The mass domestic soldiers have a rather short history, about a hundred years - before the revolution there were practically no domestic manufactures. In those days, domestic handicraftsmen created soldiers from wood, and pewter was supplied from abroad (Germany and Austria-Hungary), they were available only to the nobility. They released paper ones, with which, as we know for certain, even little Volodya Ulyanov played …
"Kolchakivshchyna". 1920s
Although there was no idea in all these soldiers, they were "dolls for boys." The enemy looked neutral - the same figure, just a uniform of a different color.
Under Soviet rule, ideological motives appeared in the very first handicraft soldiers. The enemy was portrayed, he was recognizable, he was portrayed quite harshly - for example, Kolchak's officer shooting peasants, or caricatured - in the form of a pot-bellied bourgeois in a top hat.
These were handicrafts and small private artels, the state was engaged first in overcoming the devastation, and then the industrialization of the country - there was no time for toys, in particular, not for soldiers.
However, in the mid-1930s, soldiers became a truly state matter. The political leadership fully appreciated the role of toys in the upbringing of not just a Soviet person, but a patriot, a future defender of the Motherland.
The problems of the release of domestic soldiers were covered not only in the specialized magazine "Toy", even the "Izvestia" of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR wrote about it.
In "Toy" magazine, the composition of the authors was not just "star"! In addition to all-Union famous heroes such as Valery Chkalov and Marina Raskova, Marshals Budyonny and Voroshilov were the authors of articles about soldiers and military toys, and articles by colonels and majors were published from issue to issue.
It is noteworthy that the authors paid great attention not only to the release of a military toy, but also made demands on it as a practical guide teaching, for example, the basics of artillery crew actions.
The military criticized the soldiers from the point of view of the reliability of the image of the soldier's official duties, paid attention to the smallest, insignificant details, such as an extra stick at the large regimental drum, rushed the production workers.
Since the end of the 1930s, the soldiers of the Fine Arts Factory of the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure began to produce millions of copies. All this attention to the release of mass soldiers was not in vain - they turned out to be one of the building blocks of our Victory.
When the war broke out, young soldiers and lieutenants, imagining themselves heroes in boyish games, became brave warriors, real patriots, unyielding defenders of their socialist Fatherland …
Soldiers of Fine Arts from the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure. Late 1930s
It was she, the Soviet youth, brought up on the books of Gaidar, who played as ideologically verified soldiers in childhood, carried the burden of the war on her young shoulders and paid for the Victory with her lives.
Search engines often "lift" from the trenches, from decayed gymnasts and overcoats of old, oxidized aluminum soldiers of the 1930s - many soldiers and commanders took them with them as a keepsake. Perhaps they learned this tradition from Gaidar's book "Commandant of the Snow Fortress", where a boy gave a soldier to a Red Army soldier who was leaving for the Soviet-Finnish war, someone took it as a keepsake of his children …
The Soviet pre-war soldiers fully fulfilled their mission and went into History. After the war, when the country rose from ruins, healed wounds and built a new life, the production of soldiers was not subject to strict ideological control - there were enough examples for military-patriotic education. They surrounded the children at home, on the street, at school.
Soldiers, remaining indispensable participants in boyish games, were, as a rule, repetitions of their glorious pre-war predecessors.
Set "Horsemen of 1812". 1970-1980s
By the beginning of the 1960s, a tendency began to form, reflected in the minutes of meetings of artistic councils on the approval of toys, that Soviet children do not need machine guns, tanks and soldiers, their upbringing should take place exclusively in a peaceful spirit …
Fortunately, this trend did not last long, and the period when Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was in power, which is unfairly still sometimes called "stagnation", became truly the "golden age" of Soviet soldiers.
Tachanka. 1970-1980s
More than twenty different sets were released for different periods of not only Soviet, but also Russian history:
"Russian Warriors", "Battle on the Ice", "Glory to Russian Weapons", "Cavalry of 1812", "Red Cavalry", "Chapaevtsy", "Sailors of October", "Soldiers of the Revolution", "Our Army", etc. In general, in the period from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, more types and circulations of soldiers came off the assembly line than in the entire previous Soviet history, and in the entire history of our country …
In the mid-1980s, during the perestroika years, when the emergence of cooperatives made it possible to release soldiers without government involvement, several enthusiastic soldiers tried to launch new sets, but this was prevented by their lack of entrepreneurial experience. The Western kits of the 1970s and 1980s were copied, and state-owned enterprises continued to release their old designs.
At the same time, a real war began against the Soviet military toy, led by the editor-in-chief of the Ogonyok magazine - an unkind memory - Vitaly Korotich. He invented "The Day of Destruction of the War Toy."
Cover of the Ogonyok magazine. 1990 year
Unfortunately, his initiative was taken up by the Murzilka magazine. A competition was announced among children - who would hand over more Soviet military toys for their subsequent destruction. This bacchanalia took place against the backdrop of the Soviet Union losing its position as a world power, which ended with the collapse of the great country.
After that, Chinese and American manufacturers took up the "education" of the younger generation. The first flooded the country with cheap plastic warriors depicting the American army, the second began to introduce the cult of all kinds of devilry - spider-men and all kinds of fantastic evil spirits that took root and remains on store shelves to this day.
Unfortunately, some domestic manufacturers have succumbed to this temptation as well. So, one of the firms, along with all sorts of "cyberpunk Amazons", "cave trolls", ninjas and samurai, released a completely outrageous set of "Arrow - Shootout".
The heroes of this, if I may say so, toys were monstrous figures depicting bandits and the same brutal policemen.
What could these soldiers teach? Whom to educate? In 2004, when, unexpectedly for myself, I began to produce toy soldiers, all these thoughts did not occur to me, and could not come. I just wanted to make normal toy soldiers, which I played in childhood, I wanted to make such figures, which I then lacked, which I dreamed of.
There were no super tasks ahead of me. But year after year, sinking deeper and deeper into the subject, I began to understand how important soldiers are for a child, for raising him as a real patriot, a man who is ready to defend himself, his family, his country.
"Hooray!". Company of the Guard of Honor. year 2009
At first, our company dealt only with historical topics that were not fully disclosed by our Soviet predecessors, completely without touching on the realities of the modern army, and even more so the events of modern history.
But life itself made us turn to the topic of modern military conflicts - Russia's opposition to today's challenges is too principled, too uncompromising, and we must reflect it so that children have clear landmarks before their eyes, can distinguish good from evil.
Until recently, the "heroes" of the modern history of Russia were bandits and prostitutes, children of oligarchs and thieves despising labor, and pop culture figures of the lowest order …
"Hooray!". Battle on the Ice. year 2013
Therefore, when in 2014 we saw real heroes - "polite people", militias of Novorossiya, who took up arms to defend their land from neo-fascists, this demanded immediate implementation.
Even more surprised by the reaction of buyers to these soldiers. These figures became necessary for those who had never bought soldiers before, either for their children, or even more so for themselves. Thus, people identified themselves with modern events, they wanted to somehow be involved in the real heroes of our time.
Now we see our task not only to fully reflect in the soldiers the history of Russia's military glory, but also to pay tribute to current events, to show not only the posthumous, but also the lifetime glory of real heroes.
"Hooray!". "Thank you for not being a kit anymore." year 2014
Now the state does not pay due attention to such a powerful educational tool as soldiers and military toys, although back in 2011, at a meeting of the Book Chamber, in his speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin bitterly said: “We don't even let soldiers out” …
"Hooray!". Soldiers of Novorossiya. year 2014
From time to time, this topic is raised by Dmitry Rogozin, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who proposed to organize the production of waneks as a symbol of the Russian soldier … Unfortunately, the matter did not go further than good wishes about the release of a military toy. But, in my deep conviction, none of the citizens of Russia should wait for help from the state, but help it himself. In my opinion, this is our duty.
As citizens of a great country, we must bear the burdens and difficulties of this burden on an equal basis with it - this has been the case in Russia at all times, and it will be so. We must not lament, but work. There is a battle for minds and souls, a battle for history, which the supporters of the unipolar world and their servants are shamelessly trying to distort in their favor.
"Hooray!". Storming of Koenigsberg. 2015 year
Our task is to materialize our past, to embody the images of our heroic ancestors and contemporaries in metal, so that present and future generations are proud of their Motherland and are always ready to defend it.
