Reducing The French Republican Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar

This is also simple. Let us take an example: You have a letter dated on 19 Frimaire, year 8. What date is this in the Gregorian Calendar? In Scheme 5.1 we find that 1 Frimaire, year 8, was 22 November 1799. You simply have to add 18 (19-1) days to the Gregorian date 22 November and this ends up with 10 December 1799. Vice Versa?

Let us say you send a letter from Denmark 11 July 1795 and two days later (13 July) it is "postmarked" - or at least the Republican day is written on the letter - in France. But what is the French Republican date for 13 July 1795? Find July 1795 in Scheme 5.2 and you see that 19 July 1795 is the same as 1 Thermidor, year 3. As you want the date 19-13=6 days earlier (that is obviously in the month before Thermidor) you get 30 - 6 = 24 Messidor, year 3. The French Colony Lousiana

As you may know the US state Louisiana was a French colony in the periods 1699-1762 and 1800-1803 when it was sold to the USA (11). A question arose if the French Revolutional Calendar had been in use in Lousiana in 1800-1803 and on 1999.01.19 Lance Latham told the members of the Calendar List (r1) that he had received an e-mail from Wiilbur E. Meneray (meneray@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu):

During the period in which the FRC was used in France, Louisiana was French for just three weeks (November 30-December 20, 1803). Prior to this French Interregnum, Louisiana had been Spanish since the 1760s, and the area became an American territory on December 20. I know of no reason to suspect that the FRC would have been used during the Spanish regime. The Frenchmen who arrived in 1803, however, brought it with them. When they set out from France to reclaim Louisiana, they had no way of knowing that Napoleon would sell Louisiana to the United States in April and that France would govern the province just for that three-week interregnum.

For an illustration of these points, see "A Guide to the Papers of Pierre Clement Laussat", ed. by Jon Kukla (New Orleans: Historic New Orleans Collection, 1993). (Laussat was the prefect Napoleon sent to govern Louisiana, before he decided to sell it.) The collection includes letters and documents generated during the Spanish period which bear Gregorian dates; those generated during and after the French Interregnum by Laussat bear FRC dates. The proclamations and such that Laussat issued, with FRC dates, pertained to the entire Louisiana Territory, but I have not seen evidence that its use was mandated; probably it was just assumed. I have no information on the extent to which the FRC might have spread beyond the New Orleans area.

That the French officers continued to use the FRC even after the transfer to the United States is suggested by FRC dates on two pamphlets printed in New Orleans in 1804: "Burthe, contre Laussat" by Andre de Burthe d'Annelet and "Blanque, en opposition a Burthe contre Laussat" by Jean-Paul Blanque. What about Hawaii?

John Harper (harper@msor.vuw.ac.nz), New Zealand (e14), has kindly sent me the following - with reference to Robert G. Schmitt and Doak C. Cox, "Hawaiian Time", The Hawaiian Journal of History, vol. 26 (1992) p. 207-225.:

Hawaiians' first non-Polynesian contact was Captain Cook's arrival in 1778. He was already using the Gregorian calendar, had sailed east from England, and did not lose a day. If the International Date Line had been in use in his time he would have treated Hawaii as being west of it. European settlers were still doing that in 1816, but Schmitt and Cox (see reference above) could find no record of when Hawaii decided it was east rather than west of the Date Line.

Schmitt & Cox said that the pre-contact Hawaiian calendar had 12 lunar months (sometimes 13 to keep the year in phase with the seasons). They also say that a letter dated March 3rd. 1810, probably drafted by Captain Spence of the Duke of Portland, was signed by Kamehameha I and sent to King George III of England, and that after 1820, when the first Protestant Mission schools opened, the newly literate Hawaiians quickly adopted Western dating. So - no last Julian Date. First Gregorian Date 1778.01.21. What about Germany?

The German Newspaper Die Zeit (20) brought in 1999 a story about the problems in the old Germany areas shortly after some areas had switched to the Gregorian calendar while the neighbour area kept the old Julian Calendar: ... Whoever wanted to arrive in the Catholic Bamberg on October 26, 1600, had to start out from the Protestant Erlangen already on October 15, although the journey to Bamberg was only a day trip, but there was a gap of ten calendar days.

....That Catholics wrote the 15th of a month when the Protestant calendar showed the 5th was not that bad. But the 15th of August was a holiday, Assumption of the Virgin Mary, for the Catholics, therefore it was not allowed to work on this day. Hence, it could happen - like on the 15th of August 1621 - that during an inspection a Bamberg official saw farmers working in the fields of the Bamberg village of Stepersdorf. The farmers came from Schwarzenbach and were subjects of Bayreuth or Nuremberg, hence Protestants. However their fields lay in the area of Stepersdorf, and that belonged to the Catholic Bamberg. The official therefore had taken their sickles and horses away. And the same could happen, vice-versa, on Protestant territory. What about Israel?

Amos Shapir (amos@nsof.co.il), Israel (e11), has kindly sent me the following: The official calendar in all state matters is the Jewish one. Of course, all documents are double-dated, but as far as I know the legal status of the Gregorian dates is "for convenience only".

The strange result is that bills are discussed in terms of Gregorian dates, and when formulated into laws are converted to Jewish dates; thus the Ministry of Transportation may issue a yearly edict that "all trucks should drive with their headlights turned on between 12 Heshvan and 14 Nisan, 5759 (1998.11.01 to 1999.03.31)", or the Ministry of Education announcing that "the next school year shall start on 20 Elul 5759 (1999.09.01)". This requires that such edicts be renewed each year with different Jewish dates!

Actually, the Gregorian calendar was in official use here by the British between 1917-1948 (Turkey ruled this area before that). Israel had inherited most of the British law, so Gregorian dates may still have some legal value. There is no specific date of conversion in 1917 - maybe the Gregorian calendar was introduced on 1917.03.01 (see Turkey in Scheme 1.3) - I seems the British just used the Gregorian date wherever they went, not caring much what the "natives" did about it.

The case of 1948 is more interesting. Israel had inherit the British custom that all laws become official only when published in the government's official announcement paper "The Palestine Gaxette" and published in English and Hebrew. In 1948 it was converted to just "The Official Newspaper" by Israel same format, except that the Israeli version did not have the English part.

The last British edict in the volume of 1984 is dated April 25; the net one is Israel's declaration of independence, dated 5 lyar, 5708 (1948.05.14 GR). All subsequent laws in the book since then are double dated. Many laws in this volume refer to a law called "The Rules of Order of Government " which was probably enacted by the Israeli government to provide legal continuity in the interim period between the UN decision of November 29, 1947 and the official end of the British Mandate over Palestine on May 5, 1948. What about Lithuania?

The Gregorian or New Style Calendar was introduced in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by Steponas Batoras, Grand Duke of Lithuania on 21 January 1584, soon after the calendar reform of Pope Gregory XIII, and replaced the prevailing Julian or Old Style Calendar (9). When Russia, which still maintained the Julian Calendar, in 1795 took control of the main part of Lithuania (Provinces Vilna, Grodno, Kovno, Mohilev, Vitebsk and Minsk (11)), the Julian calendar was reinstated by the Czar administration on 1 January 1800. The Gregorian calendar was still in force in the southern Lithuania, the region called Uznemune or Suduva as it in 1795 was given to the German Prussia. Suduva became a part of the Grand Duchy of Warszawa in 1807 (11) which from 1814 was controlled by the Russians. The Gregorian calendar was allowed to remain even after the Russians took over the region and in 1867 created the administrative province of Suvalkai (9). Thus, in Lithuania from 1800 to 1915, two calendars were in force. The dividing line was the Nemunas river. The Gregorian calendar was finally introduced throughout the country during World War I when the Germans occupied Lithuania. The last Julian day in Lithuania was 15 November 1915 and the first Gregorian day was 29 November 1915 (9). What about Russia?

In the old days Russia used the Byzantine calendar which counted years from the "creation of the world" in the year of 5509 BC (JU). In the year of 7208 AD (1699 JU) the Russian Empiror, Peter I Alexejevitsch (Peter the Great) announced the adoption of the Julian calendar and that the nearest 1 Januar will be 1 Januar 1700 JU and the Julian calendar remained in use until the revolution in 1918 (3). Even different parts of Russia changed from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar on different times during and after the revolution most sources refer to the change in February 1918 where 31 January 1918 JU, was succeeded by 14 February 1918 GR (4). This law was signed on 26 Januar 1918 JU (17).

In 1918 the Soviets were in the middle of a civil war. The "White" forces continued to use the Julian Calendar after the Soviets changed to the Gregorian calendar, so it was mostly a matter of who controlled what territory at a particular date. At least the new law which introduced the Gregorian calendar from 14 February 1918 GR was valid for St Petersburgh and Moscow (17).

At that time the capital of Kolchak's republic was initially Omsk and the collection of his laws was published on 31 October 1918 JU. This collection includes a law about introducing the Gregorian calendar from 14 October 1918 GR (17).

The last area of Russia to make the change was the Far East in 1920. This was after Kolchak's forces had been defeated and the Far Eastern Republic was set up under Soviet control (e7).

You should also be aware that various areas changed hands several times during the civil war. In Ukraine for example, the civil war went back and forth, and Kiev changed hands something like 16 different times during the civil war (e7). I am sure that the postal clerks did not always bother to change their date stamps. As you can read in various sources the Soviet Union made an attempt to introduce a revolutionary calendar, like the French Revolutionary Calendar, in 1923 (w6) but you must know that it never came into effect (4, 16).

Later, in 1929, they introduced some very strange "workers' weeks" during the period between 1929-1940. The introduction of these weeks can be seen from time to time in the literature as "a change in calendar in the Soviet Union" - but this is wrong as it was not an attempt to change the public use of the Gregorian Calendar. Actually "workers' week" is a literal translation of a Russian phrase which means "the number of business days in the week" - so the Russian weeks was 7 days long (17).

At first the Soviets introduced a five-day "workers' week" and later on a six-day "workers' week". I should emphasize that these strange weeks ONLY were introduced to industry and had no connection with the Gregorian Calendar in use in the Soviet Union in this period. The only reason for these "workers' weeks" was to increase production and only plants in Russia were involved in these special "workers' weeks" (16). According to this reference there were at one time about 50 different schedules for workers in production plants - very chaotic, of course. So you would not expect to find any letters from Russia with postmarks which reflect these special "workers' weeks". Analyzing Russian Postmarks

First, Russian collectors usually use the rule of thumb that, in the 19th century (from 1 March 1800 JU through 28 February 1900 JU), Russian Julian dates are 12 days before the Gregorian dates. In the 20th century (from 1 March 1900 through 28 February 2000 JU) the Julian dates are 13 days behind. (There was a difference of 11 days in the 18th century, but there is not very much 18th century Russian mail around. :)

So, this means that if you have a Russian letter postmarked/dated on 31 January 1918 you just subtract a multiple of 28 from the year 1918 so you end up with a year you can find in the Julian part of Scheme 2. For example 1918-10*28=1638. At the same line as 1638 you find the Month Adding Number for January to be 0 and 31+0=31 which in Scheme 3 stands on the same line as Wednesday! That is still simple!

