How Were Graduations In The Soviet Union: A Selection Of Photos

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

How were the graduations in the USSR: what old pictures can tell

The longer you look at your graduation pictures (yours and your parents'), the more interesting they are. I recall not only people - teachers, classmates, but also various everyday details - how they lived, how they dressed, how much they could spend on graduation. Different questions come to mind - why in these photos teachers are far beyond the retirement age - they somehow worked before until old age? Or why are there very few guys in the prom photos? Why are all the girls in the same sandals, but their dresses are different?

Content

• 1 School years are wonderful: what they were like in the Soviet Union

  • 1.1 1920s
  • 1.2 1930s
  • 1.3 1940s
  • 1.4 1950s
  • 1.5 1960s
  • 1.6 1970s
  • 1.7 1980s
  • 1.8 1990s

School years are wonderful: what they were like in the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union inherited the tradition of celebrating graduation from the Russian Empire. Only the format of the event changed - instead of balls, evenings were introduced.

1920s

Pictures from the 1920s are the first where boys and girls who graduated from high school are together. Before the revolution, education was separate. And science was not available to everyone. Thanks to the Soviets, they began to admit workers to schools - the fullness of the classes immediately increased significantly.

The graduation ceremony was held in a solemn atmosphere, but the task of this event was purely educational. The evening was attended by representatives from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union - it was they who instructed the graduates into adulthood, and then the young were handed certificates. For comparison: before the revolution, the prom was also a bride. Young people and girls, who studied separately during all their gymnasium years (these were the rules), could finally get to know each other and communicate. During the ball, the parents looked closely to see who would be able to make their son (daughter) a profitable party.

The tradition of celebrating graduation in the 1920s was just beginning: balls had already been canceled, and the new format had not yet taken shape

1930s

The pictures show completely grown people. Many did not go to day school, but to evening school, combining study with work at the factory. In the photo, graduates in uniform, with serious faces - about childhood, which has just ended, does not resemble anything (well, except for a couple of pretty girlish smiles). Ahead is a working life and work for the good of your country.

Graduation was an official ceremony of presenting certificates and often - laying flowers at the graves of the fighters of the revolution.

On the backdrop of the graduation photo - portraits of Soviet leaders, they were invisibly present at any solemn event

1940s

The graduates of 1941 said goodbye to school on the night of June 21-22. The photo was taken on the eve of the war. At dawn, they, so beautiful and young, will go to the front, to factories, to hospitals.

1941 graduates could have trained as engineers and doctors, but the war decided in its own way

Those who were younger graduated from school and, despite the difficulties, managed to make the graduation party special - they dressed up, met, received certificates, and the next day they also went to war.

The 1941 graduation photo was taken on the eve of the war, the certificates were then presented on June 21

In the postwar years, there was no time for the holidays, they just received certificates.

During the war and immediately after the war, in the late 1940s, prom was not celebrated, but a photo was taken.

1950s

In the post-war years, graduation classes are photographed with front-line soldiers. They knew and remembered that they now have to study and work for themselves and for the guy who did not return home. They also had a difficult fate - to rebuild the country anew, to restore the economy.

Post-war classes were small

In the 1950s, graduation was not yet dressed up, this custom came later, in the 1960s.

1950s graduates didn't have holiday evenings, too little time passed after the war

But if there was a musician, they gathered and sang songs.

In the 1950s, proms began to look like a holiday for the first time: girls dressed up, guys came with music - an accordion or a guitar

1960s

Girls graduates of the 1960s started thinking about fashion. Light colors, cut to fit, heels - and now the high school student becomes a decoration of the evening and graduation photo.

Graduation in the 1960s was not only a graduation ceremony, there was also an unofficial part - a walk with the whole class

Dresses, by the way, both then and after, were sewn by ourselves so as not to pay the studio.

Girls of the 1960s tried to dress up at their prom: they sewed dresses, put their hair in the then fashionable babette

Not only ceremonial photos on vignettes have survived, but also footage of graduates dancing. Sometimes a couple were girls, there were few guys after the war.

High heels were not worn in the 1960s, and the girls were not so tired after hours of celebration

1970s

Very casual photos have survived from the 1970s prom. From a feast, for example: we were sitting in the gym then, all together - graduates, teachers, parents. Or with a performance by a school ensemble - such people then gathered in almost every school, and at the graduation party they necessarily performed in front of the guests.

There was a common table for teachers, parents and graduates, set in the gym

At the graduation, VIA, assembled from scary students, often performed.

Soloists of school ensembles were girls' favorites

Girls in the 1970s gradually became fashionable.

In the 1970s photo, the graduates clearly feel freer - they pose, laugh, there are no frozen poses, as for a vignette

1980s

On the eve of graduation, a batch of imported shoes could be brought to the city department store, which was in great demand. No one was embarrassed that the shoes were the same - if only they looked good. But none of the girls have similar dresses - they all sewed themselves, it was easier than buying a ready-made model.

The teacher in the photo is of retirement age, and this is normal - then many worked and retired, did not want to leave the "family", which they considered the school

Another feature of the 1980s graduation photos: there are very few guys on them. But by that time the post-war generation had already grown up. The thing is that the guys left after the 8th grade to get a profession. They studied at a technical school, then they went to the army, and then they decided - to work or go to college. It was shameful to "mow" from the service.

Prom dresses could be sewn according to one pattern, only from different fabrics

The styles of the dresses were very different.

The unofficial part of the prom began with dancing, and ended with dawn somewhere outside the city.

In the city, some, in the village - others. Some even came in school uniforms with a white apron.

Moscow graduates differed from provincial ones, they were the first to react to fashion trends

In the 1980s, dresses gave way to suits.

In the 1980s, they didn't necessarily come to prom in dresses - they began to sew themselves using patterns from Burda

1990s

The guys in the graduation photos have not changed as they were 10-15 years ago, and have remained the same. But the girls somehow began to look more mature. Bright makeup, complex hairstyles. The dresses are still simple, but they are wearing gloves. Isn't it time to count graduation balls again?

In the 1990s, a new fashion for prom dresses began to form.

Graduates of Soviet schools have passed on many of their traditions to current graduates. One only could not convey - the relationship to this holiday. They had confidence in the future and an almost adult attitude to study and work. They knew that only one stage of life was over, and tomorrow a new one will begin, and in this adult life everything is clear and definite with admission, work, and salary. And the current graduate has only unanswered questions in his head and fear for the future. Not all, of course, but most. That is why on the night of prom they try to forget themselves, to come off in full and not think that tomorrow they themselves will have to solve many adult problems.