Victory Day is a holiday that commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. It was first inaugurated in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union following the signing of the German Instrument of Surrender late in the evening on 8 May 1945 (9 May Moscow Time). The Soviet government announced the victory early on 9 May after the signing ceremony in Berlin. Although the official inauguration occurred in 1945, the holiday became a non-labor day only in 1965, and only in certain Soviet republics.
The German Instrument of Surrender was signed twice. An initial document was signed in Reims on 7 May 1945 by Alfred Jodl (chief of staff of the German OKW) for Germany, Walter Bedell Smith, on behalf of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, and Ivan Susloparov, on behalf of the Soviet High Command, in the presence of French Major-General François Sevez as the official witness.
Since the Soviet High Command had not agreed to the text of the surrender, and because Susloparov, a relatively low-ranking officer, was not authorized to sign this document, the Soviet Union requested that a second, revised, instrument of surrender be signed in Berlin.
A second surrender ceremony was organized in a surviving manor in the outskirts of Berlin late on 8 May, when it was already 9 May in Moscow due to the difference in time zones.
During the Soviet Union’s existence, 9 May was celebrated throughout it and in the Eastern Bloc. Though the holiday was introduced in many Soviet republics between 1946 and 1950, it became a non-working day only in the Ukrainian SSR in 1963 and the Russian SFSR in 1965
The celebration of Victory Day continued during subsequent years. The war became a topic of great importance in cinema, literature, history lessons at school, the mass media, and the arts. The ritual of the celebration gradually obtained a distinctive character with a number of similar elements: ceremonial meetings, speeches, lectures, receptions and fireworks.
Victory Day in modern Russia has become a celebration in which popular culture plays a central role. The 60th and 70th anniversaries of Victory Day in Russia (2005 and 2015) became the largest popular holidays since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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My analysis; Neopagans have no systemic power. Orthodoxy has no material benefits nor does heterodoxy carry any costs. Most of the big religious conflicts in Christianity were tied up in contemporary political and economic struggles. Likewise Islamic orthodoxy was as much a means of maintaining centralized political orthodoxy as anything else and the largest division - Sunni/Shia, was the result of dynastic politics and a small civil war.
If we ever get to a point where there’s money and power riding on it orthodoxy will become important in neo-pagan movements. Only one person gets to be Pontifex Maximus, after all.
Thats definitely a part of it, but I also think the structure of polytheism makes it less rigid than monotheism when it comes to accepting other faiths. This also makes it less useful for statecraft, which is a big part of why Christianity was able to supplant the original Pagan cults in the Roman empire. Neo-Pagan religions are of course individually structured differently than the ancient counterparts theyre based on (because its been over a millenia since any of them saw widespread practice), but they still start with the same basic theological position that multiple gods can exist.
it is not necessary to assume polytheism presupposes the existence of alien gods that must be tolerated; it’s something that happened, but polytheists also violently suppressed other religions.
Im simply saying that polytheism structurally lends itself more easily toward tolarance/indifference toward the idea of other gods than monotheism. When you believe there are numerous gods its easier to accept that a different religion’s gods are also real or different interpretations of the same gods. Thats just not possible with monotheism because if only one god exists then all the rest have to be false.
Certainly there are individual polytheists and polytheistic religions that are intolerant toward outside faiths, I dont deny that. Hinduism comes to mind as a polytheist faith that still has political dominance and so is more inclined toward intolerance toward outside competition (though Hinduism doesnt really count as “Pagan”, so its less relevant to the point of my first post).
it’s just as complicated from the monotheist side, i don’t really like the sorting of religion that divides between mono-poly as essential groupings with specific shared characteristics. a monotheist can take the tack that other beliefs are different interpretations of their One God, a monotheist can have a doctrinal obligation to tolerance. in the former case it’s very much like some hellenistic polytheists viewed the world, not through an idea of credible separate gods, simply different names and divergent rituals for their own gods.
I mean, if you can be a monotheist and believe in other gods then you stop being a monotheist. Kinda makes the distinction between the two meaningless.
i mean yeah, kinda what im saying, it’s pretty difficult to draw a line between polytheism with hierarchy of divinities and monotheism with hierarchies of divinities (think saints, imams, angels, etc.)
so we can’t very well reliably ascribe attributes to either group.