Have you already sent greeting cards with wishes for the coming year to your loved ones and relatives? If not, you should hurry. Mail is busy in any country during the pre-holiday days.
The history of Polish New Year cards goes back almost 200 years.
The first holiday greetings appeared in Poland at the end of the 19th century. The wishes had no illustrations and were written by hand on a separate sheet of paper.
It is interesting that until the beginning of the 20th century, these leaflets with congratulations did not have their own name and were simply called wishes.
And only in 1900, due to the extraordinary popularity of these "notes", the Polish bohemia began to think about what to call them. With the support of the government, a competition for the best name for holiday wishes was held in Warsaw. The jury was offered several options: "listik", "otvartka", "listuvka", etc.
Pocztowki
The winner of the competition was the name suggested by Henryk Sienkiewicz – “pocztówka”. Since then, postcards in Poland have been called pocztówki.
The first New Year cards (kartki świąteczne), which were sent at the beginning of the last century in Poland, can be viewed in the collection of the Polish Digital Library Polona (Cyfrowa Biblioteka Narodowa, https://polona.pl )
How to sign a New Year's card, 5 short greetings in Polish:
- Na Nowy Rok życzę Ci pomyślności, potęgi miłości, siły młodości, samych spokojnych, pogodnych chwil i mnóstwa cudownych i wzniosłych dni!
- Wesołych Świąt i Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!
- Spokojnuch i radostnych Świąt oraz Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!
- Radosnych Świąt oraz Szczęscia i pomyślności w każdym dniu nadchodzącego Nowego Roku!
- Na Nowy Rok życzę Ci pomyślności, potęgi miłości, siły! Przesyłam najserdeczniejsze życzenia wszystkiego najlepszego w Nowym Roku. Sukcesów zawodowych i spełnienia w życiu prywatnum. Wszystkiego dobrego!
