BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Russia celebrates November 4 - polonophobia

as a day of National Unity and also a day of being free from Polish occupation <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />)) from... 1612 !

Polish press called it - a day for Polish-phobists

At least we should be proud that Poles were able to gain control of Moscow while Hitler and Napoleon were unable to do so....

Opinions Divided on New Unity Day Holiday
By Francesca Mereu

MOSCOW � A new holiday celebrated for the first time on Friday is supposed to help unite the country under a new patriotic banner.

But People�s Unity Day, which is supposed to commemorate the day in 1612 that Moscow was liberated from Polish occupation, is stirring up a heated debate in some circles, with critics calling it little more than a celebration of Russian Orthodoxy triumphing over Roman Catholicism. Moreover, the government has gotten the Nov. 4 date wrong, historians say.

Ultranationalists, meanwhile, intend on Friday to stage a march denouncing the �occupation� of Russia by illegal migrant workers, and Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov is organizing a military march on Red Square for Monday, the day of the Soviet-era holiday that the new holiday has replaced.

There is little debate about what happened in 1612: Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin, a butcher from Nizhny Novgorod, led the Nizhny Novgorod volunteer corps in forcing the Polish invaders out of Moscow.

The troops took Kitai-Gorod on Oct. 22 and drove False Dmitry out of the Kremlin on Oct. 26.

The victories helped end the so-called Smutnoye Vremya, or Time of Troubles, a period of internal strife and foreign intervention that began in 1598 with the death of Tsar Fyodor I and lasted until 1613, when the first Romanov assumed the throne and signed an order restoring the Russian state. Mikhail Romanov presented Pozharsky with the title Savior of the Motherland.

Valery Ryazansky, a United Russia deputy who co-authored the Kremlin-backed bill that changed the holiday, said a new Russia needed new holidays, and People�s Unity Day was chosen because �it symbolizes the will of the Russian people to unite to make this country better.�

�I hope the new holiday will become a tradition in our country,� he said.

The Kremlin picked Nov. 4 as the day to celebrate the event, replacing a Nov. 7 holiday that commemorated the 1917 revolution in Soviet times and was celebrated as the Day of Accord and Reconciliation in the 1990s. Some Russian Orthodox Church officials also strongly supported the change.

Yakov Krotov, a historian and the host of a religious program on Radio Liberty, said the choice of the new holiday had �a clear religious subtext.�

�The Kremlin was looking for a day to celebrate the victory of the Orthodox Russians over the Catholic Poles, but they got the wrong date,� Krotov said.

Calls to the Moscow Patriarchate went unanswered, and Metropolitan Kirill, head of the foreign relations department of the patriarchate, made no mention of the issue at a news conference Wednesday. He did say that the Time of Troubles was worse than World War II and that the new holiday should not be linked to any anti-Polish sentiment in Russia.

The Kremlin has cast the holiday in a patriotic light, calling it an opportunity to celebrate unity.

�You will never find a historian who will tell you that Nov. 4 marked an important date in Russia�s history,� said Alexander Lavrentyev, a senior official at the State Historical Museum, which opens an exhibition about the Time of Troubles on Friday.

�It is very difficult to set a date for when the Time of Troubles ended, but it was certainly not in 1612. It ended at the start of 1613,� he said.

Ryazansky could not say why Nov. 4 had been picked, calling the choice �a coincidence.�

He also stressed that the holiday was not intended to offend Poland, noting that the events happened 400 years ago.

The Polish Embassy declined to comment.

The Kremlin might have picked Nov. 4 because it is close to Nov. 7 and would allow people to enjoy the November break they have grown used to, Communist Deputy Sergei Reshulsky said.

�This is just a fake holiday. Even the dates are wrong,� he said. �The Kremlin came up with this holiday just to make people forget their communist past.�

The United Russia-dominated State Duma approved the change last November as part of a major holiday revamp that also extended the New Year�s holiday through Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7, giving the country a whole week of vacation.


Crowds gathered at an exhibition celebrating the Russian Orthodox Church that opened Wednesday at St. Petersburg�s Manezh exhibition hall on Ploshchad Dekabristov.

The show, which runs through Sunday, displays icons, bells, religious arts and crafts, bibles and other church items. Russian Orthodox websites, tour operators for pilgrims, and priests and monks giving advice will also participate in the show.

http://www.sptimes.ru/story/15993

Some other comments:

Dumping Nov. 7, renamed the �Day of Accord and Reconciliation� under Boris Yeltsin, and replacing it with Nov. 4, now the �Day of National Unity,� appears linked to structural changes in the Russian elite and shifts in political influence.

...
The new date for the November holiday, Nov. 4, commemorates the end of the �Time of Troubles.� This change immediately had most Russians asking, �What troubles,� and �When�? The media switched into history teaching mode, recounting the story of the Time of Troubles, in the 17th century, when Polish-Lithuanian armies invaded Russia and the national heroes Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky freed Moscow from the occupying forces. But Russian history is full of major events and Moscow was liberated on a number of occasions � from Napoleon, for example. So, in addition to wondering why the Duma had jettisoned Nov. 7, Russians were left questioning why they had chosen Nov. 4 to replace it.

http://www.russiaprofile.org/politics/article.wbp?article-id=1119C335-552A-4CD4-AA0A-D1F767C49326

Believe it or not, no one knows the real name of the new November 4th holiday. I've asked countless people, and the clearest answer I've gotten so far is the "Day of something or other"!!

The vast, vast, vast majority of people would prefer the November 7th holiday - it's tradition for them, regardless of what it is called.

Still, Russian victory over Poland can not go unnoticed, either. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Eric,

I am glad that Putin did not mention specifically Poles - it would be strange if he did - it is just that this anniversary is so close to the revolution that it fits well in the calendar.

I am glad that you are back with us, how is life in St. Petersburg now?

Do you have already snow?
Did you receive a postcard frm Idaho?

We shouldn`t feel offended. It is their business.
Besides, Poles also have a similar holiday, the 15 August, the Polish Army Day. The date commemorates the victory of Polish troops over bolsheviks at the battle of Warsaw 1920. Average Poles have always associated bolsheviks, led by general Tuchaczewski, with Russians. So, the holiday can seem offensive to Russians.

Jerzy,

thank you for the reminder, when I left Poland this day was still not celebrated <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I think that it is too multiple-level hypothesis. Although, I agree that there's absolutely no reason to raise hell about new holiday or whatever Kremlin (not the Russian's, not the people) invents.

Poles have always feared Great Russian imperialism. It doesn`t matter if it had the face of tsarina Catherine the Great, who was German, the face of bolshevik Lenin who was Russian or the face of murderer Stalin who was Georgian. They all worked hard to make Russia an imperial power at the cost of its neighbours.
Of course, it isn`t the fault of average Russians who were also oppressed by their leaders and had to go to foreign wars and suppress Polish rebelions. But at heart they remained good-natured simple people.
Poles hate Russian imperialism and Russia as a state which was the prison of nations for a long time. However, Polish attitude to Russians themselves is relatively warm and friendly.
Or am I wrong?

I think that you'r absolutely right. But if we get down to niuances it will shortly come out that the differentiation between Russian state and Russian people is not so obvious if we don't want to impose the notion that Russians are totally powerless. In the end somebody is/was supporting 'the imperialism the Russian way = parasitic one'. What do you think?