Affection, worship, cruelty: how did people treat red-haired people at different historical periods? (9 photos)

Starting with the touching “How golden!” and ending with the rather boring “Red-haired, red-haired, freckled”... This is approximately how they treat red-haired people, causing them certain inconvenience.





And all because this hair color is rare and stands out from the overall picture. And therefore attracts attention. And even now, in a civilized society, saffron milk caps arouse interest and comment.



And before... What didn’t happen before. The Egyptians associated fire-haired people with the deity Ra. And at every opportunity they tried to sacrifice them. To have more sunshine. Or there was a lot of wheat harvested.





In Rome, copper-haired people were treated with a certain respect. The red slave was more expensive due to its rarity. And the ancient Greeks had ambivalent attitudes towards such fellow citizens. On the one hand, they were respected for their rather rare appearance and unusualness. On the other hand, they were afraid, considering them vampires.

The Darkness of the Middle Ages and the Beginning of the Renaissance



For residents of the Middle Ages, being born of this color was disastrous. Red-haired people, as well as very tall/fat/handsome, etc. They were joyfully sent to the stake by both the inquisitor fathers and ordinary townspeople or villagers, seeing them as the cause of crop failure, drought or epidemic.



With the beginning of the Enlightenment, attitudes towards red-haired people changed. And radically. This is proven by Botticelli’s Venus, portraits by Titian and other painters.

What about us?



In Rus', redheads were not considered sorcerers. And by swindlers and cunning people, capable of fooling those with hair of a different color in no time. Even our Emperor Pyotr Alekseevich did not shy away from prejudices: he forbade red-haired people to hold government positions and even speak in court (“Do not hire pockmarked or red-haired people into the sovereign’s service and do not give a word in court, since God marks the rogue”).

Famous redheads



Who knows, maybe the genetics of such people really suggest extraordinary abilities? After all, among the redheads there were many famous people who achieved significant success in their business. These are Lenin, Bukharin, Nero, Columbus, Cromwell, Van Gogh and more. Contemporaries include actresses Julia Roberts, Julianne Moore and Lindsay Lohan, actors Alexander Loye and Rupert Green, singer Andrei Grigoriev-Apollonov, Prince Harry and the versatile character Anatoly Chubais.



Californian Stephen Douglas even created a party of redheads in 1983 in order to honor people with such an unusual hair color and rid his contemporaries of complexes.



Would you like such bright hair?