Father’s Day in Belarus Date in the current year: October 21, 2024

Like many similar holidays, modern Father’s Day originated in the United States. It was inspired by Mother’s Day, created by Anna Jarvis to honor the memory of her late mother and celebrate mothers and motherhood. The first official Mother’s Day celebration took place on May 10, 1908 in Grafton, West Virginia.

About a year later, Sonora Smart Dodd from Spokane, Washington heard a church sermon mentioning the newly created Mother’s Day. The daughter of a widower who raised six children as a single father, she felt that fathers and fatherhood needed recognition as well. Dodd reached out to the Spokane Ministerial Alliance and suggested to designate June 5 (her father’s birthday) as Father’s Day. The Alliance agreed that such a holiday was needed, but chose the third Sunday of June as its date.

The inaugural celebration of Father’s Day was held on June 19, 1910. Although the holiday didn’t become popular right away, the celebration eventually spread across the nation. Fathers Day had been celebrated unofficially for over six decades until it was designated as a permanent national holiday by President Richard Nixon in 1972.

Since the emergence of Father’s Day in the United States, a lot of countries have adopted the holiday as well. Many of them also celebrate it on the third Sunday of June, but some countries have chosen other dates because of their special significance or for other reasons. The countries of the former Soviet Union were among the last to embrace the celebration of Father’s Day because Defender of the Fatherland Day, celebrated on February 23 to commemorate the creation of the Red Army, played essentially the same role in the USSR: it was regarded as the holiday of all men, including fathers.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many of the former Soviet republics finally adopted Father’s Day. Some, like Ukraine, decided to celebrate it on the third Sunday of June, while others (Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, etc.) chose their own dates. Belarus was one of the last ex-Soviet countries to start celebrating Father’s Day. The holiday was established by President Alexander Lukashenko in June 2022 and celebrated for the first time on October 21, 2022.

It was decided to celebrate Father’s Day on October 21 for a reason. Mother’s Day has been celebrated in Belarus on October 14 for many years, and designating October 21 as Father’s Day created the opportunity to observe the week between the two holidays as Parents’ Week to emphasize the importance of both parents in children’s lives.

Father’s Day in Belarus is marked by special events and activities that are designed to highlight the role of fathers in child rearing, raise awareness of the importance of preserving traditional family values, and contribute to the implementation of the state family policy. They include various contests and competitions, forums and seminars, charity events, concerts, and more.