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Romanian Flag Day

Nestor — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:41:30 +0000

June 26

Awaken thee, Romanian, shake off the deadly slumber…

Today is National Flag Day in Romania.

The three colors of the Romanian flag represent the blood of the people, the golden crops of the land, and the blue sky above…according to the Communists who ruled Romania from 1947 to 1989. But much has changed since the fall of the Iron Curtain, including the country’s national anthem, which was “Three Colors” from 1977 to 1989.

Like the flag itself, the country is an amalgamation of three nations: Dacia, Wallachia, and their all-too-famous cousin Transylvania. Though Transylvania is the most notorious, Romania was actually formed by the merging of the other two, Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859. Transylvania didn’t join the club until 1918.

Peles Castle, Romania © David Watterson

Who put the Roman in Romania?

After decades of clashes between Rome and the land known as Dacia, the Roman Emperor Trajan attacked and conquered the defiant kingdom around 100 AD. The war had tested and refined Roman military ingenuity. Dacia was powerful, wealthy, and no stranger to war. Trajan declared 123 days of celebration in Rome following the victory.

Two full Roman legions were posted in Dacia even in peacetime. The soldiers and Dacians intermarried, as did their native tongues. Dacian fighters repelled the Roman invaders around the 4th century, but even today Romania bears the name of the ancient empire. Romania, meaning Land of the Romans, didn’t become the official name until 1862, three years after the creation of the Moldavia-Wallachia state.

The Romanian flag has survived in one form another for 1500 years. Emperor Justinian issued a decree in 535 describing the region’s coat of arms and banner:

“On the right…a red shield, on which towers can be seen, signifying the other Dacia; in the second section a blue-sky shield, with the ensigns of the Bur tribe…and golden in the middle.”

A thousand years later the colors still coincided with the three major regions: red for Moldavia, gold for Wallachia, and blue for Transylvania. And in 1600, the prince Michael the Brave briefly united the three provinces before his assassination in 1601. The colors were used during this time to symbolize the amalgamated territories.

During the Communist regime a coat of arms was added to the banner, but removed in 1989, sometimes quite literally…

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Day of Conquest (aka Why did Constantinople get the works?)

Nestor — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:29 +0000

May 29

Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it’s a Turkish delight on a moonlit night…
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.

[published May 29, 2008]

555 years ago today a young soldier by name of Hasan from the small town of Ulubat in what is now Bursa province, Turkey, changed the history of the world.

Hasan was a member of the Sultan Mehmed II’s elite cavalry force during the Siege of Constantinople in 1453 AD.

Preparations for the siege had begun in late 1451 when the Sultan built a fortress on the European side of the Bosporus, north of the city. There Sultan Mehmed commissioned a Hungarian named Urban to design and forge the latest craze in weapons of mass destruction.

The ‘Great Turkish Bombard’ was the world’s first supergun, an enlargement of a Chinese weapon that used gunpowder. At 17 feet and weighing over 20 tons, Urban’s Bombard could shoot a 680 kg granite projectile over a mile. It took 60 oxen and 400 men to move each one.

(Bombard at the Siege, and today)

Urban originally offered his services to the Byzantines, who were unable to afford him. He took his business elsewhere, to the Sultan, who gave him unlimited funding to create a device that could bring down the “walls of Babylon”.

Each Bombard took three hours to reload. But shot by shot, over a matter of months they broke through the walls of the city that was once declared the new Rome. Walls that were originally built by Constantine, fortified by Theodosius, and which for 1000 years withstood attacks from the Avars, the Persians, the Arabs, the Rus’, and the Bulgars.

On the 28th, as the Ottoman army rested for the final attack the last Byzantine Emperor held a religious ceremony in the Hagia Sophia Church.

At midnight the Sultan ordered the attack.

“The first assault was performed by infantry and it was followed by Anatolian soldiers. When 300 Anatolian soldiers were killed, the Janissaries started their attack.” – http://www.greatistanbul.com/conquest.htm

One of the first of those to make it through the impenetrable walls was the aforementioned Hasan of Ulubat. He carried a sword, but would be remembered throughout history for what held in his other hand.

In the midst of battle, Hasan became the first Muslim ever to hoist a crescent banner atop the 1000 year-old Christian city’s walls. The sight of the flag spurred on the invaders and hastened the collapse of the city’s defenses. During this last act, Hasan was struck dead by 27 arrows, but not before his fellow soldiers broke through and held the flag.

Constantine XI, the last Byzantine Emperor, is believed to have been killed in the attack.

Sultan Mehmed II assumed the Byzantine title of Caesar, and the Ottoman became the undisputed ruler of what was now undoubtedly an empire.

He was 21.

Sultan Mehmed II enters Constantinople

Istanbul, as it’s known today, is the city that spans two continents.

And no, it wasn’t Mehmed who changed Constantinople to Istanbul. The Ottomans continued to call the city “Konstantiniyye” (City of Constantine) for hundreds of years. But the mesh of multi-cultural locals called it by another name. Istanbul is a morph of the Greek “is tin Poli”.

Just like New Yorkers and San Franciscans call their hometown, Istanbul means simply “the City”, or “to the City”.

The name wasn’t officially adopted by the Turkish Postal System until 1926.

So if you’ve got a girl in Constantinople…
…she’ll be waiting in Istanbul.

[And no, They Might Be Giants didn't write the song. Istanbul Not Constantinople was recorded by the Four Lads in 1953, exactly 500 years after the conquest of Constantinople.]

Sultan Mehmed II approaches Constantinople with his army (Note the Great Turkish Bombard)

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Defenders of the Fatherland Day

Nestor — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:13:52 +0000

February 23

Today Russia celebrates Defenders of the Fatherland Day.

On February 23 (Julian Calendar) 1917, Russian women in Petrograd celebrated the 7th International Women’s Day. In response to food shortages caused by the war with Germany, the women of Russia’s capital city “poured onto the streets,” demanding “bread for our children” and “the return of our husbands from the trenches.”

www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/womens-day.htm

The protests gained momentum the following days when workers’ strikes forced the closure of hundreds of factories. On February 26 the Tsar, who was away conducting the war, ordered his general to disperse the demonstrators, now numbering in the hundreds of thousands, saying such disturbances were “impermissible at a time when the fatherland is carrying on a difficult war with Germany.”

Tony Cliff Lenin: All Power to the Soviets

Russian troops fired on the crowds, killing dozens of protesters. But the real problem for the Tsar was that many of the Tsar’s troops refused to fire on crowds and sided with the strikers. The clashes of February 24-27 claimed about 1500 lives on both sides. In the end the Tsar lost the support of his own troops, was forced to abdicate his throne.

But that’s not why the Russians celebrate on February 23.

Nope, it’s because of what happened on February 23 the following year.

Nicholas II’s abdication gave way to a Russian Provisional Government, led by Social Revolutionary Alexander Kerensky. Under Kerensky the government declared Russia a republic, pronounced freedom of speech, made steps to encourage democracy, and released thousands of political prisoners.

But Kerensky, perhaps because he was the former Defense Minister, continued to keep the Russians engaged in the disastrous war against Germany. Bad move. Like the Tsar before him, the war would be his downfall.

(Great article on Kerensky)

How Russia got its Soviet:

The Russian word soviet meant “council.” Soviets were workers’ councils with little power, set up in the wake of 1905′s Bloody Sunday.

The Bolsheviks were an extremist minority party and as such could not hold much sway in a democratic assembly. Instead Lenin and the Bolsheviks bypassed the Provisional Government entirely and consolidated their power in these urban workers’ councils known as soviets, the most prominent one being the soviet in Petrogad.

1917 their platform called for the seizure of land, property and industry by the peasantry and workers, for the transfer of power to the local workers’ councils, and for the immediate end of war with Germany.

In April few took the Bolsheviks seriously.

By November they ruled the country.

What happened in 7 months?

Under Kerensky’s Provisional Government food and supply shortages worsened. Mass numbers of Russian soldiers continued to defect. And the drain of resources for the war effort strangled the economy. Even though most people were against the war, political parties would not withdraw. Lenin and the Bolsheviks’ opposition to the war bought them enough support to pull off the armed uprising later called the “October Revolution,” which occurred in—you guessed it—November. (Gregorian)

After the uprising the Bolsheviks put forth a resolution before the Provisional Government to transfer political power to the soviets.When the Provisional Government voted it down (What a surprise) the Bolsheviks walked out. The next day the Bolsheviks, with the support of 5,000 members of the Russian Navy in Petrograd, issued a decree dissolving the Provisional Government.

(Lenin statue w/ shades)

Lenin believed a standing army was a bourgeois institution and would not be necessary in a communist society; he was proved wrong. In order to ensure beneficial terms in an armistice with Germany, and facing a massive civil war, the Bolsheviks called for the establishment of a standing Workers’ and Peasants’ “Red” Army to replace the disintegrated Imperial Army. The decree was issued on January 28. 10 days later on February 23* assemblies were held across the country to recruit soldiers for the new army. The “mass meetings brought 60,000 men into the Red Army in Petrograd, 20,000 in Moscow and thousands more in other places around the country.”

The Red Army, 1918-1941

*(On February 1, 1918 Russia switched from the old Julian Calendar, abandoned by the West in the 16th through 18th centuries, to the Gregorian Calendar. As a result, the date February 1, 1918 in Russia was followed by February 14, 1918.)

February 23 was declared Red Army Day. It was changed to Soviet Army Day by Stalin. And to Defenders of the Fatherland Day following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Recently, according to dincarslan.blogspot.com, “the long reaching poisonous arms of capitalism have found a new virgin field to exploit and made this day a “Men’s Day” where the women gives (or should give) gifts to their fathers, brothers, boyfriends and male colleagues.”

So, ironically, the date on which the Russians once celebrated women, February 23, is now a holiday extolling men.

Lyubov Tsarevskaya has a more traditional, patriotic view of the holiday:

“This is the ultimate reflection of one’s devotion and patriotism. As Jesus Christ said, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13) The history of the army in Imperial, Soviet, and now, Russian times is replete in stirring examples of self-sacrifice and heroism.”

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(A 2006 poster proclaiming “Congrats to the Russian Soldiers” mistakingly shows the USS Missouri.)

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