“Russia's Unity Day can be November 7th – Revolution Day”

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Yesterday, the main topic for discussion in the mass media which covered the Russian March was the decision by Alexei Navalny not to take part in it. Fortunately, nationalists’ demonstrations in Moscow remained undistinguished. About 8,000 people came to Lyublino, about thirty of them were detained by the police. The Russian March is an annual tradition on National Unity Day. Yevgeny Minchenko, the head of the International Institute of Political Expertise, told Vestnik Kavkaza why the holiday hasn’t become a pan-national holiday.

“To make a holiday stable there should be a certain tradition, mythology, events surrounding it. What does a common Russian citizen think about the 4th of November? It is about the Poles or something like that. The majority of our population forgets history when they graduate from school. There should be a collection of texts, a video tradition – movies, and so on. At best, people remember the nonsense film by Khotinenko where some Spaniards and impossible things occur,” Minchenko believes, he means the film by director Vladimir Khotinenko “1612” about the Time of Troubles.

According to Minchenko, the holiday can become a tradition due to such things as:

-          six good films

-          a dozen various series

-          several popular books for the mass audience

-          theatrical performances (in America they stage plays on how native Americans brought gifts to the first frontiersmen) and so on.

“To establish a holiday, there should be an ideology, a fundamental propaganda and a complex of customs, typical holiday arrangements. We have no such things,” Minchenko thinks.

As a historian he is sure that November 4th is the wrong date, because “in general it was not exactly a Russian-Polish war, but a civil war. The majority of the forces which occupied Moscow included our own Cossacks from Russia and the territory of modern Ukraine. So, it is not really cheerful, considering “the warmth” of our current relations with Ukraine.”

Minchenko believes that the authorities failed to offer a clear ideology, and the ideological gap began to be filled by other forces: “They say that Kozma Minin is a Tatar, even though there is no historical evidence. Some Tatar “historians”, who every year increase the age of Kazan, simply say this. Because it was our multinational people that won, not only Russians, let Minin be a Tatar. Putin, as one of ideologists of multinationalism, supported the story that Kozma Minin was a Tatar.”

“The holiday cannot demonstrate the multinationality of our people. I understand why a Russian person celebrates the holiday – the end of the Times of Troubles. But why should the holiday be important for a Chechen or a Kabardinian? What should encourage and unite them?” Minchenko thinks the date is wrong. “The idea which was born in Yeltsin’s era – to make the 7th of November the Day of National Reconciliation and Concord – was good. It theoretically can combine traditions of tsarist Russia and Soviet Russia. There were good things in both eras. And a combination of them was a promising national idea, and the problem of other nations could be added to it. At the same time, November 4th is an unfortunate date.”

Minchenko proposes two variants of choosing a date for a unity day.

The first one. “Formally, our country is the legal successor of the Soviet Union in the international arena. From this point of view, November 7th is a day of revolution, a day of global destruction, and it can be the date. I don’t agree with Dmitry Medvedev, who says that the Russian Federation is a young country of about 20. I appreciate my roots and think that my country was founded at least in the 9th century. So, the 7th of November, the Day of National Reconciliation and Concord has a right to exist,” the political scientist thinks.

The second one. “We can take any date from Russian history, but none of them are as simple as that. For example, Ryurik – the Scandinavians brought statehood to us. It is not good. On the other hand, why should we be ashamed of this? Normans founded the current state in the UK and murdered the Anglo-Saxon elite; and nobody worries that Norman dukes founded the UK dynasty.

I think an optional date should be taken and create a story for it. There are certain examples in the world. It's no secret that the majority of Christian holidays coincide with pagan holidays,” Minchenko says.

According to him, “as we have a new religion of the united “Russian nation”, let’s replace the key date of the Communist religion, November 7th, and give it a new meaning.”