Men's Days and February 23rd

Well, ladies, let us glue cardboard tanks and line up tin soldiers - today is Men's Day. It became established in Latvia since... Soviet times. For February 23rd was for many years celebrated as Defenders of the Fatherland Day. The soldier was held in high esteem, as in the past all men without exception were required to serve with no particular say in the matter. Now that compulsory service has been abolished and we have a professional army, a logical question arises: should Men's Day be connected at all with the concept of the army and defender of the homeland?

I looked into the world's experience of celebrating Men's Day. It turned out that men actually have 3 Men's Days, unlike us women, who have been allocated only March 8th, when there is hope of receiving a freshly bloomed bunch of tulips (which is also very pleasant). By the way, the tradition of celebrating March 8th has its origins in America - more precisely in New York - not in the Soviet Union, as some believe. But that is a subject for another time.

Defenders of the Fatherland Day

So, the first, already mentioned, Defenders of the Fatherland Day, which is widely marked on February 23rd in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and where the tradition is still alive in a number of post-Soviet states. It was first celebrated in 1922 in the former USSR as Red Army and Navy Day. This day is also positioned as a men's day.

International Men's Day

However, there is also International Men's Day, which is marked on November 19th. Its origins date to 1999, when this day began to be celebrated in Trinidad and Tobago, and later also in Australia, the Caribbean, North America, Asia, Europe and at the UN. The aim of International Men's Day is to draw attention to issues of gender equality, men's physical and mental health, as well as their important role in the family and in raising children.

 

The International Men's Day symbol & M. Gorbachev (one of the founders) by the World Men's Day symbol

World Men's Day

There is also a third concept and celebration - World Men's Day, which is celebrated on the first Saturday of each November. It originates mainly from Austria. The initiators of marking this day are Mikhail Gorbachev, the Vienna city administration and the UN (by the way, the UN office in Vienna is located in a very interesting spot on a river island, which an ordinary mortal can reach by metro - but that is a digression from personal experience), joined also by other international organisations.

Whether to celebrate Men's Day in winter or autumn is each person's free choice, depending on which values or traditions they identify with more. Personally, Men's Day for some reason brought to my mind an association with an H.C. Andersen fairy tale I remember from childhood - about the tin soldier and the paper ballerina. The tin soldier was strong, brave and manly, but with a tender tin heart in his chest; moreover, the ballerina was outwardly fragile and feminine, but with a firm "core." They were extraordinarily different from each other, yet neither could live without the other.

Happy celebrations! ;)