Victory Day
Victory Day commemorates the victory over Nazi Germany and its European allies by the Soviet Union in 1945.[1] In Russia, Victory Day remains the largest national holiday celebrated since German forces surrendered on May 9, shortly after midnight (12:43 midnight Moscow time or 10:43 PM Berlin time). Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the surrender document to the Russian forces in the German capital of Berlin.
At the Teheran Conference, the Angelo-American Powers agreed with the Soviet Union not to accept a separate peace. Upon the death of Hitler and Goebbels, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz was appointed Chancellor (the short-lived Flensburg government). Dönitz immediately attempted to negotiate a separate peace with the Angelo-American forces. Dönitz authorized General Alfred Jodl to sign an unconditional surrender with the Angelo-American forces before midnight on May 8 in Reims, France.[2] During the Cold War, V-E Day or Victory in Europe day was marked as May 8 in the West. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower however, Commander of Allied Forces in France, recognized the May 9 Berlin surrender as the authentic surrender date and document.
May 9 became a non-working holiday in the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic in 1963, where most of World War II fighting in Europe was fought, and only two years later in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in 1965. May 9 was recognized as a national holiday by the Russian Federation in 1991 when it ascended as the predecessor state to the Soviet Union.[3] In 2010 American, British, Polish, and Ukrainian armed services were invited and participated in the Victory March on Red Square.[4]
The march of the Immortal Regiment, in which nearly 1 million people participate in Moscow and in cities all over Europe and the world, has been raised to a religious-like ceremony. Marchers carry portraits of family members who fought and died in the Great Patriotic War. The status of those family members is raised almost to sainthood in the Russian Orthodox Church which extensively uses icons. Since 2022, participants in some of these marches have also begun carrying portraits of Russian soldiers who died in the NATO war in Ukraine—portraying them as the successors of their grandfathers who fought the Nazis.[5]
References
- ↑ Victory Day In Russia - Why 9 May Is So Important For Russians?
- ↑ See also Operation Unthinkable.
- ↑ May 1 also known as May Day or International Workers' Day, was previously marked as a global celebration of labor and workers’ rights with large parades in Red Square (in the United States, Labor Day is celebrated in early September to avoid association with the International Communist movement). After the desecularization of Russia in 1991, the large parades were officially moved to May 9. Just as Christmas and New Year's are commonly referred to as the Winter Holidays is Slavic culture, Easter, Pentecost & Victory Day are now known as the Spring Holidays.
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBlXGb0bjdM
- ↑ In Ukraine, Ultra-Nationalists Are the ‘Good Guys’, by Natylie Baldwin, Consortium News, April 20, 2025.
