Unity Day
November 4 1612 years
The date, 393 years later, became the national holiday—National Unity Day. Vladimir Putin greeted him on Red Square, surrounded by military academy cadets. Two thousand nationalists took to the streets of Moscow with signs reading, "Russians, Forward!"
This day became a day of Russian nationalism at its core. The challenge was how to talk about the Empire, about our desire to expand, without offending the global community (the holiday's initiator, Vladislav Surkov).
The new holiday helped to get rid of the old one - October Revolution Day, which was celebrated on November 7 and did not fit at all into the ideology of modern Russia.
Even under Yeltsin, there was an attempt to rename it the Day of Accord and Reconciliation, but this did not bring any tangible results: communists continued to hold rallies with red banners, while the rest of the people used the extra day off as they saw fit.
Under Putin, they decided to completely remove this date from the calendar of public holidays. To prevent the people from being upset by the abolition of a day off, they invented National Unity Day. It was timed to coincide with the events of 1612, when the people's militia led by Minin and Pozharsky liberated Moscow from the Polish invaders and brought an end to the Time of Troubles.
The country's leadership was pleased: the dates almost coincided, and the new holiday fit in with the trends of building a "vertical of power."
This new national holiday is only just beginning to enter our lives. It was a victory for patriotic forces, a victory for the course of strengthening the state through centralization and unification of forces (Vladimir Putin, November 4, 2005)
However, historians still haven't figured out why National Unity Day was set for this date: on November 1, the people's militia entered Kitai-gorod, on November 5, the command of the Polish garrison signed the capitulation, and only left the Kremlin the following day.
No historically significant events took place in Moscow on November 4, 1612.
About how residents of Russian cities actually united and how this put an end to the Time of Troubles, listen to in the NeMoskva podcast.
