Defender of the Fatherland Day
February 23rd, 2007
Defender of the Fatherland Day is a holiday observed in Russia and many former Soviet republics. It is celebrated on February 23.
The holiday marks the date in 1918 during the Russian Civil War when the first mass draft into the Red Army occured in Petrograd and Moscow. It was originally known as Red Army Day. In 1949, it was renamed Soviet Army and Navy Day. Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the holiday was given its current name.
As the name suggests, the holiday celebrates the soldiers of the Russian military, but it has also more recently come to include the celebration of men as a whole, and to act as a counterpart of International Women’s Day on March 8. The holiday is celebrated with parades and processions in honor of veterans, and women also give small gifts to the men in their lives, especially a boyfriend or husband.
This text of this post is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Defender of the Fatherland Day“.
