“A holiday many people laugh at”

The day of October Revolution remains a public holiday in Belarus. Still it is celebrated with restraint even on the official level.

 How one should treat this day and the historical event connected with it, and why public holidays are taken as usual days off – these are the questions that EuroBelarus Information Service discussed with the representatives of the civil society.

Tatsiana Vadalazhskaya, the expert of the Humanitarian Techniques Agency, the Flying university curator:

- This day shouldn’t be a public holiday. I think that this day is, of course, important for the independent and modern Belarus, as it cannot be thrown away from our history. But on the whole, there isn’t anything festive in this day, at least because after the Soviet Union disintegration we renounced the major communist and Bolshevik ideological guidelines. So what to celebrate in fact?

Generally, all Soviet-style holidays have departed from the events they are linked up with. By now there remains no one who really took part in these events. All these holidays are being profaned and viewed rather as additional days off. Let us take, for example, the International Women's Day or the May Day. They do not convey any meaning that would affect today’s Belarusans. This is typical for all ideological holidays. Although the official state ideology is based on the soviet one, thanks God we do not repeat the whole Bolshevik ideological doctrine.

Siarhei Drazdouski, the coordinator of the Office on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities:

- There isn’t any holiday for sure. It is some kind of anachronism, which has certainly become obsolete both historically and emotionally. The only thing left is the holiday for the people, the mere possibility to steal one working day from the state.

Old holidays lost their link with the worldview of the person, who doesn’t have place for ideals anymore. And naturally, mythology of these ideals together with building of rituals round this mythology practically don’t influence people’s mind and totally pass by. At the same time human’s life perfectly recoups for this disadvantage, and people agree on the day-off. Why not?

People may watch this spectacle with perfect calm and reason it as “so, what else would you do, what else strange things would you make?”

Miraslau Kabasa, chairman of the Lew Sapieha Foundation:

- I consider November 7 a historical anachronism. What is to be celebrated on this day? Should we celebrate something that arose in those days and later destroyed the whole country and, what is most important, destroyed the normal mentality of the people; something that on its assumption to power was doing everything to disparage people, to deprive them of their freedom? On the whole, there was nothing positive in it. And I cannot understand who considers this day to be a holiday?  

The dates we celebrate as holidays are not perceived as such. On the other hand, people need more free time. That’s why people try to make use of every holiday of that kind, occupying themselves with their private affairs they haven’t time to do at other times.

Galena Tankachova, the head of the Legal Transformation Centre “Lawtrend”:

- And what is the date? I’m going to work and I believe that this constellation of symbols has to leave our life with the help of people and with the help of the state policy. As for me, this day is not a holiday, and I don’t see any reason for a festive day in it.

As for the event itself, I treat it with the feeling of historical acceptance, but don’t correlate it with my personal values and attitudes. I think that these symbols should be gradually forced out of the existing reality with the help of the peoples’ minds.

I’d like to ask why state policy is not based on the people’s opinions on the state holidays. As I see it, there is nothing more easy than to review the red-letter calendar on the assumption of what are the values and convictions of people.

Leonid Kalitenya, the head of the Public Association “Center for social innovations”:

- As a matter of fact, the revolution occurred in the Soviet Union, and Belarus is by no means its successor, even de jure. Its successor is Russian Federation. That’s why this holiday is nonsense.

I believe that this so to speak great legacy, including its revolutionary weight, has to be reviewed from the modern perspectives. A hundred years have passed. We can’t hold the same standpoints at least in the sense that we have changed, the world has changed, the understanding has changed.

I think that all this “red October” is somewhat archaic. What is more, communist party who was actually the owner of November 7 doesn’t exist. And communist future where we head for from October doesn’t exist, too. Accordingly, this is the ritual without meaning. And if someone wants to consider this day a holiday, then let’s fill it with some modern meaning. Because otherwise it is just a meaningless holiday young people laugh at. And they are right!