Tradition, страница 198 - гдз по английскому языку 11 класс (spotlight) учебник Афанасьева, Дули

Spotlight on Russia - страница 198.

Условие.

Tradition

We all know when New Year is, right? Well, actually, it depends which calendar you use. Russians are lucky, they celebrate twice.

Spotlight on Russia finds out about the Old New Year

People counted time in many different ways until the Romans changed everyone to their system of counting time from the date Rome was founded. After Rome conquered Egypt, Julius Caesar introduced a new calendar based on a Babylonian model. It had 365 days divided into 12 months with an extra day every fourth year.

Then, in 527 AD, a Roman abbot, Dionysius Exiguus, brought in the Anno Domini calendar numbering the years from Jesus’ birth. However, every 131 years the calendar would be out by one day, since the distance the earth travelled around the sun grew shorter from 365.2422 to 365.2419 days. Over the centuries this became a problem, as Easter was later and later in the year.

Pope Gregory XIII used the calendar of astronomer Christopher Clavius to make reforms. Clavius used mathematics and astronomy to calculate the new calendar. Most countries accepted the calendar straight away, but Britain only adopted the modern calendar in 1752 and Orthodox Russia was forced to adopt the new changes when the Bolsheviks came to power, in 1918.

In many countries however, including Russia, both the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar are used. So, for the Russians, Christmas is on 7th January with Father Frost and other traditions and New Year is on 1st January, but they celebrate a second New Year on 13th January. The first one is the New New Year and the second one is the Old New Year.

New Year’s Day on 1st January in Russia is a public holiday and is celebrated with fireworks and elaborate large meals and other festivities. The Old New Year by the Julian calendar is informally observed. For many this is a nostalgic family holiday ending the holiday season.

The Old New Year tradition also features in popular culture and art. Mikhail Roshchin wrote a comedy drama for the stage, in 1973, called The Old New Year, which played in theatres for many years. It was also a TV film released by Mosfilm studios in 1980 which featured famous actors and music by Sergei Nikitin, with lyrics by Boris Pasternak.

ACTIVITY

Describe how you celebrate the Old New Year and the New Year to your partner.

• Which celebration do you prefer? Why?

• Would you like to celebrate Easter twice? Why (not)?

Решение 1.

Решение 2.

Решение 3.