Childhood. A word that brings a lot of bright and warm memories. It is a joy of discovery, and delight and great expectations of small miracles. And dolls. It is impossible to imagine childhood without a doll – your favourite, special, the very best doll in the whole world!
Growing up, people lose most of their childhood illusions and it becomes harder and harder to feel pure joy, but that doll, once found somewhere in the attic, inevitably brings back all those feelings. The first dolls (archeologists say that dolls have appeared more than 30 thousand years ago) were made of water and ashes by rolling a ball which served as a head and fixing a “petticoat” to the head. Such a doll called Baba was handed down from generation to generation among women on the wedding day and became a talisman. Women also made dolls from the cut off hair and swept “garbage” from the house to protect it from evil spirits. Every child’s cradle had a doll for protection. The most popular doll for playing in every nation was... a wooden log shrouded in cloth.
Another popular doll was a so called “strigushka” braided from grass. Such dolls didn’t have eyes (in order not to let evil spirits in) and their faces were defined in a very general way. The fisrt doll to have a face appeared in the 17th century: it was a papier-mache designer doll of a nun made in 1672. During that period all scintists and engineers were obsessed with an idea of a mechanical human. In order to achieve the resemblance to human skin, the artists used porcelain. Cast in special forms, such porcelain heads, hands and feet were fixed to a body made of cloth. A doll often had its own special trunk with exclusive clothes, underwear and various accessories. Still, even during that perid the children of the most prosperous families continued to play with wooden and cloth self-made dolls, because the “real” ones were outrageously expensive. All those wonderful dolls made of porcelain, alabaster, wood were not for playing. They served as interior decorations, for ceremonies and rites, home plays and sometimes were used as government rewards.
By the end of the 19th century there were toy factories all over Europe which produced not only exclusive dolls but also “serial” ones, though the number of copies ranged from 5 to 25. Doll-making was a respectable occupation. In the 19th century an Imperial Factory of Zhuravlev and Kochetkov was opened in Russia. For designer decoration of the dolls this factory employed such artists as Roerich, Polenov, Bilibin, etc.
After the revolution exclusive dolls production ceased to exist. Toy factories delivered celluloid clones one after another. The originality of the doll’s appearance by the middle of the 20th century was reduced to nothing. Nowadays dolls are available for the kids: they can’t be broken, they are cheap and practical. Released in millions of copies, devoid of individuality and a special “doll magic”, these dolls can’t reach your soul and captivate your heart These are the main reasons that propel some adults to collect unique items. These grown-up children keep on playing dolls, sit them on chairs, talk to them, fix their hair and clothes – because the dolls are alive. They demand to be cared for and paid attention to.
Some say, it is dolls that choose their owners, not the other way around. Of course, you can say it’s a myth, but if a person wants to see miracles in a simple doll, this doll will become a guide to the world of magic. The only things you need are your fantasy and some childhood in your soul.
Anastasija Gerasimovich
