Opinions Divided on New Unity Day Holiday
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- Date: Sun, 06 Nov 2005 12:00:46 GMT
Opinions Divided on New Unity Day Holiday
http://www.sptimes.ru/story/15993
By Francesca Mereu
Staff Writer
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.
.
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