On February 18, the Right Cause movement will be officially registered as a political party. The party members decided to mark the occasion by introducing a new state holiday, Freedom Day, which the party proposes to hold on the day of the abolition of serfdom in Russia. But the opposition believes that "in Putin's Russia, it is pretty odd to celebrate the abolition of serfdom."
According to Right Cause's press service head Natalya Shavshukova, the party has already been registered at the Justice Ministry, and on February 18, its co-chairmen, Georgy Bovt, Leonid Gozman and Boris Titov, will be presented the registration certificate. The new party decided to mark this occasion with a brand new state holiday, Freedom Day, which is supposed to be held on the day of the abolition of serfdom in Russia, on February 19.
Boris Nadezhdin, a member of the party's political council, told Kommersant there were two ways to declare a holiday. The first, the simple one, stipulates introducing an amendment to the Federal Law On Memorable Dates and Days of Military Glory of Russia to declare February 19 Freedom Day. The second option, which is "more radical and politically harsh", is to call off "the militaristic holiday on February 23 and transfer the day off to February 19". But this option demands changing the Labour Code as well.
Mr Nadezhdin believes that it would be better if President Dmitry Medvedev himself introduced the amendments to the State Duma. "We will ask him to adopt our amendment," Mr Nadezhdin said. "Of course, we could address a deputy, but I think this is the President's job. I even came up with an epigraph to our letter: "Freedom is better than non-freedom" (this saying belongs to Dmitry Medvedev - Kommersant).
Right Cause co-chairman Leonid Gozman, the author of the holiday idea, said he would propose collecting signatures of thirty "most respectable and honourable people" for the letter to the President. He believes that February 19, as well as Victory Day, should become "one of the country's main holidays, because Emperor Alexander II's decree issued on February 19, 1861, had great importance for our country, for since then, there have been no slaves in Russia. There were slaves under Stalin, though, but at least this slavery was not legal." He stressed that the idea to introduce Freedom Day "was in the air" and was expressed by several party members. "We have several exotic holidays like November 4, and the date of the abolition of serfdom is practically assured," one of the party members said.
Kommersant has found out that Right Cause has developed a programme dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom, which will be celebrated in 2011. In particular, the party plans to hold a contest of school essays on Alexander II's reform and present memorable gifts to people who contributed to promoting the ideals of freedom. «We want to remind people that Russia's history not only knows Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin, but also Alexander II and Boris Yeltsin," Ms Shavshukova told Kommersant.
However, Leonid Gozman's former Union of Right Forces party colleagues (the party, by the way, set up a monument to Alexander II near the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in 2005) were not really delighted with the idea. Saying that "in Putin's Russia, it is pretty odd to celebrate the abolition of serfdom," the party's former lawyer Vadim Prokhorov noted that "this initiative again proves that the authorities are not planning to allow the party to be engaged in real politics, so the party has to pretend that they are at least doing something, for example, inventing new holidays." Mr Prokhorov suggested the party celebrate Alexander I's Decree on Free Farmers signed in 1802. "In today's Russia, there are not many of them left, but it is nice to think of it from time to time," he said.
One of the leaders of the opposition movement Solidarity Boris Nemtsov, who as a Union of Right Forces co-chairman was involved in the unveiling of the monument to Alexander II, said that the party and President Vladimir Putin had discussed establishing a holiday on the day of the abolition of serfdom. "We could not get his support for the idea then, because Mr Putin, who had been consistently destroying all signs of freedom in the country, was not going to celebrate such an event." Mr Nemtsov believes that if the current President, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed to declare the holiday, he would show himself to be a "free thinker".