Historically, Women's Day was conceived as a day for women around the world to stand up for their rights. It was invented by feminists.

The full name of the holiday is March 8 - International Day for Women's Rights and International Peace. And the date of March 8 was chosen thanks to an old German legend.

In the Middle Ages in Germany, as in many other countries, the rule of the first night was in effect. That is, married serf girls had to give their innocence not to their husband, but to their master.

And in one village there was a big holiday: eight girls were given in marriage, and all of them, by a strange coincidence, bore the name Martha. Seven girls, one after another, entered the bedroom to the master, and the eighth refused. She was captured and forcibly brought to the castle. Undressing, Marta pulled out a knife from the folds of her shirt and killed her master. She told everything to her beloved, after which the couple ran away and lived together happily ever after.

Clara Zetkin told this legend as an example of the first challenge of a woman against her lack of rights in 1910 at a meeting of socialists in Copenhagen. In honor of this girl - the eighth of March - Clara Zetkin and her friend Rosa Luxembourg proposed to establish an international women's day, on which women from all over the world would organize rallies and processions, attracting the public to their problems.

It is precisely such zealous revolutionaries and political ideologists that we represent Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg in the lessons at the Soviet school. However, they were women first and foremost and, in addition to success in political careers, they wanted to love and be loved.

Clara Zetkin - Biography

Clara Zetkin is not really Zetkin, but Eissner. She was born on July 5, 1857 in the Saxon city of Wiederau in the family of a rural teacher. Gifted by nature and educated beyond her years, she was to follow in her father's footsteps and become a teacher. But in Leipzig, where Klara went to study, she got to a meeting of the Social Democratic circle. And maybe her fate would have turned out differently if Osip Zetkin, an emigrant from Russia, had not attracted her attention.

He was not rich or handsome, but he talked so passionately and passionately about equality and fraternity that eighteen-year-old Clara fell in love without memory. In addition, Osip was several years older and more experienced than her, and even hiding from the unfair persecution of the Russian authorities. Well, why not the romantic hero of Schiller's ballads, which Clara read at night?

Clara and Osip Zetkin were great friends until one of the meetings on Osip's hands was cuffed. Before he was deported from Germany, he managed to shout to Clara that he loved her, which finally broke the girl's heart. Two long years passed, spent by Clara Zetkin in political speeches and searching for a loved one, before she found the thinner and sick Osip in a dirty little room on the outskirts of Paris.

Due to illness, the man could not work, so he devoted all his time to writing revolutionary articles. Like any woman, Clara Zetkin was delighted with the opportunity to be needed and rushed to save her beloved. With the same wild energy with which she delivered political speeches from the stands (not for nothing she was nicknamed Wild Clara), the young woman set to work.

She took a job as a governess in a rich house, worked as a laundress, and the rest of the time she gave private lessons or did translations. Osip was satisfied with this situation. He didn't even ask Clara to marry him. However, in the communist environment, marriage was considered a bourgeois relic. Clara took her husband's surname and became Clara Zetkin. She gave birth to two sons, Maxim and Konstantin. Seven years later, Osip died of tuberculosis.

Exhausted by overwork and the grief that befell her, at 32, Clara Zetkin looked at all 50: gray hair, a hunched back, hardened red hands. Even party comrades, who saw Clara as a comrade and like-minded person, were surprised at how little femininity remained in this still strong-willed woman. A familiar doctor diagnosed Zetkin with nervous exhaustion.

Left alone with two children in her arms, without a livelihood, Clara and her sons returned to Germany, having borrowed money for a ticket from her brother. Work in the newspaper of German workers "Equality" brought her together with the 18-year-old artist Georg Zundel. Despite the fact that Georg was half her age, Clara Zetkin carried him first into the political movement, and then into her bed. However, Zundel did not particularly resist. They merried.

This marriage was opposed by party comrades, including August Bebel, who was afraid that due to an unequal marriage, Clara would become a laughing stock in the eyes of the people. But Zetkin, all her life, did as she saw fit. In addition to the ability to convince, she also knew how to make money. The couple lived in a nice mansion near Stuttgart and soon bought almost the first car in the area, and then a small house in Switzerland.

This time, Clara Zetkin lived in a marriage quite happily and for a long time: for twenty years, until one day George announced that he was leaving for a young mistress. No matter how oratory Clara possessed, but at 58 she could not resist the charms of a young rival. Again heartbroken, the woman gave all her strength to the political struggle. And at the same time, she became friends with her colleague Rosa Luxembourg.

Rosa Luxembourg-Biography

Rosalia Luxembourg was the fifth and youngest child in a wealthy family of Polish Jews. A small, disproportionate figure, an ugly face and congenital lameness became the reasons for her many complexes. One of Rosa's legs was shorter than the other due to a dislocated hip joint.

Saved only by special, custom-made boots, on which Luxembourg depended almost like air. If you go slowly, then the lameness was almost imperceptible, another thing - when you start to hurry. Then you become like an old duck. And barefoot, without shoes, walking is completely impossible.

It is clear that the girl did not use the attention of the opposite sex. Even her mother, who did not have a soul in Rosa, inspired her from childhood that she should rely only on herself, because it is unlikely that Rosalia will succeed in marrying successfully. The girl went to study in Warsaw, where she became interested in social democratic ideas that were fashionable at that time. She liked that members of the underground movement appreciated her intelligence, oratory skills and dedication, and did not ridicule the flaws in her appearance, as her classmates once did.

One of the socialists liked 19-year-old Rosa Luxembourg not only as a talented propagandist. An emigrant from Lithuania, Jan Tyshka, was smart and impossibly handsome. For Rosa, he became a real idol. She decided to tell him about her feelings and even vowed that she would give up revolutionary activities and become a housewife, just to be with him. In response to these naive words, Tyshka laughed and said that marriage was a relic of the past. However, he was flattered by the blind devotion of a young woman who was so respected by the Social Democrats. And he condescended to a small ugly admirer, however, without burdening himself with any promises. Rosa needed sixteen years of jealousy and suffering before she decided to break this connection.

The new hobby of 36-year-old Rosa Luxembourg was ... 22-year-old Konstantin Zetkin, the son of her friend and colleague Clara Zetkin, which for the first time caused a quarrel between friends. Despite the age difference, their romance lasted for many years.

For gender equality

Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxembourg rekindled their friendship many years later, when both became single again and decided to devote themselves to politics. Once they read the works of the young Marxist Vladimir Ulyanov, which amazed them. The ladies wanted to meet him personally and went to St. Petersburg. But on the way, friends were robbed. Not knowing what to do next, they went into a tavern, where they saw men playing cards.

Clara was an excellent card player and decided to earn some money. But the men only ridiculed her, saying that a woman's business is to give birth to children and milk cows. All night long, ideological comrades-in-arms, outraged by male chauvinism, redrawn the men's suit they got and made mustaches and sideburns from Rosa's cut curl.

The next day, Clara Zetkin, disguised as a man, beat the gamblers for a very large amount for those times - 1200 rubles. The women easily got to St. Petersburg, got acquainted with Ulyanov and since then have often been in Russia.

Rose and Clara dedicated their lives to fighting for women's rights. At meetings, Zetkin and Luxembourg discussed issues of marriage and the intimate side of married life, talked about Freud's theory. Women to the tips of their nails, they have always condemned terror and carnage. For sharp attacks against the war with Russia, Rosa Luxembourg was repeatedly arrested.

The last time this happened was in 1919, when, after being interrogated at the Eden Hotel, she was beaten with gun butts by the escorts. Tired of torturing the unfortunate woman, the soldiers shot her in the temple and dumped her body into the Lanver Canal, where it was found only a few months later.

Clara Zetkin outlived her friend Rosa Luxembourg by 14 years. She was a member of the German Communist Party and openly opposed fascism, for which she was regularly sent into exile. Becoming disabled and almost blind. Zetkin did not give up politics. She worked hard, devoting time to writing journalistic articles.

Clara Zetkin was going to write a biography of her friend Rosa Luxembourg and her autobiography, but did not have time. Accustomed to relying on her own strength and considering it inappropriate to use the services of a secretary, Clara wrote and wrote, in a hurry to present her ideas. Sometimes the ink ran out, but the blind woman continued to write page after page with a dry pen ...

Clara Zetkin spent a lot of time in Russia, maintained friendly relations with Lenin and Krupskaya. Here she found her final resting place. Zetkin died in 1933 near Moscow. In recent years, she often thought of Rose. Eyewitnesses say that before her death, Clara even called her friend by name.

"International" Women's Day March 8

The history of the celebration of International Women's Day in our country is associated primarily with the name of Clara Zetkin. Clara Zetkin was not only an ardent communist socialist, but also an equally ardent feminist and actively defended the rights of women, and it is her great merit that such a holiday as March 8 exists. Although at the beginning of its creation it had a huge political connotation.This holiday arose as a day of struggle for the rights of women.

Clara Zetkin(née Eisner) was born in 1857 in the Saxon town of Wiederau in the family of a teacher. Parents were proud of their talented daughter. Young Klarchen was accepted for free education at the famous Leipzig Women's Gymnasium by Augusta Schmidt. In her institution, Frau Augusta prepared the future elite of Germany. At the graduation party, handing the diploma to 18-year-old Clara, the headmistress said: “Our gymnasium will be proud that Clara Eisner, the rising star of German pedagogy, studied here!” But her expectations were not met. Clara Eisner really became a star, but in a completely different constellation and under completely different circumstances.

A month after graduation at the gymnasium, the rising star of German pedagogy began to attend secret meetings of the Social Democrats. During one of these semi-legal meetings, Comrade Clara Eisner jumped out of a window to escape arrest, after which it was dangerous for her to remain in Germany. Clara emigrated to Paris, where she met the Russian revolutionary Osipoi Zetkin, who was also expelled from Germany. There they had two children, Maxim and Kostya. Osip and Clara were forced to live in poverty, as the father of the family stubbornly refused to cooperate with the so-called bourgeois press, preferring to publish his work for a pittance in left-wing publications. Klara was forced to work hard in order to somehow feed the children and Osip, who by that time had contracted tuberculosis. This damaged her health. When he died, she was 32 years old, but she looked no less than 50. The doctors diagnosed her with nervous exhaustion.

The rise of the labor movement in Germany and the emergence of the socialist party from the underground gave Clara Zetkin the opportunity to return to her homeland. In 1892 she moved to Stuttgart, where she became editor of the Gleichheit (Equality) newspaper. For more than 25 years she directed this newspaper, then the Leipzig Volksgaze followed. She wrote 952 articles for various socialist publications. Franz Mehring, a prominent left-wing German Social Democrat, said: "Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxembourg are the only men in our flimsy party." Her party comrades called her Wild Clara, and her fighting friend Red Rose.

Clara Zetkin (left) and Rosa Luxembourg (right)

Her personal life was turbulent, but not too happy. At 41, Clara Zetkin married the artist Friedrich Zundel, who was 18 years her junior. The marriage lasted 16 years, another decade and a half Wild Clara did not give her husband an official divorce.

Clara Zetkin died on July 19, 1933 in Moscow. Buried at the Kremlin wall. In the former GDR, a medal named after Clara Zetkin was established, her portrait was depicted on a banknote of 10 marks.

The history of the holiday

It all started in the early spring of 1857. On March 8, 1857, New York textile workers marched through Manhattan in an "empty pot march". They demanded equal wages with men, shorter working hours (10-hour days) and improved working conditions. At that time, women worked 16 hours a day, receiving pennies for their work. Since then, a broad social feminist movement has begun in America and Western Europe to give women the same equal rights as men.

More than 50 years have passed, and on the last Sunday of February 1908 more than 15,000 women took to the streets of New York again. The demonstration was timed to coincide with the same "Women's Day" in 1857. Women again began to demand shorter working hours and equal pay conditions with men, opposed the terrible working conditions, and especially against the work of children. In addition, a demand was put forward for granting women the right to vote.

The following year, 1909, Women's Day was again marked by marches and women's strikes.

In 1910, socialists and feminists held Women's Day all over the country. It was in the same year that the delegates went from the USA to Copenhagen to the Second International Conference of Women Socialists, which was attended by over 100 women from 17 countries. There they met with Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxembourg - uncompromising fighters against the lot of German women, limited by three K - Kuche, Kinder, Kirche (kitchen, kinder (children) and kirch (church)). In addition to equal production rights with men and equal wages with men, women sought the right to elect and hold leadership positions.

Inspired by the actions of the "American Socialist Sisters," Clara Zetkin proposed that the conference call for women around the world to choose a specific day when they would draw public attention to their demands. It sounded like a call to all women in the world to join the fight for equality. The Conference strongly supported this proposal, which resulted in the emergence International Day of Women's Solidarity in the Struggle for Economic, Social and Political Equality. It should be noted that the exact date of this day at this conference has not been determined. For the first time, International Women's Day was held on March 19, 1911 in Germany, Austria, Denmark and some other European countries. This date was chosen by the women of Germany because on that day in 1848 the King of Prussia, before the threat of an armed uprising, made a promise to introduce reforms, including the unfulfilled introduction of women's suffrage. In 1912, women celebrated this day not on March 19, but on May 12. And only since 1914 this day began to be celebrated on March 8. It came on Sunday. Since then, this date has become fixed and has become traditional.

In Russia, this day has been celebrated by women every year since 1913. Since Russia lived then, unlike all of Europe, according to the Julian calendar, the International Women's Day in our country was celebrated not on March 8, but on February 23. (It must happen that the Day of the Soviet Army and Navy coincided with March 8!)

February 23, 1917 Women of Petrograd took to the streets of the city with the slogans "Bread and Peace".

Some spontaneous rallies turned into mass strikes and demonstrations, clashes with the Cossacks and the police. On February 24-25, mass strikes developed into a general strike. On February 26, separate skirmishes with the police turned into battles with troops called to the capital. The Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was created, and the Provisional Committee of the State Duma was created at the same time, which formed the government. Thus, it was the International Women's Day of 1917 that was one of the triggers that led to the February Revolution, as a result of which the monarchy was overthrown in Russia and the dual power of the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet was established. March 2 (15) Nicholas II abdicated , the provisional government guaranteed women the right to vote. And on March 8, 1917, the executive committee of the Petrosoviet decided to arrest the tsar and his family, confiscate property and deprive them of civil rights.

International Women's Day on March 8 was popular around the world in the 1910s and 1920s, but then its popularity faded. Today in the West there is no such holiday, and instead of March 8, another women's day is actively celebrated there - Mother's Day.

From the first years of Soviet power, March 8 was a public holiday, but an ordinary working day. Only in 1965 it was declared a day off and non-working. In 1977, the UN adopted resolution 32/142, calling on all countries to proclaim March 8 as a day of struggle for women's rights. This day is declared a holiday in some republics of the former USSR, as well as in Angola, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Cambodia, China, Congo (there is a holiday for Congolese women), Laos, Macedonia, Mongolia, Nepal, North Korea and Uganda. The list is very impressive and, most importantly, very characteristic. In Syria, March 8 is celebrated as Revolution Day, and in Liberia it is celebrated as the Day of Remembrance of the Fallen. Gradually, International Women's Day lost its political connotation, becoming "the day of all women."

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, March 8 remained on the list of public holidays in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. In Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia and Armenia, International Women's Day has been officially cancelled. In Uzbekistan, it is celebrated as Mother's Day. On April 7, a new holiday of Motherhood and Beauty is celebrated in Armenia.

Orthodox Church and March 8

The Russian Orthodox Church considers the celebration of International Women's Day on March 8 "inappropriate". According to Deacon Andrei Kuraev, the holiday of March 8 was conceived not as a day of glorification of women in general, but women with certain qualities: “March 8 is not a woman's day, but a holiday of a certain type of women, the day of a revolutionary woman. And therefore, in those countries where the revolutionary wave of the early twentieth century choked, the celebration of the Revolutionary did not take root.

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, Head of the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society: “The tradition of celebrating March 8 has entered our everyday life, but Orthodox people do not forget and will not forget that it is associated with revolutionary movements that brought a lot of suffering to people.”

Christians do not need to use this day to pay tribute to women. All Christians talk about the great appointment of women, not only on holidays dedicated to the Mother of God, chosen for the great work of saving mankind. According to the Orthodox tradition, it is customary to congratulate women on the Week of the Myrrh-Bearing Women (2nd Sunday after Easter) who, on the morning of the Resurrection, hurried to the Tomb of Christ and were the first to receive the joyful news of His resurrection from the dead. Let's think about what a different ideal of a woman is: an emancipated masculine revolutionary vs. caring and sensitive Christian wife.

Sacrificial love for a wife, mother, sister obliges us to take care of them, protect them, and delight them with our love and attention. Creating a family is not only acquaintance, courtship and marriage, but also everyday service in love. And in order to fill the everyday life of family life with joy, signs of attention are needed. Therefore - give gifts and flowers to your beloved women, and not only on March 8th.

Ecology of knowledge: The official version says that the tradition of celebrating March 8 is associated with the “march of empty pans”, which was supposedly held on this day in 1857 by textile workers in New York. They protested against unacceptable working conditions and low wages.

Who took to the streets of New York - textile workers or prostitutes?

Version one, official: "Working Women's Solidarity Day"

The official version says that the tradition of celebrating March 8 is associated with the “march of empty pots”, allegedly held on this day in 1857 by New York textile workers. They protested against unacceptable working conditions and low wages.

It is interesting that in the then press there was not a single note about such a strike. And historians have found out that March 8, 1857 was Sunday. It is very strange to go on strike on the weekend.

In 1910, at a women's forum in Copenhagen, the German communist Clara Zetkin called on the world to establish an "international women's day on March 8". She meant that on this day women would organize rallies and processions, and thus "draw public attention to their problems."

Initially, the holiday was called "international day of solidarity of women in the struggle for their rights." The date of March 8 was summed up under the very strike of textile workers, which in fact never happened. More precisely, it was, but it was not the textile workers who were on strike then. But more on that later.

This "holiday" was actively promoted by Zetkin's accomplice, the fiery revolutionary Alexandra Kolontai. The one that conquered the Soviet Union with the "great phrase": "You have to surrender to the first man you meet as easily as drinking a glass of water." March 8 became an official holiday in Russia in 1921.

Version two, Jewish: praise of the Jewish queen

Historians still "argue" whether Clara Zetkin was Jewish. Some sources claim that she was born in the family of a Jewish shoemaker, while others - a German teacher. However, Zetkin's desire to connect March 8, with the Jewish holiday of Purim, ambiguously hints at the fact that it was.

So, the second version says that Zetkin wanted to connect the history of Women's Day with the history of the Jewish people. According to legend, the beloved of the Persian king Xerxes, Esther, saved the Jewish people from extermination, using her charms.

Xerxes wanted to exterminate all the Jews, but Esther convinced him not only not to kill the Jews, but, on the contrary, to destroy all enemies of the Jews, including the Persians themselves. It happened on the 13th day of Arda according to the Jewish calendar (this month falls at the end of February - the beginning of March). Praising Esther, the Jews began to celebrate Purim (the day of the massacre of the Persians). The date of the "celebration" was sliding, but in 1910 it fell on March 8th.

Version three, about prostitutes

The third version of the origin of the holiday is perhaps the most scandalous for everyone who is looking forward to the "International Women's Day" with trepidation.

In 1857, in New York, women did protest, but they were not textile workers, but prostitutes. Women of the oldest profession demanded to pay salaries to sailors who used their services, but did not have money to pay prostitutes.

On March 8, 1894, prostitutes again demonstrated in Paris. This time they demanded recognition of their rights on an equal footing with those who sew clothes or bake bread, and the establishment of special trade unions.

This was repeated in 1895 in Chicago, and in 1896 in New York - shortly before the memorable convention of suffragettes in 1910, where it was decided to declare this day "women's" and "international", as suggested by Zetkin.

Clara Zetkin herself carried out similar actions. All in the same 1910, together with her accomplice Rosa Luxembourg, she brought prostitutes to the streets of German cities demanding "to stop police excesses." But in the Soviet version, prostitutes were replaced with "working women." published

Both German communists sometimes mixed politics, party discipline and intimate life. The cocktail was explosive.

Party comrades often called Zetkin Wild Clara, thus emphasizing the uncompromising judgments inherent in this woman, the ability for the most unexpected actions and ideas.

For example, during the powerful revolutionary upsurge that swept Germany in 1918, Clara, who occupied a prominent position in the party leadership, made a very original proposal to stimulate the revolutionary spirit of the rebels. She seriously suggested that women - supporters of socialist feminism, arrange holidays of free love for communist militants. Whoever fights well against the "rotten monarchy" then gets the maximum of carnal pleasures! (History is silent about how thick the ranks of voluntary revolutionary “pleasers” turned out to be in the end, but it is known from documents that there were cases of such “rewarding for revolutionary work” at that time.)

An equally original “sex method” was proposed by Zetkin two years later, during the hostilities that unfolded in 1920 between Soviet Russia and “panist” Poland. Being a member of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic, Clara at one of the meetings stated from the rostrum that not a single wagon with weapons for the Polish troops, with machine tools for military factories built in Poland by the capitalists of the Entente, should cross the German border! And to ensure such a boycott, according to the revolutionary, “conscious proletarian women” could: they should offer their love to any worker who refuses to participate in the implementation of military orders.

In the same peculiar way, she once agreed to solve the "women's question" for her closest friend and like-minded person. In 1907, Clara's 22-year-old son Konstantin became the lover of Rosa Luxemburg, who was almost 15 years older than him. Zetkin, for sure, was not happy with such a misalliance, but she did not take any decisive actions (including along the party line) against the seductress, although relations between the two prominent German revolutionaries became very strained for some time.

Far from banal were the family ties of Clara herself, nee Eissner. With her first husband, the revolutionary Osip Zetkin, she lived for 7 years, without formalizing the marriage, but taking his last name.

In 1897, 8 years after the death of her common-law spouse, 40-year-old Clara fell in love with a student of the Academy of Arts, the future artist Georg Friedrich Zundel. And although he was younger than the “partygenosse” lady by as much as 18 years, they soon got married.

A period of "bourgeois prosperity" began. Zundel received many orders for portraits, and his impressive fees allowed the spouses to buy their own house in a few years, and in 1906 to acquire property that was completely amazing for those times: a car. However, it didn't take long to ride it together. In pre-war 1914, Clara and Georg separated. (Almost simultaneously, another couple “fled in different directions” - son Konstantin and party ally Rosa. Both of these similar events again made the two women friends.)

Wild Clara then took revenge on her "ex" for many years, not giving him consent to an official divorce. This legal act took place only almost a decade and a half later, and the artist, freed from his former bonds, was only then able to marry the woman he had long loved - Paula Bosch, by the way, the daughter of the founder of the famous electrical concern.

The younger friend Rosa Luxembourg lived a much shorter life, she was killed in 1919.

In order to obtain German citizenship, she, a very young native of the Kingdom of Poland, had to enter into a fictitious marriage with a subject of the German Kaiser, Gustav Lübeck. But nine years later, true love happened - with the young Konstantin Zetkin.

Their relationship at first developed quite decently. The young man, together with his mother Clara Zetkin, was present in Stuttgart at the next congress of the Second International. Here he saw and heard Rosa, whose emotional speeches from the podium filled him with rapture. Shortly thereafter, the revolutionary volunteered to be Konstantin's mentor in the study of Marxism. Well, then these "political studies" together turned into a love relationship. Apparently, the son of her best friend remained the main man in the heart of Luxembourg for the rest of her - not long - life. After their breakup, Rose never remarried.

The beloved holiday of March 8 will always be associated with the names of bright women with a difficult fate - Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxembourg. The life of best friends was an explosive cocktail of violent political struggle, party ideals and a tragic personal life.

The creators of the holiday initially conceived it as a day for women to stand up for their rights. In the 60s in the USSR, March 8 was officially declared a public holiday. Gradually, this day turned into a celebration of admiration for the beautiful half of humanity.

Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxembourg March 8: versions of the appearance of the holiday

There are many versions about why the choice of the date of the holiday fell on March 8th. The official one is connected with the political movement in America in the middle of the 19th century. On March 8, in New York, women staged a demonstration against poor working conditions and infringement of their rights.

Another version is connected with an ancient myth from the history of the Jewish people. According to legend, the Jewess Esther, beloved of King Xerxes, saved the Jewish people from death thanks to her love charms and influence on the king. The day when this happened was celebrated as the holiday of Purim, the date of which in 1910 coincided with March 8th.

There is also the idea that the holiday is associated with the rude mores of medieval Germany. At that time in Europe there was a cruel tradition - the right of the first night. Young girls, having married, had to give their virginity not to their beloved, but to their master. One day, eight weddings were celebrated at the same time in one village. The name of all the brides was Martha. When the time came to “repay the debt” to the master, one of the girls snatched a dagger from the folds of her clothes and killed the rapist. This is a legend about the first challenge to injustice and lawlessness that a woman threw in the face of men. In honor of this girl Martha, March 8 was chosen as the day when women will have the opportunity to talk about their problems.

Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxembourg March 8: what was the woman with the name of the flower

Rosalia Luxembourg was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family. Unfortunately, she was not distinguished by the beauty of her face and figure, she was short and lame. Therefore, the girl did not expect a successful marriage. She received a good education. She became a member of the social democratic movement that was fashionable in those years. The members of the underground circle that she attended sincerely appreciated her flexible mind, skill as an orator and devotion to ideals.

This helped Rosa forget about her physical shortcomings so much that she became the mistress of a member of the revolutionary circle - a young handsome man from Lithuania, a stormy romance with whom lasted 16 years. And after graduation, she managed to win the heart of the son of her friend Clara Zetkin, young Konstantin, despite the significant difference in age. This caused a quarrel and a temporary break in relations between the comrades-in-arms.

Only after many years, having become lonely, famous feminists got back together. They were carried away by the activities of the young Vladimir Ulyanov and visited Russia to get to know him. At their meetings, they actively discussed sex in marriage, studied Freud's theories. Girlfriends have always fiercely opposed terror and war. Rosa was often arrested for her anti-war views. She died from her wounds after a brutal interrogation.

Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg March 8: struggle and love in Clara's life

Clara Zetkin was an attractive girl with a lively disposition. She was born in Germany in the family of a teacher and herself received a pedagogical education. In the fashion of the time, she began to participate in various political movements and attend revolutionary circles. In one of them, she met her future husband.

When her husband was expelled from Germany for political views, the couple moved to Paris, reports the Wordyou portal. There Clara gave birth to her two sons. Young people actively communicated with the French leaders of the workers' revolutionary movement. They met and became friends with the daughter of Karl Marx, who became their colleague and teacher. When Clara's husband died, she returned to Germany, where she became a member of the German Social Democratic Party.

However, the ardent heart of the feminist did not remain free for long. Her life takes another sharp turn. She falls in love with a young German artist. Since his paintings were highly valued by the local society and easily sold, the couple could afford a comfortable life. The family bought a nice house in a picturesque area (where after they received V.I. Lenin) and a car. Clara became the editor of a popular women's newspaper and a prominent figure in the German revolutionary movement. At the International Convention in Copenhagen in 1910, Clara Zetkin proposed to define a day when women would draw attention to their feminist issues and fight for equality.

After the end of the war, Zetkin continued her political activities, became a member of the Reichstag, often visited Russia, where she died.