What a holiday is November 4: the history of National Unity Day

“Red Calendar Day” was postponed for the sake of continuity of history

Since 2004, the Russian calendar has included a new public holiday and day off – National Unity Day on November 4. Having replaced the main Soviet holiday on November 7 – the day of the Great October Socialist Revolution, National Unity Day inherits the ancient tradition of “Autumn Kazan” – a holiday of tsarist times, also filled with patriotic content and celebrated since the 17th century.

Thus, the reform of holidays, elegantly carried out 19 years ago, managed to link into a single chain of continuity the “November holidays” that had already become quite traditional over the last century.

The number 4 November, as the day of military glory of Russia, is associated with the events of the Time of Troubles – it was on the twentieth of October (old style) 1612 that the Second Militia, led by Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, captured Moscow, expelling the Poles from the Kremlin. At the same time, Kitay-gorod was taken on October 22 (November 1, New Art.), the Kremlin capitulated on October 26 (November 5).

Thus, November 4 is a largely arbitrary date. But not entirely: when recalculating the Julian calendar into the Gregorian calendar of the 17th century, October 22 of the old style is equal to November 1 of the new style. But in the modern Julian calendar, which is used by the Russian Orthodox Church, October 22 corresponds exactly to November 4.

Why is the modern church calendar used as a basis? Exactly because the holiday of “Autumn Kazan” has been listed in the church calendar since 1649 – this holiday is thus the same age as the Council Code of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The Tsar ordered to honor this particular icon on October 22 in memory of the deliverance of Moscow and Russia from the Poles in 1612 – memories of it were still fresh then.

This holiday had special significance for the House of Romanov, which became the ruling dynasty precisely with the events of 1612: The Second Militia “cleared” Moscow of the invaders precisely for the sake of the accession of Mikhail Feodorovich, the first of the Romanovs, to the throne. The choice of this date for the “revival” in 2004 was not accidental – the fact that National Unity Day restores a three-hundred-year-old tradition was also stated in the explanatory note to the corresponding bill.

As for the “heroine” of the holiday – the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, found in 1552 in Kazan, she has another holiday – the day of her discovery on July 8 (new style). Unfortunately, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the shrine was stolen from the Annunciation Cathedral in Kazan. But the Moscow Kazan – the one with which Minin and Pozharsky liberated Moscow from the Poles – has been preserved: it was in the Kazan Cathedral on Red Square for 300 years, and is now placed in the Elokhovsky Epiphany Cathedral in the Basmanny District.