The Gregorian calendar has the following features. Calendar revolution

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. The same decree prescribed, until July 1, 1918, after the date of each day according to the new style, to write in brackets 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 the period of changing lunar phases. But already by the time of the adoption of Christianity, i.e. by the end of the 10th century. n. e., Ancient Rus' used a lunisolar calendar.

Calendar of the ancient Slavs. It was not possible to definitively establish what the calendar of the ancient Slavs was. It is only known that initially time was counted by seasons. Probably, the 12-month lunar calendar was also used at the same time. In later times, the Slavs switched to a lunisolar calendar, in which an additional 13th month was inserted seven times every 19 years.

The most ancient monuments of Russian writing show that the months had purely Slavic names, the origin of which was closely related to natural phenomena. Moreover, the same months, depending on the climate of the places in which different tribes lived, received different names. So, January was called where the section (the time of deforestation), where the prosinets (after the winter clouds a blue sky appeared), where the jelly (since it became icy, cold), etc.; February—cut, snowy or severe (severe frosts); March - birch zol (there are several interpretations here: the birch tree begins to bloom; they took sap from birch trees; they burned the birch for coal), dry (the poorest in precipitation in ancient Kievan Rus, in some places the earth was already dry, sap (a reminder of birch sap); April) - pollen (gardens bloom), birch (beginning of birch flowering), duben, kviten, etc.; May - grass (grass turns green), summer, pollen; June - cherver (cherries turn red), isok (grasshoppers chirp - "izoks" "), milking; July - lipets (linden blossoms), cherven (in the north, where phenological phenomena are delayed), serpen (from the word "sickle", indicating the time of harvest); August - serpen, stubble, roar (from the verb "to roar " - the roar of deer, or from the word "glow" - cold dawns, and possibly from "pasori" - polar lights); September - veresen (blooming heather); ruen (from the Slavic root of the word meaning tree, giving yellow paint); October - leaf fall, “pazdernik” or “kastrychnik” (pazdernik - hemp buds, the name for the south of Russia); November - gruden (from the word “heap” - frozen rut on the road), leaf fall (in the south of Russia); December - jelly, chest, prosinets.

The year began on March 1, and around this time agricultural work began.

Many ancient names of months later passed into a number of Slavic languages and were largely retained in some modern languages, in particular in Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish.

At the end of the 10th century. Ancient Rus' adopted Christianity. At the same time, the chronology used by the Romans came to us - the Julian calendar (based on the solar year), with Roman names for the months and a seven-day week. It counted years from the “creation of the world,” which allegedly occurred 5508 years before our chronology. This date - one of the many variants of eras from the “creation of the world” - was adopted in the 7th century. in Greece and has been used by the Orthodox Church for a long time.

For many centuries, the beginning of the year was considered March 1, 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 Muscovites celebrated their next New Year on September 1, 7208, they had to repeat the celebration. This happened because on December 19, 7208, a personal decree of Peter I was signed and promulgated on the reform of the calendar in Russia, according to which a new beginning of the year was introduced - from January 1 and a new era - the Christian chronology (from the “Nativity of Christ”).

Peter's decree was called: "On the writing henceforth of Genvar from the 1st day of 1700 in all papers of the year from the Nativity of Christ, and not from the creation of the world." Therefore, the decree prescribed that the day after December 31, 7208 from the “creation of the world” should be considered January 1, 1700 from the “Nativity of Christ.” 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, freely in a row.”

Celebrating the first civil New Year in Moscow. The day after the announcement of Peter I’s decree on calendar reform on Red Square in Moscow, 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 the last year of the 17th century, and not the first year of the 18th century. The new century began on January 1 1701. An error that is sometimes repeated today.), the decree ordered that this event be celebrated with especially 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, giving the signal for the opening of the holiday. The streets were illuminated. The ringing of bells and cannon fire began, and the sounds of trumpets and timpani were heard. The Tsar congratulated the population of the capital on the New Year, and the festivities continued all night. Multi-colored rockets took off from the courtyards into the dark winter sky, and “along the large streets, where there is space,” lights burned—bonfires and tar barrels attached to poles.

The houses of the residents of the wooden capital were decorated with needles “from trees and branches of pine, spruce and juniper.” For a whole week the houses were decorated, and as night fell the lights were lit. Shooting “from small cannons and from muskets or other small weapons,” as well as launching “missiles,” were entrusted to people “who do not count gold.” And “poor people” were asked to “put at least a tree or branch on each of their gates or over their temple.” Since that time, our country has established the custom of celebrating New Year's Day on January 1 every year.

After 1918, there were still 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. Thus, 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,” which recognized the need to begin a systematic and consistent transfer of enterprises and institutions to continuous production starting from the 1929-1930 business year. In the fall of 1929, a gradual transition to “continuity” began, which ended in the spring of 1930 after the publication of a resolution of a special government commission under the Council of Labor and Defense. This decree introduced a unified production timesheet and calendar. The calendar year had 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 memorial days and revolutionary holidays: January 22, May 1 and 2, and November 7 and 8.

The workers of each enterprise and institution were divided into 5 groups, and each group was given a day of rest on every five-day week for the whole year. This meant that after four working days there was a day of rest. After the introduction of the “uninterrupted” period, there was no longer a need for a seven-day week, since weekends could fall not only on different days of the month, 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 intermittent production week. For them, permanent days off were established on the following dates of the month: 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 31 days, the last day of the month was considered the same month and was paid specially. The decree on the transition to an intermittent six-day week came into force on December 1, 1931.

Both the five-day and six-day periods completely disrupted the traditional seven-day week with a general day off on Sunday. The six-day week was used for about nine years. Only on June 26, 1940, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 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 the unauthorized departure of workers and employees from enterprises and institutions.” In development of this decree, on June 27, 1940, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution in which it was established that “in addition to Sundays, non-working days also include:

January 22, May 1 and 2, November 7 and 8, December 5. The same decree abolished the six special days of rest and non-working days that existed in rural areas on March 12 (Day of the Overthrow of the Autocracy) and March 18 (Paris Commune Day).

On March 7, 1967, the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the All-Russian 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 passions do not subside. The next revolution is happening in our new time. Sergei Baburin, Victor Alksnis, Irina Savelyeva and Alexander Fomenko introduced a bill to the State Duma in 2007 on the transition of Russia to the Julian calendar from January 1, 2008. In the explanatory note, the deputies noted that “there is no world calendar” and proposed establishing a transition period from December 31, 2007, when, for 13 days, chronology would 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 elected representatives ignored the vote.

- a number system for large periods of time, based on the periodicity of the visible movements of celestial bodies.

The most common solar calendar is based on the solar (tropical) year - the period of time between two successive passages of the center of the Sun through the vernal equinox.

A tropical year has approximately 365.2422 average solar days.

The solar calendar includes the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar and some others.

The modern calendar is called the Gregorian (new style), which was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and replaced the Julian calendar (old style), which had been in use since the 45th century BC.

The Gregorian calendar is a further refinement of the Julian calendar.

In the Julian calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar, the average length of a year in an interval of four years was 365.25 days, which is 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the tropical year. Over time, the onset of seasonal phenomena according to the Julian calendar occurred on increasingly earlier dates. Particularly strong discontent was caused by the constant shift in the date of Easter, associated with the spring equinox. In 325, the Council of Nicaea decreed a single date for Easter for the entire Christian church.

In subsequent centuries, many proposals were made to improve the calendar. The proposals of the Neapolitan astronomer and physician Aloysius Lilius (Luigi Lilio Giraldi) and the Bavarian Jesuit Christopher Clavius were approved by Pope Gregory XIII. On February 24, 1582, he issued a bull (message) introducing two important additions to the Julian calendar: 10 days were removed from the 1582 calendar - October 4 was immediately followed by October 15. This measure made it possible to preserve March 21 as the date of the vernal equinox. In addition, three out of every four century years were to be considered ordinary years and only those divisible by 400 were to be considered leap years.

1582 was the first year of the Gregorian calendar, called the new style.

The Gregorian calendar was introduced at different times in different countries. The first countries to switch to the new style in 1582 were Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, France, Holland and Luxembourg. Then in the 1580s it was introduced in Austria, Switzerland, and Hungary. In the 18th century, the Gregorian calendar began to be used in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, Sweden and Finland, and in the 19th century - in Japan. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Gregorian calendar was introduced in China, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Greece, Turkey and Egypt.

In Rus', along with the adoption of Christianity (10th century), the Julian calendar was established. Since the new religion was borrowed from Byzantium, the years were counted according to the Constantinople era “from the creation of the world” (5508 BC). By decree of Peter I in 1700, the European chronology was introduced in Russia - “from the Nativity of Christ”.

December 19, 7208 from the creation of the world, when the reformation decree was issued, in Europe corresponded to December 29, 1699 from the Nativity of Christ according to the Gregorian calendar.

At the same time, the Julian calendar was preserved in Russia. The Gregorian calendar was introduced after the October Revolution of 1917 - from February 14, 1918. The Russian Orthodox Church, preserving traditions, lives according to the Julian calendar.

The difference between the old and new styles is 11 days for the 18th century, 12 days for the 19th century, 13 days for the 20th and 21st centuries, 14 days for the 22nd century.

Although the Gregorian calendar is quite consistent with natural phenomena, it is also not completely accurate. The length of the year in the Gregorian calendar is 26 seconds longer than the tropical year and accumulates an error of 0.0003 days per year, which is three days per 10 thousand years. The Gregorian calendar also does not take into account the slowing rotation of the Earth, which lengthens the day by 0.6 seconds per 100 years.

The modern structure of the Gregorian calendar also does not fully meet the needs of social life. Chief among its shortcomings is the variability of the number of days and weeks in months, quarters and half-years.

There are four main problems with the Gregorian calendar:

— Theoretically, the civil (calendar) year should have the same length as the astronomical (tropical) year. However, this is impossible, since the tropical year does not contain an integer number of days. Because of the need to add an extra day to the year from time to time, there are two types of years - ordinary and leap years. Since the year can begin on any day of the week, this gives seven types of ordinary years and seven types of leap years—for a total of 14 types of years. To fully reproduce them you need to wait 28 years.

— The length of the months varies: they can contain from 28 to 31 days, and this unevenness leads to certain difficulties in economic calculations and statistics.|

— Neither ordinary nor leap years contain an integer number of weeks. Semi-years, quarters and months also do not contain a whole and equal number of weeks.

— From week to week, from month to month and from year to year, the correspondence of dates and days of the week changes, so it is difficult to establish the moments of various events.

In 1954 and 1956, drafts of a new calendar were discussed at sessions of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), but the final resolution of the issue was postponed.

In Russia, the State Duma was proposing to return the country to the Julian calendar from January 1, 2008. Deputies Viktor Alksnis, Sergey Baburin, Irina Savelyeva and Alexander Fomenko proposed establishing a transition period from December 31, 2007, when, for 13 days, chronology will be carried out simultaneously according to the Julian and Gregorian calendars. In April 2008, the bill was rejected by a majority vote.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

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, became 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 vernal equinox, by which the date of Easter was determined, and the discrepancy between the Easter full moons and the astronomical ones. Julian calendar error at 11 min. 14 sec. per year, which Sosigenes neglected, by the 16th century led to the fact that the vernal equinox fell not on March 21, but on the 11th. The displacement led to the correspondence of the same days of the year with other natural phenomena. Year according to the Julian calendar in 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 46 seconds, as later scientists found out, was longer than the real solar year by 11 minutes 14 seconds. The “extra” days accumulated in 128 years. Thus, for one and a half millennia, humanity has lagged behind real astronomical time by as much as ten days! Reform of Pope Gregory XII I was precisely 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 Lilius.

The Gregorian calendar is much more accurate than the Julian calendar: it gives a much better approximation of the tropical year.

The new calendar, immediately upon adoption, shifted the current date by 10 days and corrected accumulated errors.

The new calendar introduced a new, more precise rule about leap years. A year is a leap year, that is, it contains 366 days if:

the year number is a multiple of 400 (1600, 2000, 2400);
other years - the year number 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 specific year is calculated according to the lunisolar calendar, which makes Easter a moving holiday.

Transition 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 this transition did not go smoothly everywhere. The first countries to switch to the Gregorian calendar were Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland), France, and Lorraine. 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 complying with the canonical rules for celebrating Easter. In some countries that switched to the Gregorian calendar, the Julian calendar was subsequently resumed as a result of their annexation with other states. Due to the transition of countries to the Gregorian calendar at different times, factual errors of perception may arise: for example, it is known that Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. In fact, these events occurred 10 days apart, since in Catholic Spain the new style was in effect 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, like in Russia, there was a day on February 29 in 1900, while in most countries it was not. In 1948, at the Moscow Conference of Orthodox Churches, it was decided that Easter, like all moving holidays, should be calculated according to the Alexandrian Paschal (Julian calendar), and non-moving ones according to the calendar according to which the Local Church lives. The Finnish Orthodox Church celebrates Easter according to the Gregorian calendar.

A calendar is a number system for large periods of time, based on the periodicity of the visible movements of celestial bodies. The most common is the solar calendar, which is based on the solar (tropical) year - the period of time between two successive passages of the center of the Sun through the vernal equinox. It is approximately 365.2422 days.

The history of the development of the solar calendar is the establishment of an alternation of calendar years of different lengths (365 and 366 days).

In the Julian calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar, three years in a row contained 365 days, and the fourth (leap year) - 366 days. All years whose serial numbers were divisible by four were leap years.

In the Julian calendar, the average length of a year in an interval of four years was 365.25 days, which is 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the tropical year. Over time, the onset of seasonal phenomena occurred on increasingly earlier dates. Particularly strong discontent was caused by the constant shift in the date of Easter, associated with the spring equinox. In 325 AD, the Council of Nicaea decreed a single date for Easter for the entire Christian church.

1582 was the first year of the Gregorian calendar, called the "new style".

The difference between the old and new styles is 11 days for the 18th century, 12 days for the 19th century, 13 days for the 20th and 21st centuries, 14 days for the 22nd century.

Russia switched to the Gregorian calendar in accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR dated January 26, 1918 "On the introduction of the Western European calendar." Since by the time the document was adopted the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars was 13 days, it was decided to count the day after January 31, 1918, not as the first, but as February 14.

The decree prescribed that until July 1, 1918, after the number in the new (Gregorian) style, the number in the old (Julian) style should be indicated in brackets. Subsequently, this practice was preserved, but they began to place the date in brackets according to the new style.

February 14, 1918 became the first day in the history of Russia that officially passed according to the “new style”. By the middle of the 20th century, almost all countries of the world used the Gregorian calendar.

The Russian Orthodox Church, preserving traditions, continues to follow the Julian calendar, while in the 20th century some local Orthodox churches switched to the so-called. New Julian calendar. Currently, besides the Russian, only three Orthodox churches - Georgian, Serbian and Jerusalem - continue to fully adhere to the Julian calendar.

Although the Gregorian calendar is quite consistent with natural phenomena, it is also not completely accurate. The length of its year is 0.003 days (26 seconds) longer than the tropical year. An error of one day accumulates over approximately 3300 years.

The Gregorian calendar also, as a result of which the length of the day on the planet grows by 1.8 milliseconds every century.

The modern structure of the calendar does not fully meet the needs of social life. There are four main problems with the Gregorian calendar:

— The length of the months varies: they can contain from 28 to 31 days, and this unevenness leads to certain difficulties in economic calculations and statistics.

— Neither ordinary nor leap years contain an integer number of weeks. Semi-years, quarters and months also do not contain a whole and equal number of weeks.

— From week to week, from month to month and from year to year, the correspondence of dates and days of the week changes, so it is difficult to establish the moments of various events.

The issue of improving the calendar has been raised repeatedly and for quite some time. In the 20th century it was raised to the international level. In 1923, the International Committee for Calendar Reform was created in Geneva at the League of Nations. During its existence, this committee reviewed and published several hundred projects received from different countries. In 1954 and 1956, drafts for a new calendar were discussed at sessions of the UN Economic and Social Council, but the final decision was postponed.

A new calendar can be introduced only after it has been approved by all countries under a generally binding international agreement, which has not yet been reached.

In Russia, in 2007, a bill was introduced into the State Duma proposing to return the country to the Julian calendar from January 1, 2008. It proposed establishing a transition period from December 31, 2007, when, for 13 days, chronology would be carried out simultaneously according to the Julian and Gregorian calendars. In April 2008, the bill.

In the summer of 2017, the State Duma again discussed Russia’s transition to the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar. It is currently under review.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

07.12.2015

The Gregorian calendar is a modern calculation system based on astronomical phenomena, namely the cyclic revolution of our planet around the Sun. The length of the year in this system is 365 days, with every fourth year becoming a leap year and equal to 364 days.

History of origin

The date of approval of the Gregorian calendar is October 4, 1582. This calendar replaced the Julian calendar in force until that time. Most modern countries live according to the new calendar: look at any calendar and you will get a clear idea of the Gregorian system. According to Gregorian calculus, the year is divided into 12 months, the duration of which is 28, 29, 30 and 31 days. The calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII.

The transition to a new calculation entailed the following changes:

At the time of adoption, the Gregorian calendar immediately shifted the current date by 10 days and corrected the errors accumulated by the previous system;
In the new calculus, a more correct rule for determining leap years began to apply;
The rules for calculating the day of Christian Easter have been modified.

In the year the new system was adopted, Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal joined the chronology, and a couple of years later other European countries joined them. In Russia, the transition to the Gregorian calendar took place only in the 20th century - in 1918. In the territory that was by that time under the control of Soviet power, it was announced that after January 31, 1918, February 14 would immediately follow. For a long time, citizens of the new country could not get used to the new system: the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in Russia caused confusion in documents and minds. In official papers, dates of birth and other significant events have long been indicated in the strict and new style.

By the way, the Orthodox Church still lives according to the Julian calendar (unlike the Catholic calendar), so the days of church holidays (Easter, Christmas) in Catholic countries do not coincide with Russian ones. According to the highest clergy of the Orthodox Church, the transition to the Gregorian system will lead to canonical violations: the rules of the Apostles do not allow the celebration of Holy Easter to begin on the same day as the Jewish pagan holiday.

China was the last to switch to the new timekeeping system. This happened in 1949 after the proclamation of the People's Republic of China. In the same year, the world-accepted calculation of years was established in China - from the Nativity of Christ.

At the time of approval of the Gregorian calendar, the difference between the two calculation systems was 10 days. By now, due to the different number of leap years, the discrepancy has increased to 13 days. By March 1, 2100, the difference will already reach 14 days.

Compared to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar is more accurate from an astronomical point of view: it is as close as possible to the tropical year. The reason for the change in systems was the gradual shift of the day of the equinox in the Julian calendar: this caused a discrepancy between the Easter full moons and the astronomical ones.

All modern calendars have a familiar appearance to us precisely thanks to the transition of the leadership of the Catholic Church to a new time calculation. If the Julian calendar continued to function, the discrepancies between the real (astronomical) equinoxes and Easter holidays would increase even more, which would introduce confusion into the very principle of determining church holidays.

By the way, the Gregorian calendar itself is not 100% accurate from an astronomical point of view, but the error in it, according to astronomers, will accumulate only after 10,000 years of use.

People have continued to successfully use the new time system for more than 400 years. A calendar is still a useful and functional thing that everyone needs to coordinate dates, plan business and personal life.

Modern printing production has achieved unprecedented technological development. Any commercial or public organization can order calendars with their own symbols from the printing house: they will be produced promptly, with high quality, and at an adequate price.