The old and new style of the calendar in our time have a difference of 13 days. This difference occurred in 1582, when civilized Europeans, at the insistence of the Pope, changed the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
In general, the whole story with calendars and chronology stretches back to hoary antiquity. The peasants who farmed were very dependent on the time of year. So they were the first to begin trying to systematize and organize time.
The great Mayan civilization achieved great values in the accuracy of calendar calculations. They accurately determined the days of the summer and winter solstices and could calculate the time several thousand years in advance. But we did not accept their achievements, but adopted the Roman (Julian) calendar.
When Rome was the center of civilization and enlightenment, during the reign of Julius Caesar, when the state was at the peak of its development, the Roman Senate decided to replace the old Greek calendar, which had only ten months, with the Julian calendar, which Caesar, on the advice of Egyptian astrologers, adopted for the most convenient option. The fact is that the priests were engaged in chronology in Rome.
The beginning of the year was considered the month of March, named after Mars (the Greek god of fertility). And every four years an additional month of mercedonia was added. Firstly, no one knew when the end of Mercedonia would come, and secondly, the payment of taxes and the return of debts was too delayed due to the additional month.
There is information that the priests received substantial gifts and rewards for postponing the end of the year. It is precisely because of the instability of the replenishment of the state budget (treasury) that radical changes have occurred.
When was the Julian calendar introduced in Russia?
This event happened in 1918. This year there were simply no dates: 1, 2, 3, etc. until February 13th. It was January 31st, and the next day was February 14th.
This was done to get closer to Europe. The party leadership hoped for worldwide communism and tried to merge as closely as possible with the West.
What is today's date according to the old style?
With each century, the gap between the Gregorian and Julian calendars grows, unless the number of the previous century is divisible by 4 with the whole result.
For example, from 1700 to 1800, to determine the date of an event according to the new style, 11 days should be added, from 1800 to 1900 - 12 days, and from 1900 to 2100 - 13. After 2100, the gap will increase by another day and will be 14 days.
Difference between Julian and Gregorian calendars
There is no particular difference in these time measurement systems, but Orthodox Christians completely abandoned the use of the Gregorian calendar to determine the dates of holidays.
In 1923, the Soviet government put strong pressure on His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, but was never able to obtain consent from the Church to use the Gregorian calendar (new style).
How to easily convert dates from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar
To do this, you need to know the date of the event. If the date is earlier than 1700, then you need to add 10 days, if from 1700 to 1800 - 11, from 1800 to 1900 - 12, and from 1900 to 2100 - 13 days. But it is worth noting that in Russia, due to the transition to a new style of chronology, there were no numbers at all from 02/1/1918 to 02/13/1918.
They changed the old calendar style to a new one after the revolution. The decree on the introduction of a new calendar system was proposed at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars and approved personally by V. Lenin.
Examples of translation to a new style of calculus
For example, let's look at Taras Shevchenko's birthday. Everyone knows that he was born on February 25, 1814 according to the old style. This year was not a leap year and had 28 days in February. We add 12 days to this date and get March 9 according to the new style (Gregorian).
Errors with converting dates to the new style
When translating events of bygone days into a new style, a colossal number of mistakes are made. People didn't think about the growing difference between the Gregorian and Julian calendars.
Now such errors can be seen in very authoritative sources - Wikipedia is no exception. But now you know how you can easily and quickly calculate the date of an event, knowing only its old style date.
The corresponding decree of the Council of People's Commissars V. Lenin signed on January 26. According to this document, after January 31, 1918, it was not February 1, but the 14th. And soon the Bolsheviks carried out a revision of holiday dates.
Decree on the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic Photo: Public Domain
Almost immediately, the Soviet government eliminated the so-called royal days from the calendar, which were related to events in life at home. Romanovs, and established their own holidays instead. By the end of 1918, non-working days began to be considered January 1 - New Year's Day, January 22 - the day of remembrance of the events of Bloody Sunday (the shooting of a workers' demonstration on January 9, 1905 according to the old style), March 12 - the overthrow of the autocracy, March 18 - Paris Commune Day, 1 May - International Day and November 7 - Proletarian Revolution Day.
The calendars of the first years of Soviet power today look amazing: they peacefully coexist proletarian and church holidays (Easter, Ascension, Trinity, Spiritual Day, Transfiguration, Christmas). The latter were called “special days of rest,” although they were not paid like other holidays. The new authorities did not dare to abruptly break centuries-old traditions, because most of the population of young Soviet Russia were believers. In addition, many Orthodox Christians had nothing against the new regime. They often took part in demonstrations on the occasion of Bolshevik holidays and even carried banners with anti-religious slogans in their hands, wearing a pectoral cross under their shirts.
For example, the Soviet calendar for 1929. On the issue of the day of Christmas celebration and the first day of the week pic.twitter.com/UtltgYmlmk
— Slava (@slavkous) December 27, 2015
Pay off green, pink, yellow!
In 1929, the Bolsheviks launched a new offensive against the “remnants of the past” and came up with a special Soviet calendar. He envisioned a 5-day week, destroying the 7-day Christian weekly cycle - Sundays turned into working days. The reform was preceded by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars on the transition to continuous production.
A unified timesheet calendar was put into effect at the beginning of 1930: 360 days, which were divided into 72 five-day periods, the remaining 5 days were made holidays. All workers in the USSR were divided into 5 groups, each with their own color (green, red, purple, pink, yellow). Each group had its own day off during the five-day period. The reform turned out to be very unpopular - due to conflicting weekends, it greatly complicated the personal lives of citizens. By the end of the 1930s, the USSR abandoned a total redrawing of the calendar.
There were other ideas that did not take root. The Union of Militant Atheists, for example, proposed renaming all months of the year. Months Lenin, Marx, Sverdlova, Engels, Stalin were supposed to replace January, February, April, October and December. March was planned to be called the month of revolution, and November - the Great Revolution. May was lucky, they decided to keep his old name, but June could turn into the month of the Soviet Constitution. July, August and September were destined to be the names of the months of harvest, peace and the Comintern.
New, same as old
Not all of the holidays introduced by the Bolsheviks took root. For example, the Day of the Paris Commune (March 18), which was initially non-working, “died” already in 1929. Apparently, Stalin, who had strengthened by that time, unlike Lenin, did not value the merits of the Paris Communards so much. The Day of Remembrance of Lenin himself (January 22), combined with the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, was no longer celebrated in 1951 (Ilyich’s merits began to be remembered on his birthday, April 22 in the new style, coinciding with this day the All-Union Communist Cleanup Day). And by the beginning of the 1930s, all church celebrations were abolished at the official level. As a result, of the pre-revolutionary holidays that passed into the Soviet calendar, only New Year and Christmas have survived to this day.
An interesting thing happened with the New Year celebration. During the First World War it was called “an enemy, German idea, alien to the Orthodox Russian people.” After the revolution, the New Year and Christmas trees (these trees, however, used to be decorated more for Christmas than for the New Year) were not prohibited at first, and Lenin himself loved them. However, already in 1927, as part of an anti-religious campaign under the slogan “Only those who are a friend of the priests are ready to celebrate the Christmas tree!” fought with the New Year and Christmas trees. It’s hard to believe today, but from 1930 to 1947, all Soviet people worked as if nothing had happened on the first day of the New Year.
Christmas in Soviet Russia was considered a “special day of rest” from 1919 to 1929, and until 1923, due to the transition to the Gregorian calendar, it was celebrated on January 7-8, and then moved to December 25-26. But since 1930, this holiday was banned in the USSR. Orthodox Christmas again became a red day of the calendar in our country only in 1991.
By introducing the Gregorian calendar, the Soviet government gave the people another unexpected holiday - the old New Year. It is called so because the change of years according to the old Julian calendar occurs at 0.00 on January 14 according to the new style. Many foreigners are surprised by this holiday and consider it a purely Russian invention, although in fact it is celebrated not only in the former republics of the USSR, but also in some other countries, even in Switzerland.
On January 24 (February 6), 1918, the Council of People's Commissars, “in order to establish in Russia the same calculation of time with almost all cultural peoples,” adopted a decree “On the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic.”
In pre-revolutionary Russia, chronology was carried out on the basis of the Julian calendar, adopted under Julius Caesar in 45 BC. e. and was in effect in all Christian countries until October 1582, when the transition to the Gregorian calendar began in Europe. The latter turned out to be more attractive from an astronomical point of view, since its discrepancy with the tropical year of one day accumulates not over 128 years, as in the Julian, but over 3200 years.
The issue of introducing the Gregorian calendar in Russia has been discussed several times, starting in the 30s of the 19th century. Since the Julian calendar is based on the Easter circle, and the Gregorian calendar is tied to the astronomical day of the vernal equinox, domestic experts each time preferred the first, as the most consistent with the interests of the Christian state. But in official documents related to international activities, as well as in some periodicals, it was customary to indicate the date according to two traditions at once.
After the October Revolution, the Soviet government took a number of measures aimed at separating church and state and secularizing the life of society. Therefore, when deciding on the transition to a new calendar system, the interests of the church were no longer taken into account; state expediency came to the fore.
Since by the time the decree was adopted the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars was 13 days, it was decided that after January 31, 1918, not February 1, but February 14, should be counted.
Until July 1, 1918, the decree prescribed that after the number in the new (Gregorian) style, the number in the old (Julian) style should be indicated in brackets. Subsequently, this practice was preserved, but they began to place the date in brackets according to the new style.
When recalculating dates from the old to the new style, 10 days are added to the number according to the old style if the event occurred in the period from October 5, 1582 to February 29, 1700, 11 days for the period from March 1, 1700 to February 29, 1800 , 12 days for the period from March 1, 1800 to February 29, 1900, 13 days for the period from March 1, 1900 to February 29, 2100, etc.
According to established tradition, events that occurred before the advent of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 are usually dated according to the Julian calendar, although they can also be recalculated taking into account the increasing difference over the centuries.
Lit.: Decree on introductionWestern Europeancalendar // Decrees of Soviet power. T. 1. M., 1957; The same [Electronic resource]. URL: http://www.hist.msu.ru/ER/Etext/DEKRET/18-01-24.htm; Klimishin I. A. Notes about our calendar [Electronic resource] // Electronic library Bookscafe.Net. 2015-2016 . URL:
Different ways of calculating the calendar. A new style of time calculation 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 reckoning with almost all cultural peoples”. Indeed, since 1582, when throughout Europe the Julian calendar, in accordance with the recommendations of astronomers, was replaced by the Gregorian, the Russian calendar turned out to differ 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 Russian Orthodox clergy had no authority or decree from the Catholic Pope, and they rejected the innovation. So they lived for more than 300 years: in Europe it’s New Year, in Russia it’s still December 19th.
The 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 14th (in parentheses, we note that according to many years of 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 in mid-March or its first days according to the old style).
Not everyone liked the new style
However, not only Russia resisted the establishment of the Catholic count of days; in Greece, the “New Style” was legalized in 1924, Turkey - 1926, Egypt - 1928. At the same time, it is not heard that the Greeks or Egyptians celebrated, as in Russia, two holidays: New Year and Old New Year, that is, New Year according to the old style.
It is interesting that the introduction of the Gregorian calendar was accepted without enthusiasm in those European countries where the leading religion was Protestantism. 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 on January 1st. The year had 365 days. A year number divisible by 4 was considered 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 first has a leap year every fourth year without exception, while the second has leap years only those years that are divisible by four, but not divisible by 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.
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, became 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 vernal equinox, by which the date of Easter was determined, and the discrepancy between the Easter full moons and the astronomical ones. Julian calendar error at 11 min. 14 sec. per year, which Sosigenes neglected, by the 16th century led to the fact that the vernal equinox fell not on March 21, but on the 11th. The displacement led to the correspondence of the same days of the year with other natural phenomena. Year according to the Julian calendar in 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 46 seconds, as later scientists found out, was longer than the real solar year by 11 minutes 14 seconds. The “extra” days accumulated in 128 years. Thus, for one and a half millennia, humanity has lagged behind real astronomical time by as much as ten days! Reform of Pope Gregory XII I was precisely 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 Lilius.
The Gregorian calendar is much more accurate than the Julian calendar: it gives a much better approximation of the tropical year.
The new calendar, immediately upon adoption, shifted the current date by 10 days and corrected accumulated errors.
The new calendar introduced a new, more precise rule about leap years. A year is a leap year, that is, it contains 366 days if:
- the 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 specific year is calculated according to the lunisolar calendar, which makes Easter a moving holiday.
Transition to the Gregorian calendar
The transition to the new calendar was carried out gradually; in most European countries this happened during the 16th and 17th centuries. And this transition did not go smoothly everywhere. The first countries to switch to the Gregorian calendar were Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland), France, and Lorraine. 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 complying with the canonical rules for celebrating Easter. In some countries that switched to the Gregorian calendar, the Julian calendar was subsequently resumed as a result of their annexation with other states. Due to the transition of countries to the Gregorian calendar at different times, factual errors of perception may arise: for example, it is known that Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. In fact, these events occurred 10 days apart, 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, like in Russia, there was a day on February 29 in 1900, while in most countries it was not. In 1948, at the Moscow Conference of Orthodox Churches, it was decided that Easter, like all moving holidays, should be calculated according to the Alexandrian Paschal (Julian calendar), and non-moving ones according to the calendar according to which the Local Church lives. The Finnish Orthodox Church celebrates Easter according to the Gregorian calendar.