Category: Eastern Europe

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Battle of Milvian Bridge

October 28

October 28, 2010 marks the 1698th anniversary of the Battle of Milvian Bridge, a battle of two Emperors that changed the course of history.

Maxentius and Constantine were brothers-in-law, both had valid claims to the throne thanks to Diocletian’s division of the Empire in 306, and both their fathers had been previous Emperors. In fact, Maxentius’s father had committed suicide after a failed rebellion against Constantine.

In 312 A.D. Maxentius held Rome; Constantine held the north. Hearing of Maxentius’s claim, Constantine gathered his army and headed south, encountering Maxentius’s troops at the Milvian Bridge just outside Rome. The actual Milvian bridge was not functional, perhaps purposefully destroyed by Maxentius in preparation for the expected attack. But Maxentius made a grave tactical error. He used a makeshift pontoon bridge to transport his troops to the other side of the Tiber, and placed them too close to the riverbank.

Battle of the Milvian Bridge
Battle of the Milvian Bridge

Constantine, a 40 year-old veteran of campaigns against the Franks and Gauls, forced Maxentius’s army against the river, allowing them only one means of escape: the bridge. During the retreat, the bridge collapsed, and the portion of Maxentius’s troops stranded on the north side were slaughtered or taken prisoner.

Maxentius supposedly drown in the river. His body was found, decapitated, and paraded through Rome the following day.

It is said Constantine had a vision the night before of the sign of the cross, and the words “In this sign, you shall conquer.”

Constantine’s victory over Maxentius was later seen as a victory of the Christian god over the Roman pagan deities. Constantine became the first Christian Emperor, reversed the ruthless persecution of Christians that had dominated the reign of Diocletian, and implemented a policy of religious tolerance throughout the Empire.

Though not an official holiday, many Christian sects observe the anniversary of Milvian Bridge on October 28 in memory of the historic turning point of early Christianity.

Milvian Bridge: Unique Historical Moments in Christian History

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Armed Forces Day – Romania

October 25

“Over the centuries you will be remembered and praised, you, the officers and soldiers who have freed Transylvania.”

–General Gheorghe Avramescu, October 29, 1944

On this day in 1944 Romanian troops liberated Carei, the last German-occupied city in Romania. It is also the birthday of Romania’s last king, Michael I. (Pre-emptive answer: No, I don’t know why the there is a “I” if there won’t be a second.)

King Michael, or Mihai, became heir apparent of Romania at age 4 after his father Crown Prince Carol II abandoned his claim to the throne to elope with his mistress. When his grandfather, King Ferdinand died, the 6 year-old boy became king.

However in 1930, Carol II returned to the throne, becoming perhaps the only European king to have succeeded his own son.

In 1940, Carol II refused to go along with pro-Nazi Romanian leaders. He was forced to abdicate the throne for his son, 18 year-old Michael, who was expected to rule as a puppet monarch for a fascist Romanian government allied with Hitler.

There are conflicting stories of Michael’s motivations for turning against Germany in 1944. Some portray him as a hero whose daring fight against fascist leaders hastened the Nazi defeat, thus saving tens of thousands of lives. Others claim he was a pragmatist who had no choice but to switch once it became clear the Soviets were winning.

According to future Soviet leader Nikita Khurshchev…

In 1944, as we approached Bessarabia and fighting broke out on its territory, and then as we approached the borders of Romania itself, it became evident that the pointer on the scale had tipped strongly in the direction of victory for our side…Then a coup occurred in Romania. The young King Michael took part it it…In Romania a situation took shape in which the sympathies of the people moved to the left, the authority of the Communist Party rose, and the king decided the Communists should participate in the new government that was being formed…The question of whether Romania would take the socialist path did not come up at the time.”

–Memoirs of Nikita Khruschchev

The U.S. awarded King Michael the Legion of Merit for his bravery, and the Soviets awarded him the Order of Victory. But proof that no good deed goes unpunished, the Romanian Communist government abolished the monarchy in January 1948 and forced Michael to leave the country. According to Khrushchev, Michael was told, “he could take everything with him that he considered necessary, but he had to leave his kingdom.”

In exile, he married Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma with whom he raised 5 daughters in Switzerland. The former king worked for an aircraft company training European pilots to fly with American instruments.

The former king once said:

“Though many people think that not to be allowed back into your country is easier to bear than not to be allowed out of it, this is not true. The feeling of powerlessness and loss of liberty is associated with both.

Michael of Romania: The King and the Country

King Michael was invited to return briefly to Romania in 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He is one of the last surviving heads of state from World War II.

October 25: Romanian Armed Forces Day

A Survivor: Romania’s Lucky Enough King

Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev

Romanian Flag Day

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Hungary – Republic Day

October 23

For three decades Hungarians were forbidden to mention the events that occurred on October 23, 1956.

After World War II, Hungary found itself increasingly under the thumb of the Soviet occupiers that had liberated the country from the Nazis. The Communist Party slowly replaced the democratically elected Hungarian government, and the Hungarian State Security Police “purged” thousands of political dissidents through relocation, imprisonment, and execution.

In 1955 Hungarians hoped their country might go the way of Austria, becoming a demilitarized, independent country. However, the Warsaw Pact of that year bound Hungary to the USSR and formed part of “the Iron Curtain”.

In Poland, public outcry at Soviet quashing of an uprising had led the Soviets to make concessions to Poland in October 1956. Hungarian students expressing solidarity with the Poles by holding a demonstration in Budapest at statue of Polish-Hungarian General Józef Bern. Students cut the Soviet coat of arms from the Hungarian flag and sang the old national song, Nemzeti dal, “We vow we will no longer remain slaves.”

According to reports, the crowd swelled from 20,000 people to as many as 200,000. By evening, the crowd had toppled the 10 meter tall statue of the recently-deceased Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and placed Hungarian flags in his boot. As the demonstrations multiplied and crowds grew unruly, Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest. But it was the much reviled Security Police that fired the first shots into the crowd.

News of the clashes in Budapest spread throughout the country. Protests and demonstrations broke across Hungary, followed by mob violence against the Security Police and full-scale revolution.

On the 28th of October, Soviets called for a ceasefire and Soviet forces withdrew from Budapest. A new national Hungarian government was proclaimed, led by Imre Nagy, with the intention of becoming a neutral multi-party democracy.

The joy was brief. On November 3, the infant government was invited to negotiate the withdrawal of Soviet forces. Arriving at the meeting point, the delegation was arrested. Soviet tanks attacked Budapest in “Operation Whirlwind”. By November 10, when the last rebels conceded defeat, 2,500 Hungarians and 722 Soviet troops were dead.

It would be a long road to freedom for the Hungarians. On October 23, 1989, just before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Republic of Hungary was proclaimed, and October 23 was declared a national holiday in memory of the short-lived government and the revolution that refused to be forgotten.

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Mother Teresa Day – Albania

October 19

“If in coming face to face with God we accept Him in our lives, then we are converting. We become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Catholic, a better whatever we are…

“What approach would I use? For me, naturally, it would be a Catholic one…What God is in your mind you must accept. But I cannot prevent myself from trying to give you what I have…”

Mother Teresa

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in Skopje, Albania (now Macedonia) between the Ilinden anti-Ottoman Uprising and the outbreak of the First World War.

At age 8, her father died. At 18, she moved to Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto, with whom she began her monastic training in India the following year. Agnes chose the name Teresa, after Teresa of France, the patron saint of missionaries who died in 1897 at age 24.

Sister Teresa taught students at the Loreto convent school in Calcutta for several years. On September 10, 1946, on her annual retreat to Darjeeling, she felt the call of God, telling her to work not within the confines of the school, but among the sick and poor of the streets.

She exchanged her convent habit for a simple cotton chira, became an Indian citizen, and continued to help the poorest of the poor for nearly 50 years. She established the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 to help “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society…”

The Missionaries currently operate over 600 missions in 123 countries.

I don’t think there is anyone else who needs God’s help and grace more than I do…I need His help twenty-four hours a day. And if days were longer, I would need even more of it.

Mother Teresa

Today, Mother Teresa’s homeland of Albania honors her with a national holiday. October 19 is the anniversary of the day in 2003 that she was beatified by the Vatican.

“Christ will not ask how much we did but how much love we put into what we did.”

Mother Teresa

“Do not imagine that love to be true must be extraordinary. No, what we need in our love is the continuity to love the One we love.”

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Michaelmas

September 29

And when the tenants come to pay their quarter’s rent
They bring some fowle at Midsummer, a dish of fish in Lent,
At Christmasse a capon, at Michaelmasse a goose;
And somewhat else at New-yeres tide, for feare their lease flie loose.

Gasciogne, Posies (1575)

September 29 is the Feast Day of the Archangel St. Michael and All Angels.

The archangel Michael is featured prominently in both the Old and New Testaments, as well as apocryphal writings such as the book of Enoch. The appeal of the Archangel spread throughout Christendom during the Middle Ages. Perhaps because of his position as the leader of the army of angels in Revelation, Michael became the patron saint of knights, whom fighters called upon in times of battle.

He is also the “good guy” Angel of Death–the one with wings and a scale, not with a black cloak and scythe. Michael’s symbolic scale was believed to weigh the souls of the recently deceased, to determine their worthiness in heaven. Fittingly, St. Michael’s Feast falls during the zodiac sign of Libra, the scales.

The medieval painting above shows St. Michael's scales, weighing the soul of a tiny figure hoping to enter the kingdom of heaven. The devil weighs down the scale on the left while the Virgin Mary weighs down the right with a rosary.

Just as the figure of Michael replaced pagan deities such as the Germanic Wotan (Norse Odin) and the Greek Hermes during the conversion of Europe, his feast day on September 29 replaced nature-based celebrations of the autumnal equinox and the harvest. During the Middle Ages, the equinox fell on or around September 29.

In England, Michaelmas was one of the four quarter days by which debts and suits had to be settled, falling roughly on the solstices and equinoxes: Lady Day (March 25), Midsummer Day (June 24), Michaelmas (September 29) and Christmas (December 25).

Geese, which were fat and hardy this time of year, were often given to landlords and creditors as part of repayment. Goose became the traditional meal of Michaelmas, and a symbol of good luck; hence the saying:

Whoever eats goose on Michaelmas Day
Shall never lack money his debts to pay

In the Church of Latter-Day Saints, before Michael became an angel, he was Adam, the first man. Jehovah’s Witnesses, meanwhile, believe that Michael and Jesus are but one and the same.

Michaelmas was considered the last day to safely eat the season’s blueberries.

…We’ll pick in the Mortenson’s pasture this year.
We’ll go in the morning, that is, if it’s clear,
And the sun shines out warm; the vines must be wet.
It’s so long since I picked I almost forget
How we used to pick berries: we took one look round,
Then sank out of sight like trolls underground…

from Blueberries by Robert Frost
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Bulgarian Unification Day

September 6

flag_bulgaria

Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia declared their unification on September 6, 1885. Unfortunately, no one outside of Bulgaria—neither the Western Powers nor the Ottoman Empire, of which Rumelia had been a part—recognized the union.

The declaration precipitated the Serbo-Bulgarian War in which Bulgaria defended its borders, and Bulgarians still celebrate September 6 as the anniversary of its unification.

This year (2009) most events celebrating Unification Day have been canceled, due to a tragic boating accident on Saturday which killed 15 Bulgarians. The boat Ilinden sank in Lake Ohrid, Macedonia. An investigation as the cause of the sinking is currently underway.

Instead, the President has declared Monday, September 7 a National Day of Mourning.

Memorial services for the victims were held at Plovdiv Cathedral, and were attended by the President and Speaker of Parliament.

During the mass, the Plovdiv Metropolitan, Nikolay, hinted that God had punished Bulgarians over their many sins including celebrating and partying too much on August 29 (the day of the concert of pop diva Madonna in Sofia) instead of mourning for St. John the Baptist.

Bulgaria Bishop: God’s Wrath over Madonna Concert Caused Ohrid Tragedy

Bulgarians will still lay a wreath at the Unification Monument in Plovdiv, though there will be no fireworks.

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Ukraine Independence

August 24

Today is the sixtieth birthday of Ukrainian activist, writer, agitator and politician Levko Lukyanenko. But Ukrainians aren’t celebrating the man, they’re celebrating the document he wrote on this day in 1991, Ukraine’s Declaration of Indpendence:

In view of the mortal danger surrounding Ukraine in connection with the state coup in the USSR on August 19, 1991,

Continuing the thousand-year tradition of state development in Ukraine,

Proceeding from the right of a nation to self-determination in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other international legal documents, and

Implementing the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine,

the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic solemnly declares Independence of Ukraine…

Levko Lukyanenko
Levko Lukyanenko

Back in 1959 Lukyanenko had helped to form the underground organization “Ukrainian Workers and Peasants Society”, for which he wrote the party program. For his involvement, he was sentenced to execution, a sentence that was later mitigated to fifteen years hard labor in the Gulag. His time didn’t dim his revolutionary fervor, but cemented it. After his release, he helped found the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Group.

“All in all, Levko Lukyanenko spent twenty five years in prison and concentration camps and five years in exile, his crime being not murder or armed assault, or robbery but something the soviet regime considered to be the most grievous offence–having views and ideas inconsistent with the soviet ideology.”

Maria Vlad – Levko Lukyanenko, Indomitable Champion of the National Cause

Lukyanenko was released during the Soviet prestroika reforms of the 1980s. In 1990 the former enemy of the state was elected to the Ukrainian parliament.

Oh, and it’s Ukraine, not The Ukraine. It means “Borderland”.

Ukraine also gave us St. Nestor the Chronicler (c. 1056 – c. 1114), the monk who spent twenty years writing the great Russian and Ukrainian history “The Tale of Bygone Years”, or “The Chronicle”.

Independence Square, Kiev
Independence Square, Kiev
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Black Ribbon Day – the Baltic Way

The West read the headlines in shock…

The two most bitter enemies in Europe, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, had signed a non-aggression pact.

What did it mean? The end of peace and the beginning of the most devastating war in history.

In spite of concern over Nazi Germany’s buildup of military power, the Britain and France had been wary of signing any alliance treaty with the Soviet Union, whom they considered merely the lesser of two evils (and the further of the two, geographically).

Russia had no choice but to oppose Germany, or so the Britain and France believed. Hatred of communism was a founding principle of Hitler’s Nazi movement, and the feeling in Russia toward Nazism was mutual.

Evidently though, pragmatism outweighed principle.

Hitler used the West’s alienation of the Soviet Union to his advantage. On August 23, 1939 Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. It stated, simply, that the two countries would not attack each other.  In other words, it cleared the path for Hitler to attack Poland, knowing Russia wouldn’t attack from the East, should Britain and France attack from the West.

With the two-front war threat out of the way, German tanks rolled into Poland, claiming to do so in retaliation for outbreaks of violence on the German-Polish border.

Weeks later the world got a hint of the other part of the Non-Aggression Pact. It was actually a co-aggression pact. Hitler would attack Poland from the West; Stalin would attack from the East. The USSR would get Estonia and Latvia, Germany would get Lithuania, and the two would “split” Poland down the middle.

Germany’s blitzkrieg against Poland was so swift that Stalin was forced to attack Poland sooner than he’d expected. The Poles, who had managed to hold off Germany for two weeks, fought on for another month as their country was hopelessly devoured from both ends by two of the strongest military powers in the world.

The Pact was meant to last 10 years. Hitler broke it in less than two, invading the Soviet Union in 1941.

Though Germany was defeated in 1945, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia remained in Soviet possession. The West was not anxious to spill more blood in central Europe after 6 years of war. Poland was recognized as an independent country in 1952 but remained under Soviet control. However, the Baltic States would wait until the 1990s to regain independence.

In 1986, protesters gathered in 21 cities across the world on the anniversary of the infamous pact, to protest specifically the secret provision signed by Hitler and Stalin that still determined the map of the Baltic. A provision that the Soviet Union still officially denied existed. Three years later, on the 50th anniversary of the pact, two million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians joined hands to form the “Baltic Way”. A human chain that stretched 600 kilometers across the three republics.

The Baltic Way – 1989

Four months later the Soviet Union officially acknowledged the existence of the secret provision of “the Devil’s Pact”.

The nationalistic fervor that spread from to Baltic to other Soviet republics hastened the breakup of the mighty empire that once swallowed them.

Today August 23 is recognized as “Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism”.