Festival of the Two-Thousand-Year Republic
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The Festival of the Two-Thousand-Year Republic was a public celebration held in 20 TT on the island today known as La Rossa, marking the age of the unified nation, and held soon after the third re-election of Lorenzo Minestrici di Mineria as Dux. While the festival's name tends not to be changed in translation, it is to be noted that it occurred only 1024 years after the unification of the island (owing to La Rossa's octal numeral system). Nearing the end of the height of the Rossan Silver Age, the celebration surrounded a six-day marching parade, accompanied by the Dux, who held patriotic speeches across the nation. The procession traveled across all of the nation's city-provinces, spending a day in each before moving on to the following one.
Events
Beginning in Mineria, the place of birth and center of rule of Dux Minestrici at the time, the parade marched through the historical city core, making several circles around the Minerian Stone, an ancient legal codex marked on a dark stone pillar. Carried on a large, rolling platform, the Dux held celebratory speeches across the city, all while accompanied by a number of his personal guards, the Rossan Moschettieri. Expected by major crowds, the festival saw the opening of a great number of temporary concession and souvenir stands, selling often low-quality memorabilia commemorating the occasion. In search of publicity for the recently completed project, the live reading of speeches during the occasion was decided on becoming Radio La Rossa's first public transmission, available to be heard across the nation through publicly placed radio receivers and speakers.
Following sunset, the parade and the accompanying Moschettieri would board a large vessel prepared for the occasion, using it to rest as travel began around the coastline of the island. Following a clockwise route, the celebrations proceeded in Buglio, before moving to the west coast, and finally ending in Lorma. With the voyages becoming increasingly demanding due to poor weather, and the several hours of marching necessary each day in heavy ceremonial outfits, several instances of soldiers fainting have been reported, with some sustaining varying degrees of injury due to trampling, and a single death reported.
An apparent plot to assassinate the Dux during the procession by a group of radicals was unraveled days prior to the event, leading to heightened security throughout after several arrests have been made.
Significance
Although nowadays the date of the Rossan unification is considered to be the birthplace of the Republic, the vague circumstances surrounding the nation's central institutions have for long made the origins of the shared Rossan identity difficult to define. Prior to the Second Calming, there stood no concept of shared national identity, and the Republic, strangely, remained nameless for centuries, and the name of La Rossa was applied only retroactively. For several thousand years, the Rossan city-states governed themselves independently, and regional identity remained strong even after unification. For several hundred years, the Dux held limited and precarious power, as the city-provinces remained de facto independent in almost every matter. A clear separation between independent city-states and a single nation remained difficult to define, made no easier by the continuous changes to the balance of power over the years.
The celebration of the Festival aimed to establish continuity surrounding the Republic's existence in the minds of the wider public, a narrative that has come to be almost universally accepted. Even as popular revolutions, power grabs, and radical changes to the fundamental laws of the nation continued to rock the island, the nation found itself centered around an uninterrupted lineage established in 1044 TT with the reserved reign of Dux Giuseppe Giannone di Salino. Although the island has greatly changed, a united image began to form, replacing reality with a simpler version of itself. Although not originally envisaged as a Republic, nor arguably even a unified nation as such, it had become just that - even if history changed for it.