Re: [vox] [OT] russian holiday

[Nicole Carlson <nmcMAPSarlson@ucdavis.edu>]

On Thu, 9 May 2002, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> * russia celebrates victory over germany in WWII MUCH more than we do.
>   we pretty much don't celebrate it.  rather, we half-heartedly make
>   v-day a holiday.  over there, it's a huge national celebration, to
>   this day.

I think it's a Europe thing rather than a Russian thing per se.  In France
(my only personal basis for comparison), the liberation of Paris (late
August, the 26 I think [1]) and France are still celebrated.  Armistice
Day is still a pretty big deal.   Belgium and the Netherlands also make a
big deal--parades, celebrations--out of WW2 commemorative holidays, if
memory serves, though I can't offhand remember the dates.

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's more important to Europeans [2] than
to Americans because it was largely fought on their soil.

--nicole twn

[1] One of the very rare occassions that the bells of Notre-Dame are rung
[2] And Russians, but here I'm counting them as Europeans because most of
them live west of the Urals
***
"The street that you live on is brushstrokes on canvas; you'd see it if you
turned around."--Peter Mulvey
Visit Nicolopolis! http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~carlsonn
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