultures, she wakes the whole range of human feelings in the child: love, patronage, envy, power, good, cruelty and nobility ...

The famous ethnographer Andrei says: "I would have to list all countries and peoples, if I wanted to turn the sphere of doll spread." Archaeologists found it everywhere: in the excavations of the ancient cities and Roman catacombs, in the Egyptian tombs, in the pagan burials and in the graves of Christians. And she served simultaneously toy, and an idol, and a magical agent. In ancient Greece, a girl, going married, brought their favorite doll to the sacrificial altar as a sign of readiness to fulfill maternal debt. And the girls in Chukotka, entering into marriage, hid their dolls in the headboard. Dolls here were not given to anyone, they were shouted as Maternity mascot. In the ancient Georgian dolls, the face is marked with a cross in the imitation of the solunken gods. Like the figures of these gods, the dolls are endowed with a variegated body and head with a symbol of the cross. The Eskimo dolls also does not have a person, and instead of the nose, a bird beak will often be sewn - the Eskimo was afraid that the doll with a face can acquire the soul and harm the child.

His special character in Russian folk doll. Cleverly twisted from straw taking care, as if on a rustic habit, dolls - "Starigushka". Lescript from moss and cones as if they came from the country of fairy tales, so much in their mysterious forest poetry. Panca from the Arkhangelsk region with flat, barely planned persons - Rather, silent idols, small "stone women" than dolls. Their simplicity is symbolic, as the language of primitive art, who is understandable to children of the whole world today. The child freely enjoyed such a doll in the image of his fantasy. He could imagine her and a woman, and a child, and a peasant, and a lady, and a man at all. Folk masters left the child the right to work, trusted him.

Amazing ingenuity in the manufacture of dolls is exhibiting its jealous patrons - children. A hint of a hint of a human figure so that the corn with a rolled piece of a scroll or a simple fully turned into a subject of delicate worries, in essence of the same in African children, among the Indians of North America and in the peasant children of Russia.

The Middle Ages left us other witnesses. In the countries of Western Europe - France, Spain, Italy, Germany - with the royal courtyards there were luxurious dolls, the costumes of which were studied fashion. It is known that already in 1391, Princess England desired to have dolls dressed in the newest mods of the Parisian yard. There is a legend that during one of the bloody wars between France and England, the Ministers of both yards of Versailles and St. Gemes issued a free border skipping doll, a suit and hairstyle of which served as a model of the then fashion. It was worth such dolls sometimes a whole state. With them there were dowry troughs with clothing and shoes and even doll houses with furniture from expensive wood and porcelain dishes, glass and silver. Even the owner could only look at such a doll. "Each elegant doll makes one girl arrogant, and one hundred others - envious," wrote the Italian scientist Kolotz.

Now mankind, scientific caution in his relationship to the past, saves his "toy" history, keeps the relics of distant childhood in the museums of Berlin, Zurich, Nurenberg, Munich, Paris, London, Moscow, Leningrad. A unique collection of toys in our country belongs to Zagorsk, the city of the oldest fishery of the Russian handling toy.

The ancient legend binds the appearance of the first wooden toy here with the name of the founder of the famous Trinity Sergius of the monastery of Hegumen Sergius Radonezh, which would like to give the children of homemade. Interesting historical information remained in the consumables of the Palace Books of the XVII century, where it is mentioned about the purchase for royal children "haunted events, wooden horses, birds." Historian I. K. Snegirev reports that "peasants and peasants lying on the Trinity Road of the villages were brought to the king and queen breads, kalachi, pies, pancakes, cheese, kvass, beer, brand, honey, honeycombs, nuts, turnip, lingonberries, strawberries and Other vegetables, and for Tsarevichi - toys and fun. "

The people lived in the people for a long time that in the middle of the XVIII century, there was a deaf-and-dumb Tatya and marked the beginning of all toy production. He cut out a large wooden doll from the linden and sold it to the veil of the merchant Erofeev. He put it as a decoration, but soon found an unexpected buyer. And then Tatyga received another order, then still, and the toy fishery began in Sergiev Posad. In the middle of the XIX century, he became the largest in Russia - 1500-toy shores lived here. What was not sold in monastic bears: and carved painted figures of Baryn and Gusarov, and different soldiers - one, platforms, horseback, hiking, and dolls for every taste - spicy pale "waist", black-eyed "Ferglass", Nevashek, Blank Frant.

Most different sides of life were reflected in the toy: peasant and city life with their customs and fashion, war, religion, art and fabulous, fantastic world.

At the beginning of the XIX century, quite new toys appeared in Posad - stucked from Paper-Masha, then the first step towards the mass industrial toy was taken in Russia. Exotic dogs and lions with blue manes, funny hares with a "pussy", the roosters "on a scream", mounted by a lacquered surface, as if motley fair signs, did not have competitors, nor abroad. It is curious how boldly and loosely revived the wrath of his toys what was at hand. Here is the magent with a goat, and in the hands of the chalk, a real fluff, or a bird "with a pisk", which are only in fairy tales, and the tail from the real feathers!

At the end of the XIX century, this measure of the combination of real and conditional began to break. The toys were covered with cereals, sawdust, crushed wool, were tightened with rabbit skins - and all for the intimacy to the living nature. The toy lured his inherent only "Toy" language and went beyond the limits of art boundaries. Especially destructive was the impact of a cheap German industrial toy, which filled all European markets in the XIX century. Sergiev's bushes could not have endured competition, ruined, the fishery lost its former artistic face and by the end of the century came in full decline. So died in different places dozens of crafts. But something left. It entails the feeling of the nature of the pure tree, not touched paint, the Bogorodskaya thread "In Lingerie". Still gently shine thin petals of gold on bright Dymkov toys. The beauty is incomparable, like porcelain, clay, from which today toys in the village of Filimonovo Tula region are pushed. And, as once before, the whistles from the village of Abashevo Penza region were amazing in their own way. The horns of goats and deer, decorated with bronze or aluminum, are bent with a crescent, then they are twisted back, then the majestically, like a crown, crowned the head of fabulous animals. Their shiny fantastic muzzles resemble the masks of the casual playing.

But this is not a toy. She lost the same environment for which she was born, turning into a museum exhibit or a memorable gift. A gift, dear in that you feel in it the warmth of manual labor and almost children's naivety, clean and frank.

Now children live in a different world. They are fascinated by cosmodromes, rockets, radio-controlled planets, astronauts and dolls that can do everything that people can do. The dolls go, run, cry, laugh, swim, sit on a pot, sing, talk ... in a word, in the toy there was a century of technology, with his progress, with his stream of various information, with his sober assessment of the objective world. It is not by chance that scientists of many countries are disturbing a violation of equilibrium emotional and rational began in a modern person. It is especially dangerous to linger the sharpness of emotional perception in childhood, when the spiritual side of the person only originates. Something can do here and toy. The folk toy has become an exhibit. They no longer run with it, do not happen, do not play. But she is still watching. Watch carefully, with sincere curiosity and joy. They look like the Bogorodskiy "Chickens in a circle" without tired, as ropes jerked in the rhythm. Listen to the tapping of wooden beaks ...

Children who received the same pleasure from the game in the entire history of mankind, hear themselves and, perhaps, the echoes of long-year-old times.

Galina Dyan, Researcher of the Zagorsk Museum toys, Photo V. Orlova