The creation of a new civil ritual, which could replace and replace the religious one, lasted for several decades of Soviet power. This process cannot be called systematic or progressive. Interest in ritualism subsided and then reappeared. Immediately after the adoption of the decree on the separation of church and state in 1918 - and this, as is known, was one of the first decrees of the Soviet government - registration of acts of birth, death, and marriage by religious institutions lost its legal force. Weddings, baptisms and funerals, of course, were held, but the registration of civil status acts in specially created bodies under the executive committees of the Soviets was considered legal and recognized by the new government. It cannot be said that the newly introduced civil rites at that time were subjected to some special development. What we know about the first Soviet rites is usually connected with the initiatives of Komsomol members "on the ground", with the "live creativity of the masses", as they said then. The first civil rites can hardly be called rites in the full sense of the word. It is more accurate to designate them as registration procedures. Everything that concerned the transition states in human destiny - the moment of birth, death-was reduced to formal and organizationally simple procedures. Until the time of Khrushchev, there was no serious attention to the ritual side of the life of an ordinary citizen. Only during the years of the "thaw", during the years of discussion about the "new man-the builder of communism", did the realization come that it was necessary to offer the Soviet citizen something to replace the religious holidays declared obsolete. The object of the study is the history of the introduction of civil holidays and rituals during the "thaw" years. We are interested in socio- page 408the cultural environment in which interest in ritual-making and the search for holidays that are consonant with the secularized worldview of the ... Read more