Old postcards Proverbs and sayings
In Russian folklore a poslovitsa (proverb) is a complete sentence carrying a lesson, such as “Visiting is nice, but home is better”. A pogovorka (saying) is shorter and draws no conclusion. Folk wisdom puts the difference neatly: “A saying is the flower, a proverb is the berry.” The largest collection was compiled by Vladimir Dal: his Proverbs of the Russian People, published in 1862, contains 30,130 proverbs, sayings and apt expressions arranged under 178 themes.
The cards in this section were printed in 1961 and all share one catalogue caption, “Proverbs and sayings, 1961”. The caption does not say which proverb a card illustrates, so the scans are the way to browse them, one after another. Vintage Soviet postcards like these also work well for language lessons with children: a short phrase paired with a picture.
Similar titles turn up in the neighbouring Children’s postcards section, for example “Small but Brave” and “Don’t Learn Idleness, Learn Handicraft”, both from 1955.
Every 1961 card is shown as a scan made from the original.
Related sections
Ruslan and Lyudmila · Children's postcards · Club of Merry Little Men · Russian souvenir
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