Kurban in the Context of the Gagauz Orthodox Identity: History and Modernity

In this article, the Kurban rite (animal sacrifice), which occupies an important place in the Gagauz calendar and family rituals, is analyzed through the prism of Orthodox identity. The form and content of various varieties of this rite are considered, as well as its role and significance in the ethnocultural code of the Gagauz people. The author especially dwells on the study of the qurban of the church, in which the elements of Christian-pagan syncretism are clearly manifested. Based on the analysis, it is concluded that over time, the Kurban rite among the Gagauz people acquired the form of a ritual institution and became an important component of Orthodox rituals. The fact that it has survived is not a small merit of the Orthodox clergy. The article provides information that in the second half of the 20th – early 21st centuries. As a result, the ritual acquired a more Christianized form, but, despite this, some of its archaic features continue to be preserved. It is emphasized that in the Gagauz folk-religious culture this form of sacrifice is associated with the Old Testament tradition – the Abrahamic sacrifice, the plot of which is widely represented in the Gagauz song folklore. It is concluded that both the ethnic component of the Gagauz Orthodoxy and their characteristic Balkan cultural and regional identity are clearly expressed in private and general holiday celebrations, of which Kurban is an integral part. In conclusion, it is noted that the Kurban rite continues to remain an important part of the Gagauz Orthodox rituals and identity, being an integral component of their ethnocultural code. This is evidenced by the degree of preservation of this institution of sacrifice and its significance in the religious and folk ideas of the Gagauz people.

Estimating Exposure Risk to Guide Behaviour During the SARS-COV2 Pandemic

The end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 was a challenging time for many countries in Europe, as the combination of colder weather, holiday celebrations, and the emergence of more transmissible virus variants conspired to create a perfect storm for virus transmission across the continent. At the same time lockdowns appeared to be less effective than they were earlier in the pandemic. In this paper we argue that one contributing factor is that existing ways of communicating risk—case numbers, test positivity rates, hospitalisations etc.—are difficult for individuals to translate into a level of personal risk, thereby limiting the ability of individuals to properly calibrate their own behaviour. We propose an new more direct measure of personal risk, exposure risk, to estimate the likelihood that an individual will come into contact with an infected person, and we argue that it can play an important role, alongside more conventional statistics, to help translate complex epidemiological data into a simple measure to guide pandemic behaviour. We describe how exposure risk can be calculated using existing data and infection prediction models, and use it to evaluate and compare the exposure risk associated with 39 European countries.

Social justice and cultural holiday celebrations in the early childhood curriculum: perceptions of early childhood educators

This qualitative study focuses on the celebration of cultural holidays in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings. There is little Canadian literature exploring how Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) perceive cultural holidays, social justice, and multiculturalism. In- depth interviews were conducted with five ECEs representing a range of professional experience in the Greater Toronto Area. Thematic analysis of the data yielded three themes: belonging, curriculum approaches, and systemic barriers. Participants identified gaps in training and professional development and made recommendations for future work in this area. There is substantial literature support for the participants’ views on the importance of social justice, the need to support and respect families, and increased knowledge about cultural holidays. The study suggests that ECEs need additional knowledge and resources in order to successfully implement socially just cultural holidays.

Social justice and cultural holiday celebrations in the early childhood curriculum: perceptions of early childhood educators

This qualitative study focuses on the celebration of cultural holidays in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings. There is little Canadian literature exploring how Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) perceive cultural holidays, social justice, and multiculturalism. In- depth interviews were conducted with five ECEs representing a range of professional experience in the Greater Toronto Area. Thematic analysis of the data yielded three themes: belonging, curriculum approaches, and systemic barriers. Participants identified gaps in training and professional development and made recommendations for future work in this area. There is substantial literature support for the participants’ views on the importance of social justice, the need to support and respect families, and increased knowledge about cultural holidays. The study suggests that ECEs need additional knowledge and resources in order to successfully implement socially just cultural holidays.

The IDEA Model as an Effective Instructional Crisis and Risk Communication Framework to Analyze the CDC’s Messages Aimed at Hispanics in the COVID-19 Era

This study explores, through a thematic analysis, the messages published in Spanish in the Holiday Celebrations and Small Gatherings [Celebraciones y pequeñas reuniones por las fiestas] section of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's website (CDC). To analyze these messages, this study used the IDEA model. The conclusions suggest CDC prioritized internalization and action messages over distribution and explanation in this section of the website. The conclusions also show that although the CDC incorporated all elements of the IDEA model in the messages, the information shared was a mere translation of the English version of the Holiday Celebrations and Small Gatherings section of the website, showing thus, that the messages did not seem to be created to appeal to Hispanics intentionally. Suggestions are offered to improve the communications delivered by the CDC to the Hispanic community in the United States.

“A Town with Two Names”: A Historical Oikonym in Modern Context (The Case of the Town of Pokrovsk/Engels)

The article uses the example of the town of Engels (Saratov Region) to explore the case of duplicate naming in the local usage, i.e. the use of the historical oikonym Pokrovsk (until 1931) and its derivatives along with the official name of the town or instead of it. The author showcases that in the local speech, the historical name of the town has become a living alternative used in almost every sphere except business and documentation. At the same time, there are some testimonies to the gradual demarcation of the language contexts associated with the old town name and its derivatives. Until the mid-1990s, the name Pokrovsk and the adjective pokrovskii were regarded nearly as equivalents to the corresponding official names. Currently, their use is confined to Russian Orthodox circles (due to the religious origins of the name Pokrovsk derived from Pokrov ‘the Intercession of the Theotokos’ — an Orthodox holiday). Apart from that, the derivatives with pokrovsk- component can occur in proper names, mainly of commercial (names of business entities and products) and cultural (names of holidays) types. Other usage cases refer to mass media or urban naming. Meanwhile, the demonym pokrovchane, which in the Soviet period was only limited to historical contexts, reclaimed its positions in the 1990s. Currently, it is widely used in the local press and everyday speech, being more popular than the formal variant engelsity (and even less frequent engelsites, engelstsy, engel(s)chane). The reason why pokrovchane proved more usable lies in both the inconsistency and variability of the Engels-based demonyms in the mid-20th and early 21st centuries. The author also addresses the case of “hybrid” naming with both old and new oikonyms combined: Pokrovsk-Engels (Engels-Pokrovsk) and their derivatives. The mentioned onyms are mainly used in local contexts (city’s holiday celebrations, cultural events, local history, etc.). The article was prepared under the RANEPA state assignment research program.

Bringing COVID-19 home for Christmas: a need for enhanced testing in healthcare institutions after the holidays

Festive gatherings this 2020 holiday season threaten to cause a surge in new cases of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Hospitals and long-term care facilities are key hotspots for COVID-19 outbreaks, and may be at elevated risk as patients and staff return from holiday celebrations in the community. Some settings and institutions have proposed fortified post-holiday testing regimes to mitigate this risk. We use an existing model to assess whether implementing a single round of post-holiday screening is sufficient to detect and manage holiday-associated spikes in COVID-19 introductions to the long-term care setting. We show that while testing early helps to detect cases prior to potential onward transmission, it likely to miss a substantial share of introductions owing to false negative test results, which are more probable early in infection. We propose a two-stage post-holiday testing regime as a means to maximize case detection and mitigate the risk of nosocomial COVID-19 outbreaks into the start of the new year. Whether all patients and staff should be screened, or only community-exposed patients, depends on available testing capacity: the former will be more effective, but also more resource-intensive.

Carols and Music Since 1900

This chapter defines and describes a core repertory of seventy-five Christmas songs that have been frequently recorded for popular consumption in the United States since 1900. Song titles in the repertory enjoy an enduring presence on the Billboard charts and on twenty-first-century streaming platforms. While traditional Christian carols from before 1900 survive in this repertory, secular popular songs introduced between 1942 and 1965 dominate. Christmas narratives, whether religious (birth of Jesus) or secular (arrival of Santa Claus; holiday celebrations set in cold weather), provide consistent points of reference for carol and song lyrics respectively. In some cases, Christmas songs have added new characters (Frosty the Snowman; the Little Drummer Boy) to a season centred on stories. Popular Christmas songs also explore the varied temporal nature of this holiday as event, season, and annual recurrence.

Commercialism and Consumerism

This chapter explores the role of commercialization and consumerism in creating the modern American Christmas. It begins with a theoretical discussion of the capitalist disenchantment narrative advanced by Max Weber and Charles Taylor, as well as the critiques of that storyline by scholars such as Leigh Schmidt. Arguing that the sacred and the commercial are intermingled in holiday celebrations, it traces the evolution of America’s Christmas from the 1600s to the present, beginning with pre-commercial folk celebrations (and non-celebrations), early forms of commercialization and consumerism, the emergence of mass-produced Christmas decorations, the modern department store, and the role of the mass media and popular culture. It concludes by discussing contemporary debates about holiday retailing and the ways that commercial Christmas celebrations sacralizes secular spaces.

Generating Content Increases Enjoyment by Immersing Consumers and Accelerating Perceived Time

Advances in technology, particularly smartphones, have unlocked new opportunities for consumers to generate content about experiences while they unfold (e.g., by texting, posting to social media, writing notes), and this behavior has become nearly ubiquitous. The present research examines the effects of generating content during ongoing experiences. Across nine studies, the authors show that generating content during an experience increases feelings of immersion and makes time feel like it is passing more quickly, which in turn enhances enjoyment of the experience. The authors investigate these effects across a broad array of experiences both inside and outside the lab that vary in duration from a few minutes to several hours, including positive and negative videos and real-life holiday celebrations. They conclude with several studies testing marketing interventions that increase content creation and find that consumers who are incentivized or motivated by social norms to generate content reap the same experiential benefits as those who create content organically. These findings illustrate how leveraging content creation to improve experiences can mutually benefit marketers and consumers.