How can we take you seriously, Mitch, after the bombshell you dropped last Saturday? You hate Pink Floyd? What are ye....a COMMIE? HAHAHA.

Hey, I didn't say I hated Pink Floyd. Just most of their albums.

Details!

Mitch: You have to do this!! It could sweep the nation!

Borodino doesn't do that much for me, sorry. The problem is that its significance is only in that the French didn't win big a enough victory to meet their strategic objectives, though they did win the battle. It would be sort of like celebrating the battle of Smolensk in 1941.

Now Leipzig, 16-19 October, 1813 could be a good excuse for a week-long party, if you want a Napoleonic theme. It has the advantage that nearly everybody was there, giving you more choices in celebration fun. And it marked the end of the real Napoleonic French army.

Or maybe Breitenfeld, 17 September, 1631, without which Europe would have developed in an entirely different direction.

Or if you'd rather celebrate the Swedes losing than winning, maybe the Battle of Poltava, which marked the end of the Swedish empire and rise of the Russian empire -- not my choice, but hey. That has the advantage that you could celebrate twice, on June 28 (the date of the battle in the old calendar) and July 8 (the date in the new calendar).

Still, I suppose Borodino is as good an excuse as Cinco de Mayo, though that is faint praise indeed.

Doug,

It's not supposed to be purely history-based. In keeping with the parallel with Ulysses, the whole thing is a "War and Peace" reference - and Borodino is an event of immense importance in the book.

In short - it's a Literature major party, not a History major party.

And it's an excuse to hang out at Moscow on the Hill, on Selby, on a beautiful fall evening. Or, for the evening, "Moskva Na Gora".

...and listen to the 1812 overture -- I understand (and understood).

But Russian literature has never done much for me (I'd apologize, but I don't feel especially bad, sorry*), and the underlying reason would distract me. It's hard to get worked up for, "Woo hoo, we didn't lose as badly as we could have!"

I still think that a four-day** "Battle of Nations" party that travelled from one ethnic establishment to another could be at least as attractive, though perhaps louder. My opinion doesn't matter much, though, since I'm unlikely to be in either NYC or Mpls this fall, more's the pity.

*I suppose that's a sort of meta-apology; perhaps that will suffice.

** Or longer, the 16 of October is a Sunday this year, so the party would end on Wednesday, then the party remembering the celebration of the victory could last through the weekend.