Did Saint Valentine really crown men and other myths associated with popular holidays?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

From time to time in social networks, the “shocking truth” about this or that holiday is spread in Russian. The purpose of the information thrown in lies on the surface - to convince not to celebrate anything. Three holidays are usually exposed - March 8, Valentine's Day and New Year. And, although the “shocking truth” is written in the spirit of the most daring yellow press and does not stand up to scrutiny, many people believe and spread the information further.

March 8 - March of Prostitutes

The version of the origin of the holiday, which is circulating on social networks, sounds something like this. The Soviet authorities lied to us. On March 8, Klara Zetkin took German prostitutes onto the streets who were fighting to legalize their profession. As an option: on March 8, New York prostitutes walked the streets of the city, demanding to pay salaries to the sailors, otherwise they, they say, have nothing to pay off.

Surprisingly, despite the fact that the Soviet authorities lied about March 8 to their people, all foreign sources give the same story of the holiday as in our own. On March 8, 1857, the workers of the textile industry walked along the city, demanding adequate pay and reducing the work shift to 10 hours. To understand more about the working conditions of textile workers, you need to know that one day 146 workers died in a fire just because their superiors locked them in their workplace.

Since 1908, all over the world in memory of that march, demonstrations, strikes, rallies and high-profile actions have been organized (yes, in our time), drawing attention to the systemic social problems that hit women.

In the USSR, March 8 was celebrated for another reason. It was on March 8 (according to the international calendar and the Russian new style, according to the old it was still February 23), the strike of women - factory workers in Petrograd, mothers whose children were starving despite their hard work - began. This strike actually led to the February Revolution: angry women, who demanded bread and an end to the war that was meaningless for Russia, also kindled the male workers.

March 8 is so associated all over the world with the struggle for rights that Hollywood scriptwriters (of both sexes!) Once timed a strike on this day. In 2018, strikes and demonstrations for women's rights, including labor rights, were organized by the trade unions of Italy and Spain.

Why did someone invent and distribute a fake? There can be at least three reasons. First, laugh at the gullibility of people. Secondly, personal dislike for the holiday, because, they say, give gifts to these women, but for what? Thirdly, dislike for all holidays introduced after the revolutions of 1917 as non-Christian and communist.

St. Valentine's Day

Although this day, following its name in English, is often called Valentine's Day, the late bishop is not honored on February 14, either in our country or in the West. Instead, couples in love exchange confessions and gifts. In addition, it is quite popular on this day to wish your friends and girlfriends happiness in love.

Only the distributors of the version that St. Valentine was killed by the Romans for marrying prisoners in colonies or Roman soldiers in colonies are thinking about the history of the holiday. Obviously, the first option is a misunderstanding of the word "colony" in the second. In general, February 14 is the day of homosexual love, and celebrating it is either stupid, or ashamed, or both.

To begin with, in principle, claims against Saint Valentine are claims against a martyr revered by the Russian Orthodox Church. Yes, some of the saints are common among Catholics and Orthodox. Their celebration is divorced on different days. Catholics commemorate the same Saint Valentine in winter, Orthodox in spring.

Secondly, just a few years ago, there was no homosexual version with soldiers. In no language. In popular legends, the bishop-martyr did indeed crown the Roman Christian soldiers. According to Roman law, soldiers were forbidden to create families - they say, from this, morale falls. Christian laws were then softer, and even priests of Europe could marry, if only they did not voluntarily take upon themselves the vow of celibacy. In addition, in a Christian marriage, new Christians would be born, so, allegedly, for the multiplication of the Christian clan on earth, the martyr crowned the soldier.

Thirdly, this legend has nothing to do with the official (Catholic and Orthodox) life of Valentine. According to him, the bishop was killed for the very fact of preaching Christianity. In the Roman Empire, under many rulers, Christians were persecuted and killed.

Why was a very alternative biography invented for the early Christian martyr? There are several possible reasons. The first, of course, is the desire to laugh at the gullibility of people, even the strangest version of those who are ready to swallow under the sauce “the authorities are hiding” or “shocking truth”. The second is dislike for Catholicism without knowledge of Orthodoxy. They wanted to tell “theirs” to the saint, but it turned out that “ours”. The third - there is a version that neo-pagans like to spread fakes about Christian saints in general, out of a desire to gradually wean people from everything Christian or to mock, forcing Christians to throw mud at their own martyrs.

However, the third version also looks like a typical “shocking truth”. But it was impossible not to bring her.

New Year

The children's holiday, which before the October Revolution ended the week after Christmas, and after - completely replaced Christmas and the festivities associated with it, also haunts the producers of fakes.

According to the version walking on the Internet, New Year's traditions come from cruel human sacrifices. Celebrating the new year, the pagan Slavs took the girl to the forest, where they tied her to the tree. Then they opened her stomach, pulled out the intestines (hello, garlands) and wrapped it around the same tree. The girl died - from frost or blood loss - not immediately. Her pale, snow-covered corpse is the Snow Maiden, who calls for Santa Claus. Yes, in fact, sacrifices were made to Santa Claus. That is, he did not give out gifts, but they left him.

For a special horror, they can add that the top of the tree was first decorated with the heart of a poor girl. And only then did the heart turn into a red star.

In a way, this version has its own reasons. For example, Moroz (Karachun) in Slavic pre-Christian beliefs is rather evil than good, a creature that was probably looking for a way to appease. Human sacrifices on trees were definitely practiced by the Scandinavians, and at some point there were a lot of them in Russia.

However, this is the case when a drop of truth makes you believe in a lie. To begin with, such a sacrifice in Slavic places could not have anything to do with the New Year's celebrations - the New Year was celebrated in the spring until the adoption of Christianity. And then, by the way, in the fall. And only Peter of decrees moved the New Year to the end of the first week after Christmas, according to the European model.

At the celebration of the pagan New Year, the Slavs did not use the tree in any way, it was considered a non-festive tree associated with the kingdom of death.

Secondly, for the New Year, the Snow Maiden was tied under Stalin, in 1937. Before that, in fairy tales, the Snow Maiden acted as the adopted daughter of elderly peasants, a snowman who came to life in the form of a girl. And not by evil magic who came to life - God himself gives him as a living daughter in answer to the prayers of the elderly. This is the complete opposite of a girl who went from living to dead. The Snow Maiden is kind and sweet, and, unfortunately, melts at the end of the tale. It is difficult to trace in such a character at least some kind of relationship with the victims in the Scandinavian sacred groves.

If a decorated Christmas tree came to Russia from places where the New Year is associated with a dark winter pagan holiday and there was a custom to make human sacrifices in the groves, then the Snow Maiden is a completely innocent character. And Christians came up with a star to decorate a tree. The tree was decorated for Christmas, and not for the New Year itself, and the star symbolized the star of Bethlehem, the sign of the birth of Christ. It was originally gold. The red star became in the USSR, it turned it from a Christmas one to a communist one. In addition, the star could not once have been a heart at the top, because no one in his mind would tie a victim to such a small and thin tree, on the top of which it is easy to attach a heart.

Why was the fake about the New Year launched? Many neophytes from Orthodoxy are annoyed by the fact that the official New Year falls in the middle of the Russian Orthodox Christmas fast and, thus, they seem to be mocking those who are fasting. Other neophytes know little about the history of Orthodoxy and think that the Communists came up with the idea of celebrating the New Year with a Christmas tree, and everything connected with the USSR is disgusting to them. Finally, there is always the possibility that someone was having fun.

Read also, how the image of the Snow Maiden changed in art from a modest woman who does not know carnal passions to a nymphomaniac who offers her body as a gift.