Different ways of reckoning the calendar. A new style of counting time was introduced by the Council of People's Commissars - the government of Soviet Russia January 24, 1918 "Decree on the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic".
The decree was intended to promote “the establishment in Russia of the same time calculation with almost all cultural peoples”. After all, since 1582, when throughout Europe the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar in accordance with the recommendations of astronomers, the Russian calendar turned out to be different from the calendars of civilized states by 13 days.
The fact is that the new European calendar was born through the efforts of the Pope, but the Catholic Pope was not an authority or decree for the Russian Orthodox clergy, and they rejected the innovation. So they lived for more than 300 years: New Year in Europe, December 19 in Russia.
Decree of the Council of People's Commissars (an abbreviation of the Council of People's Commissars) dated January 24, 1918 ordered February 1, 1918 to be considered February 14 (in parentheses, we note that, according to long-term observations, the Russian Orthodox calendar, that is, the "Old Style", is more consistent with the climate of the European part of the Russian Federation For example, on March 1, when according to the old style it is still deep February, there is no smell of spring, and relative warming begins from mid-March or its first days according to the old style).
Not everyone liked the new style
However, not only Russia rested on the establishment of a Catholic count of days, in Greece the "New Style" was legalized in 1924, Turkey - 1926, Egypt - 1928. At the same time, something is not heard that the Greeks or Egyptians celebrated, as in Russia, two holidays: the New Year and the Old New Year, that is, the New Year according to the old style.
Interestingly, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar was also accepted without enthusiasm in those European countries where Protestantism was the leading religion. So in England they switched to a new account of time only in 1752, in Sweden - a year later, in 1753.
Julian calendar
It was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. Started January 1st. The year had 365 days. The number of the year divisible by 4 was recognized as a leap year. One day was added to it - February 29. The difference between the calendar of Julius Caesar and the calendar of Pope Gregory is that the former has a leap year every fourth year without exception, while the latter has leap years only those years that are divisible by four, but not multiples of a hundred. As a result, the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars is gradually increasing and, for example, in 2101 Orthodox Christmas will be celebrated not on January 7, but on January 8.
Since by this time the difference between the old and new styles was 13 days, the decree ordered that after January 31, 1918, not February 1, but February 14 be counted. By the same decree, until July 1, 1918, after the number of each day according to the new style, in brackets, write the number according to the old style: February 14 (1), February 15 (2), etc.
From the history of chronology in Russia.
The ancient Slavs, like many other peoples, initially based their calendar on the period of change in the lunar phases. But already by the time of the adoption of Christianity, that is, by the end of the tenth century. n. e., Ancient Rus' used the lunisolar calendar.
Calendar of the ancient Slavs. It was not finally possible to establish what the calendar of the ancient Slavs was. It is only known that initially time was counted according to the seasons. Probably, the 12-month lunar calendar was also used at that time. In later times, the Slavs switched to the lunisolar calendar, in which an additional 13th month was inserted seven times every 19 years.
The oldest monuments of Russian writing show that the months had purely Slavic names, the origin of which was closely connected with natural phenomena. At the same time, the same months, depending on the climate of those places in which different tribes lived, received different names. So, January was called where the cross section (the time of deforestation), where it was blue (after the winter cloudiness, a blue sky appeared), where it was jelly (because it became cold, cold), etc .; February - cut, snow or fierce (severe frosts); March - berezosol (there are several interpretations here: birch begins to bloom; they took sap from birches; burned birch on coal), dry (the poorest in precipitation in ancient Kievan Rus, in some places the earth was already drying up, sokovik (a reminder of birch sap); April - pollen (flowering gardens), birch (beginning of birch flowering), oak tree, oak tree, etc.; May - grass (grass turns green), summer, pollen; June - worm (cherries turn red), isok (grasshoppers are chirping - “isoki ”), milky; July - Lipets (linden blossom), worm (in the north, where phenological phenomena are late), sickle (from the word “sickle”, indicating harvest time); August - sickle, stubble, glow (from the verb “roar "- the roar of deer, or from the word "glow" - cold dawns, and possibly from "pazors" - polar lights); September - veresen (heather bloom); ruen (from the Slavic root of the word meaning tree, giving yellow paint); october - leaf fall, "pazdernik" or "kastrychnik" (pazders - hemp bonfires, the name for the south of Russia); November - breast (from the word "pile" - a frozen rut on the road), leaf fall (in the south of Russia); December - jelly, breast, blueberry.
The year began on March 1, and from about that time they started agricultural work.
Many of the ancient names of the months later passed into a number of Slavic languages and have largely survived in some modern languages, in particular in Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish.
At the end of the tenth century Ancient Rus' adopted Christianity. At the same time, the chronology used by the Romans passed to us - the Julian calendar (based on the solar year), with the Roman names of the months and the seven-day week. The account of years in it was conducted from the "creation of the world", which allegedly occurred 5508 years before our reckoning. This date - one of the many options for eras from the "creation of the world" - was adopted in the 7th century. in Greece and has long been used by the Orthodox Church.
For many centuries, March 1 was considered the beginning of the year, but in 1492, in accordance with church tradition, the beginning of the year was officially moved to September 1 and was celebrated this way for more than two hundred years. However, a few months after the Muscovites celebrated their regular New Year on September 1, 7208, they had to repeat the celebration. This happened because on December 19, 7208, a personal decree of Peter I was signed and promulgated on the reform of the calendar in Russia, according to which a new beginning of the year was introduced - from January 1 and a new era - the Christian chronology (from the "Christmas").
Petrovsky's decree was called: "On writing henceforth Genvar from the 1st of 1700 in all papers of the summer from the Nativity of Christ, and not from the creation of the world." Therefore, the decree ordered the day after December 31, 7208 from the "creation of the world" to be considered January 1, 1700 from the "Christmas". In order for the reform to be adopted without complications, the decree ended with a prudent clause: “And if anyone wants to write both those years, from the creation of the world and from the Nativity of Christ, in a row freely.”
Meeting of the first civil New Year in Moscow. The day after the announcement on Red Square in Moscow of the decree of Peter I on the reform of the calendar, i.e. December 20, 7208, a new decree of the tsar was announced - "On the celebration of the New Year." Considering that January 1, 1700 is not only the beginning of a new year, but also the beginning of a new century (Here a significant mistake was made in the decree: 1700 is the last year of the 17th century, and not the first year of the 18th century. The new century began on January 1 1701. A mistake that is sometimes repeated even today.), the decree ordered to celebrate this event with special solemnity. It gave detailed instructions on how to organize a holiday in Moscow. On New Year's Eve, Peter I himself lit the first rocket on Red Square, thus signaling the opening of the holiday. The streets were illuminated with illumination. The ringing of bells and cannon fire began, the sounds of trumpets and timpani were heard. The king congratulated the population of the capital on the New Year, the festivities continued all night. Multi-colored rockets flew up from the courtyards into the dark winter sky, and “along the large streets, where there is space,” fires burned - bonfires and tar barrels attached to poles.
The houses of the inhabitants of the wooden capital were dressed up in needles “from trees and branches of pine, spruce and juniper”. For a whole week the houses stood decorated, and at nightfall the lights were lit. Shooting "from small cannons and from muskets or other small weapons", as well as launching "rockets" were entrusted to people "who do not count gold." And the “meager people” were offered “everyone, at least a tree or a branch on the gate or over his temple.” Since that time, the custom has been established in our country every year on January 1 to celebrate New Year's Day.
After 1918, there were more calendar reforms in the USSR. In the period from 1929 to 1940, calendar reforms were carried out in our country three times, caused by production needs. Thus, on August 26, 1929, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the transition to continuous production in enterprises and institutions of the USSR", in which it was recognized as necessary from the 1929-1930 financial year to begin a systematic and consistent transfer of enterprises and institutions to continuous production. In the autumn of 1929, a gradual transition to "continuous work" began, which ended in the spring of 1930 after the publication of a resolution by a special government commission under the Council of Labor and Defense. This resolution introduced a single production time sheet-calendar. The calendar year provided for 360 days, i.e. 72 five-day periods. It was decided to consider the remaining 5 days as holidays. Unlike the ancient Egyptian calendar, they were not located all together at the end of the year, but were timed to coincide with Soviet memorable days and revolutionary holidays: January 22, May 1 and 2, and November 7 and 8.
The employees of each enterprise and institution were divided into 5 groups, and each group was given a day of rest every five days for the whole year. This meant that after four days of work there was a day of rest. After the introduction of the "continuity" there was no need for a seven-day week, since days off could fall not only on different days of the month, but also on different days of the week.
However, this calendar did not last long. Already on November 21, 1931, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the Intermittent Production Week in Institutions", which allowed the people's commissariats and other institutions to switch to a six-day interrupted production week. For them, regular days off were set on the following dates of the month: 6, 12, 18, 24 and 30. At the end of February, the day off fell on the last day of the month or was postponed to March 1. In those months that contained but 31 days, the last day of the month was considered a full month and paid separately. The decree on the transition to a discontinuous six-day week came into force on December 1, 1931.
Both the five-day and six-day days completely broke the traditional seven-day week with a common day off on Sunday. The six-day week was used for about nine years. Only on June 26, 1940, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree "On the transition to an eight-hour working day, to a seven-day working week and on the prohibition of unauthorized departure of workers and employees from enterprises and institutions", In the development of this decree, on June 27, 1940, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted the resolution, in which he established that “beyond Sundays, non-working days are also:
January 22, May 1 and 2, November 7 and 8, December 5. The same decree abolished the six special days of rest and non-working days that existed in rural areas on March 12 (Day of the overthrow of the autocracy) and March 18 (Day of the Paris Commune).
On March 7, 1967, the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions adopted a resolution “On the transfer of workers and employees of enterprises, institutions and organizations to a five-day work week with two days off”, but this reform did not in any way concern the structure of the modern calendar.
But the most interesting thing is that the passions do not subside. The next round happens already in our new time. Sergey Baburin, Viktor Alksnis, Irina Savelyeva and Alexander Fomenko submitted a bill to the State Duma in 2007 - on the transition of Russia from January 1, 2008 to the Julian calendar. In the explanatory note, the deputies noted that "the world calendar does not exist" and proposed to establish a transitional period from December 31, 2007, when within 13 days the chronology will be carried out simultaneously according to two calendars at once. Only four deputies took part in the voting. Three are against, one is for. There were no abstentions. The rest of the elect ignored the vote.
JULIAN AND GRIGORIAN CALENDARSCalendar- the table of days, numbers, months, seasons, years familiar to all of us is the oldest invention of mankind. It fixes the periodicity of natural phenomena, based on the patterns of movement of celestial bodies: the Sun, Moon, stars. The earth rushes along its solar orbit, counting the years and centuries. In a day, it makes one revolution around its axis, and in a year - around the Sun. The astronomical or solar year lasts 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds. Therefore, there is no whole number of days, which is where the difficulty arises in compiling a calendar that should keep a correct count of time. Since the time of Adam and Eve, people have used the "circle" of the Sun and Moon to keep track of time. The lunar calendar used by the Romans and Greeks was simple and convenient. From one revival of the moon to the next, about 30 days pass, or rather, 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes. Therefore, according to the changes of the moon, it was possible to count the days, and then the months.
In the lunar calendar, at first there were 10 months, the first of which were dedicated to the Roman gods and supreme rulers. For example, the month of March was named after the god Mars (Martius), the month of May is dedicated to the goddess Maia, July is named after the Roman emperor Julius Caesar, and August is named after the emperor Octavian Augustus. In the ancient world, from the 3rd century BC, according to the flesh, a calendar was used, which was based on a four-year luni-solar cycle, which gave a discrepancy with the value of the solar year by 4 days in 4 years. In Egypt, a solar calendar was compiled from observations of Sirius and the Sun. The year in this calendar lasted 365 days, it had 12 months of 30 days each, and at the end of the year 5 more days were added in honor of the “birth of the gods”.
In 46 BC, the Roman dictator Julius Caesar introduced an exact solar calendar following the Egyptian model - Julian. The solar year was taken as the value of the calendar year, which was slightly more than the astronomical one - 365 days 6 hours. January 1 was legalized as the beginning of the year.
In 26 BC. e. Roman emperor Augustus introduced the Alexandrian calendar, in which 1 more day was added every 4 years: instead of 365 days - 366 days a year, that is, 6 extra hours annually. For 4 years, this amounted to a whole day, which was added every 4 years, and the year in which one day was added in February was called a leap year. In essence, this was a refinement of the same Julian calendar.
For the Orthodox Church, the calendar was the basis of the yearly cycle of worship, and therefore it was very important to establish the simultaneity of holidays throughout the Church. The question of the time of the celebration of Easter was discussed at the First Ecumenical. Cathedral *, as one of the main ones. Paschalia (the rules for calculating the day of Easter) established at the Council, together with its basis - the Julian calendar - cannot be changed under pain of anathema - excommunication and rejection from the Church.
In 1582, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Gregory XIII, introduced a new calendar style - Gregorian. The purpose of the reform was allegedly to more accurately determine the day of the celebration of Easter, so that the spring equinox would return by March 21. The Council of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1583 in Constantinople condemned the Gregorian calendar as violating the entire liturgical cycle and the canons of the Ecumenical Councils. It is important to note that the Gregorian calendar in some years violates one of the main church rules on the date of the celebration of Easter - it happens that the Catholic Easter falls earlier than the Jewish one, which is not allowed by the canons of the Church; also sometimes "disappears" Petrov post. At the same time, such a great learned astronomer as Copernicus (being a Catholic monk) did not consider the Gregorian calendar more accurate than the Julian, and did not recognize it. The new style was introduced by the authority of the Pope in place of the Julian calendar, or old style, and was gradually adopted in the Catholic countries. By the way, modern astronomers also use the Julian calendar in their calculations.
In Rus' Since the 10th century, the New Year has been celebrated on March 1, when, according to biblical tradition, God created the world. 5 centuries later, in 1492, in accordance with church tradition, the beginning of the year in Russia was moved to September 1, and they celebrated this way for more than 200 years. The months had purely Slavic names, the origin of which was associated with natural phenomena. Years were counted from the creation of the world.
December 19, 7208 ("from the creation of the world") Peter I signed a decree on the reform of the calendar. The calendar remained Julian, as before the reform, adopted by Russia from Byzantium along with baptism. A new beginning of the year was introduced - January 1 and the Christian chronology "from the Nativity of Christ." The decree of the king prescribed: “The day after December 31, 7208 from the creation of the world (the Orthodox Church considers the date of the creation of the world - September 1, 5508 BC) to be considered January 1, 1700 from the birth of Christ. The decree also ordered to celebrate this event with special solemnity: “And as a sign of that good undertaking and the new centenary century, in fun, congratulate each other on the New Year ... On the noble and passing streets at the gates and houses, make some decoration from pine trees and branches , spruce and juniper ... repair shooting from small cannons and guns, launch rockets, as many as anyone happens to, and light fires. The account of years from the Nativity of Christ is accepted by most states of the world. With the spread of atheism among the intelligentsia and historians, they began to avoid mentioning the name of Christ and replace the countdown of the centuries from His Nativity to the so-called "our era."
After the great October socialist revolution, the so-called new style (Gregorian) was introduced in our country on February 14, 1918.
The Gregorian calendar excluded three leap years within each 400th anniversary. Over time, the difference between the Gregorian and the Julian calendar increases. The initial value of 10 days in the 16th century subsequently increases: in the 18th century - 11 days, in the 19th century - 12 days, in the 20th and 21st centuries - 13 days, in the XXII - 14 days.
The Russian Orthodox Church, following the Ecumenical Councils, uses the Julian calendar, unlike the Catholics, who use the Gregorian.
At the same time, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar by the civil authorities led to some difficulties for Orthodox Christians. The New Year, which is celebrated by all civil society, has been moved to Advent, when it is inappropriate to have fun. In addition, according to the church calendar, January 1 (December 19, old style) commemorates the holy martyr Boniface, who patronizes people who want to get rid of alcohol abuse - and our entire vast country celebrates this day with glasses in their hands. Orthodox people celebrate the New Year "in the old way", on January 14th.
The Gregorian calendar was introduced Pope Gregory XIII in Catholic countries October 4, 1582 instead of the old Julian: the next day after Thursday, October 4, was Friday, October 15.
Reasons for switching to the Gregorian calendar
The reason for the adoption of the new calendar was the gradual shift in the Julian calendar of the day of the vernal equinox, according to which the date of Easter was determined, and the mismatch of the Easter full moons with astronomical ones. Julian calendar error at 11 min. 14 sec. in a year, which Sosigen neglected, by the 16th century led to the fact that the vernal equinox fell not on March 21, but on the 11th. The shift led to the correspondence of the same days of the year to other natural phenomena. Julian year in 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 46 seconds, as later scientists found out, was 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the present solar year. "Extra" days ran for 128 years. So, for a millennium and a half, humanity lagged behind the real astronomical time by as much as ten days! Reform of Pope Gregory XII I was intended to eliminate this error.
Before Gregory XIII, Popes Paul III and Pius IV tried to implement the project, but they did not achieve success. The preparation of the reform at the direction of Gregory XIII was carried out by the astronomers Christopher Clavius and Aloysius Lily.
The Gregorian calendar is much more accurate than the Julian calendar: it gives a much better approximation to the tropical year.
The new calendar immediately at the time of adoption shifted the current date by 10 days and corrected the accumulated errors.
In the new calendar, a new, more precise rule about a leap year began to operate. A leap year has 366 days if:
- year number is a multiple of 400 (1600, 2000, 2400);
- other years - the year number is a multiple of 4 and not a multiple of 100 (… 1892, 1896, 1904, 1908…).
The rules for calculating Christian Easter have been modified. Currently, the date of Christian Easter in each particular year is calculated according to the lunisolar calendar, which makes Easter a transitional holiday.
Switching to the Gregorian calendar
The transition to the new calendar was carried out gradually, in most European countries this happened during the 16th-17th centuries. And not everywhere this transition went smoothly. Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Commonwealth (Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland), France, Lorraine were the first to switch to the Gregorian calendar. In 1583, Gregory XIII sent an embassy to Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople with a proposal to switch to a new calendar, the proposal was rejected as not in accordance with the canonical rules for celebrating Easter. In some countries that switched to the Gregorian calendar, the Julian chronology was subsequently resumed as a result of their accession to other states. In connection with the transition of countries to the Gregorian calendar at different times, factual errors of perception may occur: for example, it is known that Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. In fact, these events took place with a difference of 10 days, since in Catholic Spain the new style was in effect from the very introduction of it by the pope, and Great Britain switched to the new calendar only in 1752. There were cases when the transition to the Gregorian calendar was accompanied by serious unrest.
In Russia, the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1918: in 1918, January 31 was followed by February 14. That is, in a number of countries, as in Russia, in 1900 there was a day on February 29, while in most countries it was not. In 1948, at the Moscow Conference of Orthodox Churches, it was decided that Easter, like all movable holidays, should be calculated according to the Alexandrian Paschalia (Julian calendar), and non-transitional ones according to the calendar according to which the Local Church lives. The Finnish Orthodox Church celebrates Easter according to the Gregorian calendar.
The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used chronological system today, named after the XII who insisted on its introduction in the Catholic world. Many mistakenly believe that it was Gregory who came up with this system, however, this is far from the case. According to one version, the main inspirer of this idea was the Italian doctor Aloysius, who theoretically substantiated the need to change the chronology that existed before that.
The problem of chronology at all times has been quite acute, because the development of historical science in the country, and even the worldview of ordinary citizens, largely depends on what is taken as a starting point and what a day, month and year are equal to.
There have been and still are many chronological systems: some take as a basis the movement of the moon around the Earth, others consider the creation of the world as a starting point, and still others consider the departure of Muhammad from Mecca. In many civilizations, each change of ruler led to a change in the calendar. At the same time, one of the main difficulties is that neither the Earth day nor the Earth year lasts for a round number of hours and days, the whole question is - what to do with the remaining balance?
One of the first most successful systems was the so-called so named after the reign of which it appeared. The main innovation was that one day was added to every fourth year. This year has become known as a leap year.
However, the introduction only temporarily smoothed the problem. On the one hand, the discrepancy between the calendar year and the tropical year continued to accumulate, although not as fast as before, and on the other hand, Easter day fell on different days of the week, although, according to most Catholics, Easter should always fall on Sunday .
In 1582, after numerous calculations and based on clear astronomical calculations, the transition to the Gregorian calendar took place in Western Europe. This year, in many European countries, immediately after October 4, the fifteenth came.
The Gregorian calendar largely repeats the main provisions of its predecessor: an ordinary year also consists of 365 days, and a leap year of 366, and the number of days only changes in February - 28 or 29. The main difference is that the Gregorian calendar excludes all years divisible by a hundred, except for those divisible by 400. In addition, if according to the Julian calendar, the New Year came on the first of September or the first of March, then in the new chronological system it was originally declared on December 1, and then shifted by another month.
In Russia, under the influence of the church, the new calendar was not recognized for a long time, believing that according to it the entire sequence of evangelical events was violated. The Gregorian calendar in Russia was introduced only at the beginning of 1918, after the fourteenth came immediately after the first of February.
Despite much greater accuracy, the Gregorian system is still imperfect. However, if in the Julian calendar an extra day was formed in 128 years, then in the Gregorian this would require 3200.
