The Subject of Holodomor in the Ukrainian Artistic Space

The Great Famine (Holodomor) is man-made famine that convulsed the Soviet republic of Ukraine in the 1930s. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government. The article aims to highlight specific historical, cultural and social conditions that contributed to the dynamics of the Holodomor theme in music. It focuses especially on the musical compositions of this historical tragedy performed at the Kyiv Music Fest Competition. We can observe the linguistic and musical semantics of the opus of tragic imagery, along with the ethnic motifs of the Ukrainian cultural space, including musical rhetorical figures of the Baroque period, Christian symbolism of suffering and salvation, infernal stylistics.

From the Magic Circle into the Great Famine

Yuan-tsung awaited her fate, sure that it would be the same as that of her immediate boss, Director Wang, who had been driven to suicide, but Jack came to her rescue. They reconciled and got married in 1958. She lived a privileged life in his “magic circle,” which, up to that time, was untouched by either purges or famines. But in that magic circle, she watched with terror and apathy as the disastrous Great Leap Forward and the ensuing Great Famine unfolded. Feeling it morally wrong that she did not suffer with the others, she volunteered in 1960, the worst famine year, to go to a famine-devastated rural area, the Red Flag People’s Commune. To survive, she had to hunt for food like the other villagers.

Aftershock: CEO Great Famine Experience and Stock Price Crash Risk

This study examines the effect of CEOs’ early-life traumatic experience on firm-specific stock price crash risk. Drawing on the idea of natural experiments, we take the Great Famine in China as an external traumatic event which cannot be selected or controlled by human. The analysis points out that compensation psychology and irrational defense psychology after the trauma of Great Famine are important factors that cause CEOs to hoard bad news. Based on a large sample of Chinese companies from 2007 to 2017, we find evidence that CEOs who experienced the Great Famine during early-life tend to hoard bad news, which result in higher stock price crash risk. The more severe and prolonged the Great Famine that the CEOs experienced, the greater the effect of this traumatic experience. CEOs decision-making power enhances the adverse effect of CEOs’ early-life traumatic experiences on crash risk. Findings of this study contributes to the literature by providing a new explanation for the stock price crash risk, which is of great significance for the sustained and healthy development of capital markets.

New Zealand in Great Famine Era Irish politics: The strange case of A Narrative of the Sufferings of Maria Bennett

A Narrative of the Sufferings of Maria Bennett, a crudely printed, eight-page pamphlet, was published in Dublin in spring 1846. It has been interpreted as an early fiction concerning New Zealand, or alternatively as a New Zealand ‘captivity narrative’, possibly based on the author’s own experiences. Against these readings, it is argued here that Maria Bennett, more concerned with Ireland than New Zealand, is a piece of pro-British propaganda hurried out in connection with the British Government’s ‘Protection of Life (Ireland) Bill’ – generally referred to simply as the ‘Coercion Bill’ – first debated on 23 February 1846. The Great Famine had begun with the substantial failure of Ireland’s staple potato crop in autumn 1845. This led to an increase in lawlessness, and the Government planned to combine its relief measures with draconian new security regulations. The story of Maria Bennett, a fictional young Irishwoman transported to Australia but shipwrecked in New Zealand, was designed to advertise the humanity of British law. Having escaped from the Māori, she manages to get to London, where she is pardoned by Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, the man responsible for the Coercion Bill. New Zealand, imagined at the very beginning of the British colonial era, functions in the text as a dark analogy to Ireland, a sort of pristine example of the ‘savage’ conditions making British rule necessary and desirable in the first place. A hungry, lawless Ireland could descend to that level of uncivilization, unless, the propagandist urges, it accepts more British law.

The Church Ascendant, 1831–1967

In the latter half of the eighteenth and early decades of the nineteenth century the priests’ leadership role in Ireland increased, aided by the relaxation of the Penal Laws and the eventual granting of Catholic Emancipation throughout the United Kingdom in 1829. Concurrently, a new generation of reforming bishops shook off the approach of caution of their predecessors towards government and became increasingly assertive about Catholic interests, including in education. That assertiveness is central in the considerations of this chapter. Developments in relation to the role of the Catholic Church (the Church) in Irish society from the decades prior to the Great Famine of 1845–48 are outlined. Relations between the Church and the State on education from the establishment of the Irish National School System in 1831 to the advent of national independence in 1922 are then examined. In the third section the activity of ‘the triumphalist Church in Ireland’ for the period from 1922 to the introduction of ‘free second-level education’ in 1967 is detailed.

Belozersk Monasteries in Crisis Years (1570s – 1610s)

Introduction. The article examines the situation of the monasteries of the Belozersk region in the last quarter of the 16th century – the first decade of the 17th century: regional manifestation of crisis phenomena, the reasons for their occurrence, the degree of influence of individual factors (epidemic, famine, foreign invasion). Methods and materials. The topic is disclosed using the methods of historical research (analysis, synthesis, external and internal criticism of documents). The source base was made up of acts and monastic business books, including inventory of property. Analysis. In the last quarter of the 16th century – the first decade of the 17th century the Russian state was going through a deep crisis, which was observed in all aspects of the life of Russian society: political, dynastic, economic and social; it was intensified by the great famine of 1601–1603. During these years monasteries remained centers of economic stability, providing the brethren, servants, ministers and beggars with the necessary products and household items. In the years of famine, grain from the monastic granaries was “loaned” to the peasants for consumption and sowing. The devastation of the monastic economy and the physical destruction of the population began in the Time of Troubles. As a result, the authors came to the following conclusions: the crisis of the last quarter of the 16th century and the Great Famine of the early 17th century did not lead to degradation and disruption of the traditional way of life in the region; the destruction of Belozersk monasteries begins in 1612 and continues until 1618; only the Kirillov Monastery, headed by Abbot Matthew, was able to organize the defense and protect the fortress, preserving the Cyril’s heritage from the Polish-Cossack plunder.

Re-Imagining Ireland’s Early Modern Past during the Later Nineteenth Century

The Great Famine provided a stimulus to the writing of history, not least because it eroded the credibility both of British rule in Ireland, and of Irish landowners. The new interpretations can be characterized as follows. The authors of a Catholic narrative wanted the Catholic nation that had emerged from suffering to be treated as an equal with the English and Scottish nations within a shared British monarchy. Militant nationalist historians cherished memories of Catholic sufferings in the hope that these would foment popular ‘disaffection’ and further revolutionary action. Moderate Unionist historians acknowledged the unjust treatment of the Irish in the past and detailed this to encourage the present government to promote reform that would elicit loyalty. Hard-line Unionist historians also faulted past British rule. Their concern, however, was that governments had not stuck rigidly to stern measures that would have produced stability. They believed that stability might still be achieved if the present government avoided conciliation.