March 8, what a feast this?

March 8. Every year, we celebrate the holiday on March 8 and give our loved ones, and not only women, care, warmth, affection (as if for this we need to have a certain day and on other days it is not necessary, well, okay) and flowers. And someone is a yacht or an iPhone of the latest model, but it's more like an exception to the rules, and the reality is much more prosaic. And, as often happens, a holiday is celebrated, and that it means no one is aware of. So I decided to write a little about this. So take your tea, sit back in your favorite chair and start reading, in order to trumpet March 8 with his erudition!

Versions of the appearance of March 8, as a holiday, a few and in short I will paint them.

The first version. It's official.

In the distant 1857 in New York, there was a "march of empty pans" - a rally held by textile workers, and they protested against low wages and the same low working conditions. By the way, in the local press of those times did not write about this rally (nothing like?). It is interesting that the strike took place on Sunday, which makes it clear how ineffective was the existence of a woman in those years (a strike on Sunday is the same as going out for a walk, that is, you will not achieve anything serious by holding an event on the weekend).

Further, in 1910, the German Communist Clara Zetkin at the Women's Forum in Copenhagen calls for the establishment of an International Women's Day around the world on March 8, on which women all over the world could set aside all their affairs and march through squares with marches, posters, and the like #how you like this, paying attention to the problems of women in society, and they were enough in those days. Initially, the holiday on March 8 was called as the International Day of Women's Solidarity in the struggle for their rights. This date - March 8 was timed, just in time for that Sunday strike of "empty pots", about which I wrote above.

In the Unions, this holiday was brought by Tsetkin's friend Alexandra Kolontai and officially began to celebrate this holiday since 1921.

Version number two. The Jewish.

According to the second version, Clara Zetkin wanted to associate the holiday of all women with the Jewish holiday of Purim. What kind of holiday?

Purim (Hebrew פּוּרִים, plural from Akkadian Puru - "lot") is a Jewish holiday, established according to the biblical Book of Esther (Hebrew אסתר - Ester) in memory of the salvation of Jews who lived in the territory of the Persian Empire from the extermination of them by Aman-Amalekite, a favorite of the king Artaxerxes (Hebrew אחשורוש - Ahasverosh). If in short, then according to legend Xerxes is the one who was the Persian king, was Esther's beloved, who persuaded him not to kill the nerves, but on the contrary to destroy all the enemies of the Jewish people, for which the latter then began to praise Esther and honor her. The day that Esther acted on Xerxes with her charms and persuaded her to kill the Jews fell on 13 Arda in the Jewish calendar (late February-early March in our way). And after these events, the Jews began celebrating the feast of Purim, Esther, and thanks to her for her salvation. In 1910, this holiday fell just on March 8.

Version number three. About women with low social responsibility.

Perhaps the most ambiguous version. What is the essence? Let's go back to the first version and remember the protest of women from New York. And according to this version, those women were not textile workers at all, but you yourself understand who, based on the name of this version. They protested these misses for the command to issue salaries to the sailors who had nothing to pay for the services they received from these representatives of the ancient profession. Trash, is not it? Hence the silence of the media.

Nevertheless, already in Paris in 1894, on the same day on March 8, women from the same service area again held a demonstration, but with already more trivial demands, such as the creation of trade unions (lol), the recognition of their rights on an equal footing with those women, which, for example, baked bread or sewed clothes. The same thing happened in 1895 in Chicago, and then a year later in New York. And already in 1910 at the congress of the suffragists (shortly, women, fighting for the right to vote in elections) it was decided to declare March 8 an international women's day, at the suggestion of Zetkin.

By the way, Clara Zetkin together with her friend Rosa Luxemburg, too, carried out similar actions in German cities, taking prostitutes to the streets, protesting against police arbitrariness towards them. In the councils, of course, everyone corrected, retouched and gave out that these protests were organized by "working" women. Of course, the working people, just in the sweat of their faces ... So, I'm distracted. Moving on ...

Let's consider, why did they release this holiday on March 8?

In our world everything is politicized, and those years do not differ from ours. Do not get me wrong, I'm not against this holiday, just its roots are slightly, as they say, "with the soul". In those years the ball was ruled by the Social Democrats and they tried to connect all these movements with them, they say, we are for progressive women, equal rights and all that! No one looked at the facts from history, as now, doing everything clumsily. Besides, there are few people who like to dig in history, and I hardly know about all the nuances of this holiday ... As for the USSR, Stalin also did not want to lag behind the progress and introduced a new holiday dedicated to Women in the Soviets. And of course, correcting some, ah, inappropriate details of the history of that "day of empty pots."

Summing up, I would like to say that all these are only versions, we should not take them literally, we will never know how everything was in reality without personally visiting them, which at this stage of technology development is not possible. Therefore, be sure to congratulate all your close women on March 8, regardless of the moments of history and of course do not forget to give warmth, affection and love to your relatives, regardless of the day in the year!

That's all. All women with the coming. Mentally embraced.

pic.