Since by this time the difference between the old and new styles was 13 days, the decree ordered that after January 31, 1918, not February 1, but February 14 be counted. By the same decree, until July 1, 1918, after the number of each day according to the new style, in brackets, write the number according to the old style: February 14 (1), February 15 (2), etc.
From the history of chronology in Russia.
The ancient Slavs, like many other peoples, initially based their calendar on a period of change lunar phases. But already by the time of the adoption of Christianity, that is, by the end of the tenth century. n. e., Ancient Russia used the lunisolar calendar.
Calendar of the ancient Slavs. It was not finally possible to establish what the calendar of the ancient Slavs was. It is only known that initially time was counted according to the seasons. Probably, at the same time, a 12-month moon calendar. In more later times the Slavs switched to the lunisolar calendar, in which an additional 13th month was inserted seven times every 19 years.
The oldest monuments of Russian writing show that the months had purely Slavic names, the origin of which was closely connected with natural phenomena. At the same time, the same months, depending on the climate of those places in which different tribes lived, received different names. So, January was called where the cross section (the time of deforestation), where it was blue (after the winter cloudiness, a blue sky appeared), where it was jelly (because it became cold, cold), etc .; February - cut, snow or fierce (severe frosts); March - berezosol (there are several interpretations here: birch begins to bloom; they took birch sap; burned birch for coal), dry (the poorest in precipitation in ancient Kievan Rus, in some places the earth was already drying up, sap (a reminder of birch sap); April - pollen (flowering gardens), birch (beginning of birch flowering), oak, plum tree, etc .; May - grass (grass turns green), summer, pollen; June - worm (cherries turn red), isok (grasshoppers are chirping - “isoki”), milky; July - Lipets (linden blossom), worm (in the north, where phenological phenomena are late), sickle (from the word "sickle", indicating harvest time); august - sickle, stubble, glow (from the verb "roar" - the roar of deer, or from the word "glow" - cold dawns, and possibly from "pazors" - polar lights); september - veresen (heather bloom); rouen (from Slavic root a word meaning tree, giving yellow paint); october - leaf fall, "pazdernik" or "kastrychnik" (pazders - hemp bonfires, the name for the south of Russia); November - breast (from the word "pile" - a frozen rut on the road), leaf fall (in the south of Russia); December - jelly, breast, blueberry.
The year began on March 1, and from about that time they started agricultural work.
Many of the ancient names of the months later moved to the series Slavic languages and largely held out in some modern languages, in particular in Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish.
At the end of the tenth century Ancient Russia adopted Christianity. At the same time, the chronology used by the Romans passed to us - the Julian calendar (based on the solar year), with the Roman names of the months and the seven-day week. The account of years in it was conducted from the "creation of the world", which allegedly occurred 5508 years before our reckoning. This date - one of the many options for eras from the "creation of the world" - was adopted in the 7th century. in Greece and has long been used by the Orthodox Church.
For many centuries, March 1 was considered the beginning of the year, but in 1492, in accordance with church tradition, the beginning of the year was officially moved to September 1 and was celebrated this way for more than two hundred years. However, a few months after September 1, 7208, Muscovites celebrated their next New Year, they had to repeat the celebration. This happened because on December 19, 7208, a personal decree of Peter I on the reform of the calendar in Russia was signed and promulgated, according to which a new beginning of the year was introduced - from January 1 and new era- Christian chronology (from "the birth of Christ").
Petrovsky's decree was called: "On writing henceforth Genvar from the 1st of 1700 in all papers of the summer from the Nativity of Christ, and not from the creation of the world." Therefore, the decree ordered the day after December 31, 7208 from the "creation of the world" to be considered January 1, 1700 from the "Christmas". In order for the reform to be adopted without complications, the decree ended with a prudent clause: “And if anyone wants to write both those years, from the creation of the world and from the Nativity of Christ, in a row freely.”
Meeting of the first civil New Year in Moscow. The day after the announcement on Red Square in Moscow of the decree of Peter I on the reform of the calendar, i.e. December 20, 7208, a new decree of the tsar was announced - "On the celebration of the New Year." Considering that January 1, 1700 is not only the beginning of a new year, but also the beginning of a new century (Here a significant mistake was made in the decree: 1700 is last year XVII century, and not the first year of the XVIII century. New century came on January 1, 1701. A mistake that is sometimes repeated even today.), the decree prescribed to celebrate this event with particular solemnity. It gave detailed instructions on how to organize a holiday in Moscow. On New Year's Eve, Peter I himself lit the first rocket on Red Square, thus signaling the opening of the holiday. The streets were illuminated with illumination. started bell ringing and cannon fire, the sounds of trumpets and timpani rang out. The king congratulated the population of the capital on the New Year, the festivities continued all night. Multi-colored rockets flew up from the courtyards into the dark winter sky, and “along the large streets, where there is space,” fires burned - bonfires and tar barrels attached to poles.
The houses of the inhabitants of the wooden capital were dressed up in needles “from trees and branches of pine, spruce and juniper”. For a whole week the houses stood decorated, and at nightfall the lights were lit. Shooting "from small cannons and from muskets or other small weapons", as well as launching "rockets" were entrusted to people "who do not count gold." And the “meager people” were offered “everyone, at least a tree or a branch on the gate or over his temple.” Since that time, the custom has been established in our country every year on January 1 to celebrate New Year's Day.
After 1918, there were more calendar reforms in the USSR. In the period from 1929 to 1940, calendar reforms were carried out in our country three times, caused by production needs. So, on August 26, 1929, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the transition to continuous production in enterprises and institutions of the USSR", in which it was recognized as necessary from the 1929-1930 financial year to begin a systematic and consistent transfer of enterprises and institutions to continuous production. In the autumn of 1929, a gradual transition to "continuous work" began, which ended in the spring of 1930 after the publication of a resolution by a special government commission under the Council of Labor and Defense. This resolution introduced a single production time sheet-calendar. The calendar year provided for 360 days, i.e. 72 five-day periods. It was decided to consider the remaining 5 days as holidays. Unlike the ancient Egyptian calendar, they were not located all together at the end of the year, but were timed to coincide with Soviet memorable days and revolutionary holidays: January 22, May 1 and 2, and November 7 and 8.
The employees of each enterprise and institution were divided into 5 groups, and each group was given a day of rest every five days for the whole year. This meant that after four days of work there was a day of rest. After the introduction of the "continuity" there was no need for a seven-day week, since days off could fall not only on various numbers months, but also on different days of the week.
However, this calendar did not last long. Already on November 21, 1931, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the Intermittent Production Week in Institutions", which allowed the people's commissariats and other institutions to switch to a six-day interrupted production week. They were given regular days off next numbers months: 6, 12, 18, 24 and 30. At the end of February, the day off fell on the last day of the month or was postponed to March 1. In those months that contained but 31 days, the last day of the month was considered a full month and paid separately. The decree on the transition to a discontinuous six-day week came into force on December 1, 1931.
Both the five-day and six-day days completely broke the traditional seven-day week with a common day off on Sunday. The six-day week was used for about nine years. June 26, 1940 only Presidium Supreme Council The USSR issued a decree "On the transition to an eight-hour working day, to a seven-day working week and on the prohibition of unauthorized departure of workers and employees from enterprises and institutions", In the development of this decree, on June 27, 1940, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution in which it established that "in excess of Sundays non-working days are also:
January 22, May 1 and 2, November 7 and 8, December 5. The same decree abolished the six special days rest and non-working days on March 12 (Day of the overthrow of the autocracy) and March 18 (Day of the Paris Commune).
On March 7, 1967, the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions adopted a resolution "On the transfer of workers and employees of enterprises, institutions and organizations to a five-day work week with two days off", but this reform did not in any way affect the structure of the modern calendar.
But the most interesting thing is that the passions do not subside. The next round happens already in our new time. Sergey Baburin, Victor Alksnis, Irina Savelyeva and Alexander Fomenko contributed in 2007 to State Duma bill - on the transition of Russia from January 1, 2008 to the chronology according to julian calendar. In the explanatory note, the deputies noted that "the world calendar does not exist" and proposed to establish a transitional period from December 31, 2007, when within 13 days the chronology will be carried out simultaneously according to two calendars at once. Only four deputies took part in the voting. Three are against, one is for. There were no abstentions. The rest of the elect ignored the vote.
For all of us, the calendar is a familiar and even ordinary thing. This ancient human invention fixes days, numbers, months, seasons, periodicity of natural phenomena, which are based on the system of movement of celestial bodies: the Moon, the Sun, the stars. The Earth sweeps through the solar orbit, leaving years and centuries behind.
Moon calendar
In one day, the Earth makes one complete rotation around its own axis. It goes around the sun once a year. Solar or lasts three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, forty-eight minutes, and forty-six seconds. Therefore, there is no integer number of days. Hence the difficulty in drawing up an accurate calendar for the correct timing.
The ancient Romans and Greeks used a convenient and simple calendar. The rebirth of the moon occurs at intervals of 30 days, and to be precise, in twenty-nine days, twelve hours and 44 minutes. That is why the days, and then the months, could be counted according to the changes of the moon.
In the beginning, this calendar had ten months, which were named after the Roman gods. From the third century to ancient world an analog based on a four-year lunisolar cycle was used, which gave an error in the value of the solar year in one day.
In Egypt, they used a solar calendar based on observations of the Sun and Sirius. The year according to it was three hundred and sixty-five days. It consisted of twelve months of thirty days. After its expiration, five more days were added. This was formulated as "in honor of the birth of the gods."
History of the Julian calendar
Further changes took place in 46 BC. e. Emperor ancient rome Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar following the Egyptian model. In it, the solar year was taken as the value of the year, which was slightly longer than the astronomical one and was three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours. The first of January was the beginning of the year. Christmas according to the Julian calendar began to be celebrated on the seventh of January. So there was a transition to a new chronology.
In gratitude for the reform, the Senate of Rome renamed the month Quintilis, when Caesar was born, into Julius (now it is July). A year later, the emperor was killed, and the Roman priests, either out of ignorance or deliberately, again began to confuse the calendar and began to declare every third year a leap year. As a result, from the forty-fourth to the ninth year BC. e. instead of nine, twelve leap years were declared.
The Emperor Octivian August saved the situation. By his order, there were no leap years for the next sixteen years, and the rhythm of the calendar was restored. In his honor, the month of Sextilis was renamed Augustus (August).
For the Orthodox Church, simultaneity was very important. church holidays. The date of the celebration of Easter was discussed at the First and this issue became one of the main ones. The rules established at this Council for the exact calculation of this celebration cannot be changed under pain of anathema.
Gregorian calendar
Chapter catholic church Pope Gregory the Thirteenth in 1582 approved and introduced new calendar. It was called "Gregorian". It would seem that the Julian calendar was good for everyone, according to which Europe lived for more than sixteen centuries. However, Gregory the Thirteenth considered that the reform was necessary to determine a more accurate date for the celebration of Easter, as well as to ensure that the day returned to the twenty-first of March.
In 1583, the Council of the Eastern Patriarchs in Constantinople condemned the adoption of the Gregorian calendar as violating the liturgical cycle and calling into question the canons of the Ecumenical Councils. Indeed, in some years it violates the basic rule of celebrating Easter. It happens that Catholic Bright Sunday falls in time before Jewish Easter, and this is not allowed by the canons of the church.
The chronology in Russia
On the territory of our country, starting from the tenth century, the New Year was celebrated on the first of March. Five centuries later, in 1492, in Russia the beginning of the year was moved, according to church traditions, on the first of September. This went on for over two hundred years.
On December 19, seven thousand two hundred and eight, Tsar Peter the Great issued a decree that the Julian calendar in Russia, adopted from Byzantium along with baptism, was still valid. The start date has changed. It has been officially approved in the country. New Year according to the Julian calendar was to be celebrated on the first of January "from the Nativity of Christ".
After the revolution of the fourteenth of February, one thousand nine hundred and eighteen, new rules were introduced in our country. The Gregorian calendar ruled out three within each four hundred years. It was this that was adopted.
What is the difference between Julian and Gregorian calendars? The difference between in the calculation of leap years. It increases over time. If in the sixteenth century it was ten days, then in the seventeenth it increased to eleven, in the eighteenth century it was already equal to twelve days, thirteen in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and by the twenty-second century this figure will reach fourteen days.
The Orthodox Church of Russia uses the Julian calendar, following the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, and the Catholics use the Gregorian.
You can often hear the question of why the whole world celebrates Christmas on the twenty-fifth of December, and we - on the seventh of January. The answer is quite obvious. The Orthodox Russian Church celebrates Christmas according to the Julian calendar. This also applies to other major church holidays.
Today, the Julian calendar in Russia is called the "old style". At present, its scope is very limited. It is used by some Orthodox Churches - Serbian, Georgian, Jerusalem and Russian. In addition, the Julian calendar is used in some Orthodox monasteries in Europe and the United States.
in Russia
In our country, the issue of calendar reform has been raised repeatedly. In 1830 it was staged by the Russian Academy of Sciences. Prince K.A. Lieven, who at that time was the Minister of Education, considered this proposal untimely. Only after the revolution, the issue was submitted to a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars Russian Federation. Already on January 24, Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar.
Features of the transition to the Gregorian calendar
For Orthodox Christians, the introduction of a new style by the authorities caused certain difficulties. The new year turned out to be shifted into when any fun is not welcome. Moreover, January 1 is the day of memory of St. Boniface, who patronizes everyone who wants to give up drunkenness, and our country celebrates this day with a glass in hand.
Gregorian and Julian calendar: differences and similarities
Both of them consist of three hundred and sixty-five days in a normal year and three hundred and sixty-six in a leap year, have 12 months, 4 of which are 30 days and 7 are 31 days, February is either 28 or 29. The difference lies only in the frequency of leap years. years.
According to the Julian calendar, a leap year occurs every three years. In this case, it turns out that the calendar year is 11 minutes longer than the astronomical year. In other words, after 128 years there is an extra day. The Gregorian calendar also recognizes that the fourth year is a leap year. The exceptions are those years that are a multiple of 100, as well as those that can be divided by 400. Based on this, an extra day appears only after 3200 years.
What awaits us in the future
Unlike the Gregorian, the Julian calendar is simpler for chronology, but it is ahead of the astronomical year. The basis of the first became the second. According to the Orthodox Church, the Gregorian calendar violates the sequence of many biblical events.
Due to the fact that the Julian and Gregorian calendars increase the difference in dates over time, Orthodox churches that use the first of them will celebrate Christmas from 2101 not on January 7, as it happens now, but on January 8, but from nine thousand of the nine hundred and first year, the celebration will take place on the eighth of March. In the liturgical calendar, the date will still correspond to the twenty-fifth of December.
In countries where the Julian calendar was used by the beginning of the twentieth century, such as Greece, the dates of all historical events that occurred after October fifteenth, one thousand five hundred and eighty-two, are nominally celebrated on the same dates that they occurred.
Consequences of calendar reforms
Currently, the Gregorian calendar is fairly accurate. According to many experts, it does not need to be changed, but the question of its reform has been discussed for several decades. In this case, we are not talking about the introduction of a new calendar or any new methods of accounting for leap years. It is about rearranging the days of the year so that the beginning of each year falls on one day, such as Sunday.
Today, calendar months are from 28 to 31 days, the length of a quarter ranges from ninety to ninety-two days, with the first half of the year shorter than the second by 3-4 days. This complicates the work of financial and planning authorities.
What are the new calendar projects
Over the past one hundred and sixty years, it has been proposed various projects. In 1923, a calendar reform committee was created under the League of Nations. After the end of the Second World War, this issue was referred to the Economic and Social Committee of the United Nations.
Despite the fact that there are quite a lot of them, preference is given to two options - the 13-month calendar of the French philosopher Auguste Comte and the proposal of the French astronomer G. Armelin.
In the first variant, the month always starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday. In a year, one day has no name at all and is inserted at the end of the last thirteenth month. In a leap year, such a day occurs in the sixth month. According to experts, this calendar has many significant shortcomings, so more attention is paid to the project of Gustave Armelin, according to which the year consists of twelve months and four quarters of ninety-one days each.
In the first month of the quarter there are thirty-one days, in the next two - thirty. The first day of each year and quarter begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday. In a normal year, one extra day is added after December 30th, and in a leap year after June 30th. This project approved by France, India, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and some other countries. For a long time The General Assembly delayed the approval of the project, and in Lately this work at the UN has ceased.
Will Russia return to the "old style"
It is rather difficult for foreigners to explain what the concept of "Old New Year" means, why we celebrate Christmas later than Europeans. Today there are people who want to make the transition to the Julian calendar in Russia. Moreover, the initiative comes from well-deserved and respected people. According to them, 70% of Russian Orthodox Russians have the right to live according to the calendar used by the Russian Orthodox Church.
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, was 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 day of the vernal equinox, according to which the date of Easter was determined, and the mismatch of the Easter full moons with astronomical ones. Julian calendar error at 11 min. 14 sec. in the year neglected by Sosigen, to XVI century led to the fact that the spring equinox fell not on March 21, but on the 11th. The shift led to the correspondence of the same days of the year to other natural phenomena. Julian year in 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 46 seconds, as later scientists found out, was 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the present solar year. "Extra" days ran for 128 years. So, for a millennium and a half, humanity lagged behind the real astronomical time by as much as ten days! Reform of Pope Gregory XII I was 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 Lily.
The Gregorian calendar is much more accurate than the Julian calendar: it gives a much better approximation to the tropical year.
The new calendar immediately at the time of adoption shifted the current date by 10 days and corrected the accumulated errors.
The new calendar began to operate a new, more precise rule about leap year. A leap year has 366 days if:
- year number is a multiple of 400 (1600, 2000, 2400);
- other years - the number of the year 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 particular year is calculated according to the lunisolar calendar, which makes Easter a transitional holiday.
Switching 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 not everywhere this transition went smoothly. Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Commonwealth (Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland), France, Lorraine were the first to switch to the Gregorian calendar. 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 in accordance with the canonical rules for celebrating Easter. In some countries that switched to the Gregorian calendar, the Julian chronology was subsequently resumed as a result of their accession to other states. In connection with the transition of countries to the Gregorian calendar at different times, factual errors of perception may occur: for example, it is known that Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. In fact, these events took place with a difference of 10 days, since in Catholic Spain new style acted 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, as in Russia, in 1900 there was a day on February 29, while in most countries it was not. In 1948, at the Moscow Conference of the Orthodox Churches, it was decided that Easter, like all passing holidays, should be calculated according to the Alexandrian Paschalia (Julian calendar), and non-passing according to the calendar by which he lives local church. Finnish Orthodox Church celebrates Easter according to the Gregorian calendar.
Why do we have the October Revolution in November, Christmas is not with everyone, and there is a strange holiday under the no less strange name "Old New Year"? And what happened in Russia from the first to the fourteenth of February 1918? Nothing. Because this time was not in Russia - neither the first of February, nor the second, nor further until the fourteenth did not happen that year. According to the "Decree on the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic."
The decree was signed by Comrade Lenin and adopted, as stated in the document, "in order to establish in Russia the same time calculation with almost all cultural peoples."
Of course, the decision was political. But also sick, of course, too. As they say, they combined one with the other, or, again, as the great Gorin wrote: “First, celebrations were planned, then arrests, then they decided to combine them.” The Bolsheviks did not like church celebrations, the arrests were already rather fed up, and then an idea just turned up. Not fresh.
In 1582, the inhabitants of the glorious city of Rome went to bed on the fourth of October, and woke up the next day, but this day was already the fifteenth. The difference of 10 days accumulated over long years and by the decision of Pope Gregory XIII was corrected. Of course, after lengthy meetings and negotiations. They carried out the reform on the basis of the project of the Italian doctor, astronomer and mathematician Luigi Lillio. By the middle of the 20th century Gregorian calendar used by almost the whole world.
The ROC strongly condemned the reform of 1582, noting that the Roman Church loves “innovations” too much and therefore completely “recklessly” follows the lead of astronomers. And in general - "the Gregorian calendar is far from perfect."
Meanwhile, astronomers were not silent and, having found the support of some Russian scientists, already in the 30s of the XIX century, on behalf of the commission created on the calendar issue at the Academy of Sciences, spoke in favor of the Gregorian calendar. Nicholas I listened to the report of the Minister of Education Prince Lieven with interest and ... agreed with the prince that the calendar reform in the country, as His Majesty noted, "is not desirable."
The next calendar commission met in October 1905. The timing was more than bad. Of course, Nicholas II calls the reform "undesirable" and quite sternly hints to the members of the commission that they should treat the issue "very carefully", bearing in mind the political situation in the country.
Meanwhile, the situation was heating up, and as a result, what everyone now knows as the October Revolution happened. In November 1917, at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, it was decided to replace the "obscurantist-Black Hundred" calendar with a "progressive" one.
Controversy with Orthodox holidays- do not bother. On the contrary, the “old-mode” Frosts and Christmas trees should go out of the new country. At matinees and receptions, poems by the poet Valentin Goryansky are read:
Christmas is coming soon
Ugly bourgeois holiday,
Connected from time immemorial
With him, the custom is ugly:
A capitalist will come to the forest,
Inert, true to prejudice,
The tree will be cut down with an axe,
Letting go of a bad joke...
Goryansky is joking. He is a satirist. It's not that he doesn't like the revolution, he's in a deep depression. Runs to Odessa, then leaves for emigration. But poems about the bourgeois holiday have already been published. Raised like a banner, and not at all joking. The release of New Year's cards is stopped, and the population of the new country is ordered to work hard, and if they celebrate, then new dates ...
The dates are confusing. After the transition to the “new style”, it turns out that the revolution is in November, the New Year becomes old, in the sense of the old style, and moves to after Christmas, and Christmas, in turn, turns out to be January 7th. Dates appear in parentheses in reference books. First old style- then new in brackets.
But the most interesting thing is that the passions do not subside. The next round happens already in our new time. Sergei Baburin, Viktor Alksnis, Irina Savelyeva and Alexander Fomenko introduce a new bill to the State Duma in 2007 - on Russia's transition from January 1, 2008 to the Julian calendar. In the explanatory note, the deputies note that "the world calendar does not exist" and propose to establish a transitional period from December 31, 2007, when within 13 days the chronology will be carried out simultaneously according to two calendars at once. Only four deputies take part in the voting. Three are against, one is for. There were no abstentions. The rest of the elect ignore the vote.
So we live for now. On a broad Russian foot and with an open Russian soul, noting Catholic Christmas before the New Year, then the New Year, then An Orthodox xmas, the old New Year and ... further everywhere. Regardless of dates. And on faces. By the way, in February, New Year's Eve Eastern calendar. And we have a document, if anything - a decree of 1918 "on the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic."
Anna Trefilova
Often, when reading a historical article about events that took place before 1918, we see such dates: "The Battle of Borodino took place on August 26 (September 7), 1812." Why two dates? Which one is correct? What is the difference? Why those brackets? Not one hundred, and even a thousand people annually puzzle over these questions. But in fact, everything is simple. We will save you, dear readers, from a lot of numbers and calculations, and explain everything “on the fingers”.
Well slow down, so slow down. The point is calendars. Julian calendar- this is the calendar according to which Russia lived until 1918. In February 1918, we switched to a "new" style - to Gregorian calendar. In Europe, it began to spread from the XVI century. and was introduced by order of Pope Gregory XIII (hence the Gregorian).
Sosigenes - Alexandrian astronomer, creator of the "Julian" calendar, adopted by Julius Caesar in 42 BC. 
Pope Gregory XIII - creator of the "Gregorian" calendar, adopted in 1582 Now let's remember a few rules, knowing which, you will no longer get confused in the dates:
1 rule: the dates of all events that occurred before 1918 are written according to the old style, and the date according to the new - Gregorian - calendar is given in brackets: August 26 (September 7), 1812.
2 rule: if a document written before 1918 fell into your hands, and, accordingly, devoid of conversion to a new style, you don’t need to go online - you can calculate it yourself. To do this, you need this label:
from 10/05/1582 to 02/18/1700 - add 10 days.
from 02/19/1700 to 02/18/1800 - add 11 days.
from 02/19/1800 to 02/18/1900 - add 12 days.
from 02/19/1900 to 02/01/1918 - add 13 days.
Let's check ourselves:
Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich was born on March 18, 1584 according to the Julian calendar. We look at the plate - you need to add 10 days. Total according to the Gregorian calendar, the birthday of Fedor Ioannovich is March 28, 1584.
But the Battle of Poltava took place on June 27, 1709. How much should be added? Already 11 days. Turns out July 8th.
The Julian calendar continues to be used by the Russian Orthodox Church. Civil chronology in Russia is based on the Gregorian calendar. So what is the correct way to write the dates of historical events? When did the Battle of Borodino take place - August 26 or September 7? There is only one answer, and there cannot be another: it is correct to write the date that corresponded to the current calendar at that time. That is - August 26th.
In the halls of the Historical Museum and Museum Patriotic War 1812, you can find documents with different dates and check yourself. As you can see, it's simple. Onward to the museum!