16 March 12022

☿   16 March 12022 is Freedom of Information Day. Okay, this is cheating in that as far as I can tell this is not a particularly widespread observance—but the concept is an important one—related to, though not identical with, Freedom of Expression. It is potentially at odds with the Right to Privacy. The day appears to have been picked because it was James Madison’s birthday. It’s also the Fast of Esther and Purim Eve (Judaism), Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires (Latvia), Day of the Book Smugglers (Lithuania), and Full Moon Day of Tabaung (Myanmar). Lithuanian appears to be one of the most archaic surviving forms of the original Indo-European tongue; at least it retains features found in other branches only in fossil form—written texts from long ago and far away. Written examples of the language itself, however, are relatively modern, going back maybe to the 1500s or so, or at least that’s my fuzzy understanding of the situation; they are written using the Latin alphabet, as is English. The Russians, however, found this objectionable for some reason, and insisted that Lithuanian be written in Cyrillic characters. The Lithuanians responded by having books printed using the traditional characters abroad, and smuggling them into the country. The holiday commemorates their activities.

The saint of the day is Urho, a fictitious figure invented by modern-day Finnish-Americans and Finnish-Canadians as a counterpart to Patrick, celebrated by Irish immigrants and their descendants. Where Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, Urho drove the grasshoppers out of Finland. The event is now celebrated from Butte to Chippewa Falls.