Unity Day (also called Day of People’s Unity or National Unity Day; Russian: День народного единства, Denʹ narodnava yedinstva) is a national holiday in Russia held on November 4 (October 22, Old Style). It commemorates the popular uprising which expelled Polish–Lithuanian occupation forces from Moscow in November 1612, and more generally the end of the Time of Troubles and turning point of the Polish-Muscovite War (1605–1618).
The day's name alludes to the idea that all classes of Russian society united to preserve Russian statehood when there was neither a tsar nor a patriarch to guide them. In 1613 tsar Mikhail Romanov instituted a holiday named Day of Moscow’s Liberation from Polish Invaders.[1] It was celebrated in the Russian Empire until 1917, when it was replaced with a commemoration of the Russian Revolution. Unity Day was reinstituted by the Russian Federation in 2005, when the events of the year 1612 have been celebrated instead of those of 1917 every November 4 since. The day is also the feast day of the Russian Orthodox icon of Our Lady of Kazan.
