Moscow Times
November 3, 2005
Unity Holiday Creating Discord
By Francesca Mereu
Staff Writer
A new holiday that will be 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 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.
An informal street poll of Moscow residents found that few knew much about the holiday.
"It happened so many years ago. I don't understand why I should care now," said Irina Ivanova, a 24-year-old economist who learned about the holiday from the newspapers.
"I don't know what we are celebrating and, to be honest, I don't care," said Lyudmila Knyazeva, a 49-year-old accountant. "What is important is that I don't have to go to work. The weather is not cold yet, and I might go to the dacha."
Dmitry Isakov, a 75-year-old pensioner, said he did not know that Friday was a holiday. "When you don't work anymore, only traditional holidays -- when the whole family gathers -- are important. I've never heard of that day, and I don't know what it is," he said.
A nationwide survey by the independent Levada Center in mid-October showed that only 8 percent of Russians were aware of the new holiday and 63 percent opposed the abolition of the Nov. 7 holiday.