November 04, 2014

Unity Day: Whose Unity?


Unity Day: Whose Unity?

As you read this, Russians are wrapping up a relaxing four-day weekend spanning the first four days of November. Rounding out this long weekend is the mysterious November 4 holiday “Day of People’s Unity” – but what exactly is it celebrating?

By all measures, the Day of People’s Unity (or simply Unity Day) is still a baby holiday. It was only instituted as a federal holiday in 2005, replacing the diplomatically named “Day of Accord and Conciliation,” the new, post-Soviet  name for the Anniversary of the October Revolution (celebrated throught the Soviet era on November 7). This way, instead of celebrating a revolution with a questionable legacy, the country got off work in honor of the liberation of Moscow in 1612, some significant part of which allegedly occurred on November 4. The change was suggested by the Interreligious Council of Russia in a petition to the Duma:

We believe that November 7, the day of Russia’s tragic division, did not become a day of accord and conciliation… [the subsequent events] led to the deaths of millions of our fellow citizens. The liberation of Moscow from foreign invaders in 1612, on the other hand, unified our people and put an end to the fratricidal bloodshed.

Nearly everyone in the Duma voted in favor of the change – except the Communists. This prompted an alternative interpretation of the holiday’s provenance:

A long time ago, in the dark depths of the President’s administration, teeming with creatures too hideous even for horror films, this strange holiday, the Day of People’s Unity, was invented. They invented it, by the way, to rid our fellow citizens of the habit of celebrating the Great October Socialist Revolution anniversary with excessive drink, and to thereby diminish the Communist Party’s influence. (Ivan Davydov, Slon.ru [ru])

Politics of the change aside, what really happened on November 4? After digging through the calendars and historical documents, a historian on Radio Ekho Moskva discovered that, at best, something happened on October 22, 1612 – the Russian volunteer army liberated Moscow’s Kitai-gorod, the last bastion before they could storm the Kremlin. In the Gregorian calendar that would have been November 1 (in the seventeenth century, the two calendars were not as far apart). The Kremlin itself was not liberated until four days later, October 26 (November 5). Thus our historian concludes:

So strictly speaking, on November 4, 2005 [the holiday’s first observance], we will be celebrating the anniversary of November 4, 1612, a day on which nothing of any significance occurred, nothing having to do with “the liberation of Moscow from Polish interventionists,” or “the end of the Dark Times.”

And even if the holiday was meant to reference the liberation of Kitai-gorod on October 22, the same historian makes a valid point:

In general, a phenomenon of social, political, and spiritual life, such as unity of the people, cannot be understood as having been achieved forever and henceforth frozen in its achievement. “Tying” it so tightly to a given date constitutes an assault on real historical facts. We believe that the not-so-significant events of October 22 (November 1), 1612, do not justify assigning this date such a lofty meaning. (Ekho Moskva, July 15, 2005 [ru])

But as Russians get ready to go back to work tomorrow, they give little thought to these historical and political considerations. In the wise words of a commenter on Davydov’s article, November 4, like November 7 before it, is “just that ‘holiday in November.’ ”

 

Photo credit: vseotkritki.ru

Translations: Eugenia Sokolskaya

You Might Also Like

Day of Accord and Reconciliation
  • November 07, 2000

Day of Accord and Reconciliation

Celebrated on November 7, this Russian holiday used to be called Revolution Day and was the most important holiday during the Soviet Era.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

Related Content

Eugenia Sokolskaya
Eugenia Sokolskaya
EUGENIA SOKOLSKAYA came to the United States from Russia when she was four. In addition to a normal public-school education, she also received extensive instruction in Russian literature, film, and history from her parents. She is now a graduate of Swarthmore College and a freelance translator. In 2011, she was short-listed for the Rossica Young Translators Award.
Day of Accord and Reconciliation
November 7, 2000
Day of Accord and Reconciliation

Celebrated on November 7, this Russian holiday used to be called Revolution Day and was the most important holiday during the Soviet Era.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955