Hard Life Research Articles

Why Do People Think Individuals in Poverty Are Less Vulnerable to Harm?: Testing the Role of Intuitions About Adaptation.

People often falsely believe that individuals from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are less harmed than those from higher SES backgrounds by a wide range of negative events. We report three studies (total N = 1,625) that provide evidence that this "thick skin bias" emerges at least in part because people overgeneralize otherwise accurate intuitions about adaptation. Across studies, participants accurately intuited that people adapt to psychophysical experiences (e.g., brightness, weight, and volume) but also inaccurately intuited that people similarly adapt to life hardships that actually tend to exacerbate the harm of future negative events. Experimentally decreasing the salience of psychophysical adaptation intuitions reduced the thick skin bias, suggesting a causal link between these adaptation intuitions and the belief that people in poverty are less vulnerable to harm and underlining the importance of studying how biased beliefs about the effects of poverty may perpetuate inequality.

Importing Arcadia into 18th‐century Madras: Poetics of the contact zone and the politics of genre in Eyles Irwin's Saint Thomas's Mount

AbstractEyles Irwin (1751–1817), an East India Company official who spent much of his life in the British settlement of Fort St. George, Madras, was one of the earliest practitioners of anglophone belles lettres in the Indian subcontinent, and his writings predate the development of a robust culture of English‐language literary composition in the colony by quite a few years. The scant scholarly attention he has received belies his importance as an anticipator of the momentous literary‐historical processes that would transform India's public sphere in the 19th century. This essay offers a contextual reading of Saint Thomas's Mount (1774), his earliest extant poem, which is avowedly modelled on canonical English topographical poems like Alexander Pope's Windsor‐Forest (1713) and makes use of a host of neoclassical conventions, but which also differs from them in terms of the kind of landscape that is represented (Irwin's is a tropical landscape, with abundant mangoes, palms, and Oriental fauna, unlike Pope's pleasant, idyllic British park). However, Irwin's target readership being chiefly metropolitan, he contends with the difficulty of highlighting India's irreducible foreignness while simultaneously trying to ensure that readers in London do not find the Oriental descriptions too alien, incredible, and unrelatable. The authorial strategies he adopts to navigate this difficulty constitute the focus of the first part of the essay. The second (and final) part seeks to shed light on his hybrid, hyphenated identity as an Indian‐born Irish poet, and on his perception of himself as somehow fundamentally unlike those Britons who never ventured beyond the geographical confines of Europe, let alone setting down roots in places on the very fringes of the British empire. The affiliative bonds he forges with expatriate colonial officials living in and confronting the hardships of life in the monsoonal tropics mark him as a member of the steadily growing community of Anglo‐Indians in the Indian subcontinent. While noting the shifting connotations of the term ‘Anglo‐Indian’ in the 18th and 19th centuries, this essay will also examine the implications of identifying Irwin as a member of this initially amorphous but steadily growing community.

Reaching Out-of-school Adolescent Girls and Young Women at Risk for HIV Through Their Social Networks.

Out-of-school adolescent girls/young women (AGYW) in Africa are at increased risk for HIV and are underserved by HIV prevention interventions. Identifying social networks of out-of-school AGYW may be a strategic approach for reaching them. A sequential mixed methods study design was used. The PLACE (Priorities for Local AIDS Control Efforts) methodology, implemented in one ward of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, identified 69 networks of AGYW. We randomly selected 28 networks and conducted surveys and network assessments with 80.9% (n = 310) of the members. On average, the networks consisted of 13.7 members, and had a density of 0.65 and a transitivity of 0.80, indicating high cohesion. The networks were mostly female (92%). On average, 67% of network membership were AGYW aged 15-24 years, of whom 70% were out-of-school and 67% were sexually active. Among sexually active AGYW aged 15-24, self-reported HIV seropositivity was 12.2%. We then conducted focus group discussions with 6 purposively selected networks. AGYW described their networks as sources of support and advice. Social norms supported AGYW engaging in transactional sex to alleviate life's hardships; it was the easiest way to earn income without "sweating". AGYW discussed IPV as a common experience, and social norms stigmatized AGYWs' use of condoms. AGYW were largely unaware of pre-exposure prophylaxis. The self-reported HIV prevalence rates of this cohort were higher than national averages, suggesting we tapped into high-risk networks. Social norms promoted transactional and unprotected sex. Social networks are an acceptable channel for HIV prevention intervention delivery to out-of-school AGYW.

Class Transfuge in Annie Ernauxs A Mans Place

Class Transfuge in Annie Ernauxs A Mans Place

Resilience and Disaster: Flexible Adaptation in the Face of Uncertain Threat.

Disasters cause sweeping damage, hardship, and loss of life. In this article, we first consider the dominant psychological approach to disasters and its narrow focus on psychopathology (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder). We then review research on a broader approach that has identified heterogeneous, highly replicable trajectories of outcome, the most common being stable mental health or resilience. We review trajectory research for different types of disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, we consider correlates of the resilience trajectory and note their paradoxically limited ability to predict future resilient outcomes. Research using machine learning algorithms improved prediction but has not yet illuminated the mechanism behind resilient adaptation. To that end, we propose a more direct psychological explanation for resilience based on research on the motivational and mechanistic components of regulatory flexibility. Finally, we consider how future research might leverage new computational approaches to better capture regulatory flexibility in real time.

The importance of relationship maintenance in marriage at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT The theory of resilience and relational load (TRRL) was used to understand the disparate impact of COVID-19 on married individuals. We hypothesized that women and people of color would experience greater stress, more conflict with their marital partners, and express more anger over time due to the increased financial hardship and additional stressors of work-family life during COVID-19. Married individuals (N = 3601 at T1) completed online surveys at four time points from April to June 2020. We found few sex and racial differences. Across all groups, financial hardship at T1 was positively associated with stress the following month, which predicted conflict and anger expression over time. Moreover, relationship maintenance counteracted the effect of financial hardship on stress, conflict, and anger.

Internal Education Stakeholders’ Views on Parents Involvement in Public Secondary Schools’ Affairs in KilosaDistrict in Morogoro Region

Within contemporary society,parents’ involvement in public school affairsis achallengedue to various factors. The present study sought to explore the internal educationstakeholders’ views on parentinvolvement in public secondary schools’ affairs. Specifically, the study aimed to: (i) assess the levels of parents’ awareness of involvement in school matters and (ii) explore factors inhibiting parental involvement in schoolaffairs. The study was conducted at Kisanga secondary school in Kilosa District. It adopted a mixed research approach with the convergent parallel design.It involved 110 participants who were selected through purposive andsimple random samplingtechniques. Data were collected through semi-structured interview guide, structured questionnaires and focus group discussion. The findings showedthat parents’ involvementin school affairs was poordespite the fact that they were aware of theschool meetings and other eventsschedules.The study further revealed that time limitations,variedperceptionstowards teachers, life hardship, lack of awareness on the education policy and parents’ negligence were factors responsible forpoor parents’involvement in public secondary schools’ affairs. Based on these findings, the study concludesthat the government and non-government organisations shouldoffer community education as a mitigation approach for effective parents’ involvement in public secondary schools’ affairs.Lastly,the study recommended to the government of Tanzania to collaborate with other partners through community education to create awareness to every individual citizen on the importance of parents’involvement in school affairs. Keywords:Parent, parents’ involvement, school affairs, stakeholders.

Улбашланы Ахмадияны чыгъармачылыгъында жашау кертилик

The article examines the literary heritage of one of the founders of professional Balkarian litera-ture, the poet and writer Akhmadia Ulbashev (1905–1965), his traces the stages of life and creativ-ity. Albeit the fate of A. Ulbashev developed dramatically (in 1935, he was arrested and exiled to Kolyma for 20 years on a false denunciation) he reacted sensitive and bold to the difficult circum-stances of life and tragic collisions of the historical era. In his work, a mirror reflection of the pic-ture of the restless time in which he lived was found. The main object of the analysis is his collec-tion of poems “Cherek” (“River”), perceived by the astute reader as a confession about the life of the “punished” author. The title of the book is symbolic: a person’s life is like a river, which “making its way through steep mountains, opens a wide road for itself” (“Chyngyl kayalany talap, zhyryp, // Kesine keng zhol achkhancha ...”). The poet’s work reveals the depth of philosophical reflections on the meaning of life, good and evil, death, freedom, the fate of the people. As seen from the contents of the collection, the thematic range of A.Ulbashev’s lyrics is wide: poems about the fate of the people (“Mingi Tau” (“Elbrus”), “Ullu palakh” (“Big Trouble”)), the nature of the native land (“Chyrpyla” (“Bushes”), “Shaudan” (“Spring”), “Tabiygat” (“Nature”) alternate with philosophical (“Kyadar” (Fate"), “Otun” (“Firewood”), “Sokur kel” (“Blind soul”), “Cherek” (“River”), “Mounds of kimdi?” (“Who is happy”?)) and love lyrics (“Meni syugenim” (“My be-loved”), “Baldyrgan” (“Anis”)). In several works (“Katyn” (“Woman”), “Zhashlag” (“Guys”), “Adam” (“Man”), “Mytyrny zharsiuu” (“The Suffering of the lazy”)) moral issues are being actu-alized. In fables written in the genre (“Beryu” (“Wolf”), “Oyumsuz” (“Unreasonable”), “Tulkyu blah adak” (“Fox and Rooster”), “Kishtik” (“Cat”) and fairy tales (“Mamai blah emegenle” (Mamai and the Monster"), “Indian zhomak” (“Indian fairy tale”)) human vices are exposed. Many of A. Ulbashev’s poetic works are full of aphorisms. The two-lines, capacious in meaning, convey the essence of the author’s thought, containing everyday folk wisdom. The vers-es “Sabiy” (“Child”), “Kiyim” (“Clothes”), etc. abound with moralizing sayings. The central place in the poet’s creative arsenal is occupied by the autobiographical poem “Aliy” (1939-1956), the prototype of the main character of which is the author himself, who survived the unbearable hard-ships of exile life on Kolyma. It reveals the bitter truth of life, praises the unshakable courage, the strength of the hero’s spirit in a distant Siberian exile. The article also examines the writer’s sto-ries (“Seyir uchuu” (“Interesting flight”), “Ege ana” (“Stepmother”)), identifies thematic and ar-tistic features of the works. Because of the research, A. Ulbashev’s persistent striving in his work for a truthful reproduction of reality is noted, which contributed to a deep realism in the artistic coverage of the dramatic fate of a person / people. The work uses historical, comparative methods, the method of literary analysis.

The Role of the First Lady in Public Diplomacy since the Founding of the Republic of China

Governments around the world attach great importance to first lady diplomacy since it is a crucial form of public diplomacy. When first ladies are now playing an increasingly prominent role in diplomacy, a relevant study in China is yet to be conducted. Therefore this paper aims to analyze the role of the first lady in Chinas public diplomacy based on historical facts. Politics and gender equality were once the two major factors hindering the development of first lady diplomacy in the early days of the Peoples Republic of China until Mrs. Wang Guangmei won a good reputation for China with her demeanor and competence during her debut on the international stage in 1963. Her visit not only contributed to Chinas breakthrough in ideology but also brought a wisp of freshness to her compatriots, who were then living a hard life. First lady diplomacy in China embraced its new era upon Mrs. Peng Liyuans first overseas visit in 2013, during which Mrs. Peng gave full play to the great influence of the first lady: not only was she an aspiring promoter of Chinese brands and culture, but also an active participant in public welfare. Her musical background, in the meantime, adds to the shaping of Chinas national image in a gentle way.

College Graduates' Negative Life Experiences, Coping Strategies and Enlightenment During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study in China.

The current study aimed to explore comprehensively college graduates' negative life experiences, coping strategies, and enlightenment in a qualitative way. This was a qualitative study. Purposeful sampling was used to select 31 college graduates majoring in various subjects from a Chinese University. The one-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted online through Tencent QQ/WeChat and were recorded and transcribed verbatim. A phenomenological approach was used to guide this research in the data collection and analysis. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes across interviews around their negative life experiences, coping strategies, and enlightenment. College graduates' negative life experiences were mainly focused on three aspects: negative work experience (eg, lack of adaptation, busy schedule, low salary), negative personal life experience (eg, multiple pressure, psychological problems, the hardship of life), and negative social life experience (eg, the incomprehension of those around you, complex interpersonal relationship, social complexity). The coping strategies they used can be classified into two categories: emotion-focused strategies (eg, accepting reality, self-persuasion, keeping a positive attitude), and problem-focused strategies (eg, goal-setting, asking for help to solve the problem, persistence). As for life enlightenment, six themes emerged: accept life, strive to life, love life, cherish life, recognize life, and learn to live. College graduates' negative experiences came from multiple levels, and they use multiple coping strategies to deal with the challenges. Our results provide important guidance for researchers and policymakers to design effective and targeted intervention programs to improve college graduates' coping abilities in response to negative life experiences and help them better transition from school to work. Specifically, future research and intervention to promote college graduates' mental health should target various social-ecological levels, focus on promoting coping from an ecological perspective, as well as facilitate post-traumatic growth to help them grow from negative life experiences and cope positively.

Reinterpretation of American Dream in Willa Cather's My Antonia

This article examines American Dream in a different viewpoint from the traditional one. Throughout My Antonia, Cather sets up the contrast between those characters who achieve American Dream of material success and those whose sense of fulfillment relies neither on fame, fortune, nor even on the competitive drive. Cather most fully explores this idea in the contrast between Antonia and Jim Burden. While My Antonia's other characters, including Jim, have progressively lost their sense of purpose, Antonia has defied all the odds and has created the thriving farm and family she always wanted. She has achieved victory over her own hard early life and the forces of nature which made an immense struggle of farm life in Nebraska. Cather seems far more cautious about associating material success with self-fulfillment. Antonia is Cather's first protagonist who is not, by the standards of her era, a material success. As a Bohemian immigrant who comes to Nebraska, she brings the traditions and values of her native country to her new corner of the world, and finally, Antonia achieves a happy balance between what Cather sees as “American” and “Old World” values. Antonia shapes a New American Dream that does not rely on material success yet celebrates the wealth of opportunity in America for each individual to achieve personal goals.

Crossing the Bamboo Curtain: Occidentalism and the English Language in Cultural Revolution Memoirs

ABSTRACT In the late 1980s and 1990s, a stream of Cultural Revolution memoirs written by Chinese dissident writers became bestsellers in the U.S., the U.K., and other countries in the Anglosphere. Travelling through transnational circuits of exchange made possible by a multinational publishing industry, Cultural Revolution memoirs were promoted as authentic cultural productions that documented the hardships of life under Communism. This article situates the Anglophone Cultural Revolution memoir in a global Cold War framework. Drawing on theories of Occidentalism, I discuss how English language acquisition is invoked in Anglophone Cultural Revolution memoirs as a pathway towards achieving individual freedom. Through formalist readings, I demonstrate how two emblematic Cultural Revolution memoirs – Da Chen’s Colors of the Mountain and Jung Chang’s Wild Swans – establish their narrators as liberal subjects through the process of learning English, thereby elevating the central figure of the dissident who crosses the Bamboo Curtain and seeks a new life in the West.

Gaining distance learning effectiveness through mental health improvement during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of patience

Nowadays, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted communities' mental health worldwide. Therefore, studies on minimizing the pandemic's mental health impact are urgently needed. This study aimed to examine the role of patience on distance learners' mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. A correlational study was conducted involving a total of 330 university students of distance learners, and they were selected using stratified random sampling. The Patience Scale (PS-11) was used to measure interpersonal patience, life hardships patience, and daily hassles patience. The Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21) were used to measure mental health from the aspects of depression, anxiety, and stress. The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis and multiple regression. The study showed that life hardships and patience were predictors of reducing depression and anxiety. Besides that, life hardships patience and interpersonal patience were predictors of reducing stress, and the main contributing factor was life hardships patience. This study contributes to humanistic therapy theories and their practical implications. It also contributes to developing the national mental health policy strategy, Ministry of Health Malaysia, and Sustainable Development Goals 2030.

COLUMN GENRE IN AZERBAIJAN LITERATURE HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT

The feuilleton genre has a wide and very interesting history of development in Azerbaijani literature. What happened in the social and political life of the people, the weight of social processes, the difficulty of life, the problems caused by the war and the occupation made it a necessity in the writing style of the environment. The development of the periodical press and the hard realities of life necessitated the feuilleton as a form as the most concise and brilliant artistic example of social consciousness. It has created the necessary conditions for the timely investigation of specific areas of hard life truths. H. Zardabi, H. Vazirov, J. Mammadguluzade, N. Narimanov, U. Hajibeyli, H. I. Gasimov, A. Gamkusar, etc. it is impossible to study and research the rich creative activity of writers in isolation from the columnist's creativity. In general, the period of fiction, as well as column, comes to the press literally with the publication of "Akinchi" newspaper. "Akinchi" newspaper fought against formalism on a large scale in the world of literature and art in general. A typical example of this is clearly shown by the attitude towards religious - lamentation literature and other fields. Lamentism, which has no importance for the progress of the people, gives way to different approaches and special sensitivity is shown to its harmful aspects. All these and other problems are expressed in detail in the column.

Current Situation of Economic Life of Vietnamese Community in Cambodia: A Survey’s Results

The Vietnamese community in Cambodia is facing a difficult and hard life in all aspects, especially since the Cambodian Government issued and implemented Decree No. 129 in August 2017 on the revocation and cancellation of Cambodian administrative documents that Cambodia deemed abnormal holding and using by foreigners. Accordingly, most Vietnamese people live in Cambodia for a long time, even for five to six generations, have been affected by the confiscation of all documents proving their legal status in Cambodia. As results of the implementation of this Decree, more than 90% of people of Vietnamese origin are considered immigrants, so they hardly enjoy any rights. Because they do not have documents to prove their legal status, people of Vietnamese origin cannot own property and means of production, have difficulty in accessing jobs, and especially their children born in Cambodia cannot go to Cambodian schools.Besides, along with low education level, temporary life, no expertise, no capital and production means, a large percentage of Vietnamese people in Cambodia have extremely difficult lives. Their per capita income is much lower than the Cambodia’s national average. Many of them live in poverty and vulnerability.Based on the results of the survey conducted in Cambodia by the research team, this article examines and evaluates the current economic situation of the Vietnamese community in Cambodia. The findings strongly confirm the above assessment.

Treatments of the Noble Qur’an in supporting of Psychological Security to Face Calamities


 
 
 
 Allah Almighty revealed the Noble Qur’an to all mankind as a guide and put in it several verses that are keys to deal with life’s dilemmas and a way to escape from its trials and tribulations and guided us to methods of dealing psychologically and mentally with crises that could afflict us. This research includes some of the verses and explain their contains of educational and doctrinal guidelines that help us bear the hardships of life and be patient with its severity, so that we can enjoy great blessings in this life, after realizing the wisdom of its existence and our testing for it.
 
 
 

Relationship between Internet Use and Negative Affect

While positive emotions like happiness and life satisfaction have received great attention, how to eliminate negative affect is largely neglected. This study contributes to the literature by examining the relationship between Internet use and people’s negative affect. Unlike previous studies that consider only one indicator, we capture negative affect from different dimensions by considering loneliness, sadness, and life hardship. We employ an endogenous ordered probit model to address the selection bias of Internet use and analyze the 20,107 individual-level samples sourced from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies survey. The results show that Internet use significantly reduces people’s loneliness, sadness, and life hardship. We also find that studying online and watching short videos would increase people’s loneliness feeling and shopping online deepens people’s life hardship. In contrast, using WeChat significantly reduces sadness and life hardship. Our findings confirm that guiding people to use the Internet appropriately is necessary to reduce negative affect and improve the quality of their life.

My Patient, Teacher

My Patient, Teacher Marissa Blum I remember meeting Beatriz about 12 years ago when security was called to her office visit room by the fellow doctor-in-training who was seeing her. She was yelling loudly about her pain medications, causing a terrific commotion. I stepped in to relieve the fellow and tried to calm her down and move the visit along without anyone getting hurt or further upset. And from then on, Beatriz was moved to my schedule from the fellow's for her monthly visits for her knee pain and refills of fentanyl and oxycodone. She had terrible knees and walked with a cane, almost always accompanied by her son. At one point, she came to our clinic asking to be seen but couldn't, and then fell onto her knees and rolled onto her back in the wait-room, clutching and waiving her cane, expelling expletives and railing at anyone who wanted to help but denying them that privilege. It was as though she relished exposing her pain and a lifetime of hardship for all to confront. I came down from my office to talk with her and when I couldn't convince her to get up on her own, we called EMS to assist and they took her away in an ambulance. For the first few years, I recoiled seeing her name on my schedule each month. I knew I would have to endure a barrage of labile emotions and complaints not just about her constant pain and feelings of inadequacy of her pain medications, but also about her other doctors and how they don't respond to her, or about how the rest of her family shows no care for her. Initially, these visits were hard because they were unpredictable and Beatriz also had bipolar disorder and maybe borderline personality too. I never knew which type of Beatriz I would walk in to see: Angry, tearful, lamentful, and all of those faces were difficult for me. But we met every month for years. During those visits, which almost always were attended by her son, who quietly sat by to either gently rebuff or passively agree with her, I learned so much about her and her very hard life. She was left to raise two children alone, unskilled and ill with hepatitis C, which led to liver cancer, followed later by breast cancer. She chose not to pursue additional therapy for breast cancer, expressing a fatalistic view of her life and intimating she in some way deserved the ailments that she developed. She saw me for disabling knee and hip arthritis that took away her independence and ability to scale the outdoor steps to her second-floor apartment and required the assistance of her son to dress, bathe and care for her. Beatriz never knew this, and I didn't share [End Page 18] it with her, but on one of my early morning drives into North Philadelphia, I saw her on a sun-baked unfriendly street, struggling to move around with her walker. She had many reasons to be angry, and the 30 minutes I spent with her every month became a catharsis for her to unload all that she felt. During my medical training, I encountered hundreds of patients—mostly all in the hospital setting—who might be characterized as difficult and understandably; no one who is relegated to the hospital setting, acutely or chronically ill and requiring inpatient care, could possibly be in the best mood of their lives. Somehow, it was easier for me to care for patients in these snapshot encounters that I controlled. I dictated my time in the room and didn't necessarily have to encounter the same challenging patient longitudinally, which made certain encounters much easier to bear. I realize now I wasn't fully processing the burdens carried by these patients in a way that enabled me to be a compassionate and fully present physician to them. It was an adaptation to the fast-paced life of residency, where one just has to get the job done and move on to the next task without time to process or reflect on difficult patient interactions. This is a...

Homage to a Picture Bride

Homage to a Picture Bride Garrett Hongo (bio) When years were long with labor in the sugarfields,I sought a wife, at last, choosing her from a photograph.She was but fifteen, a shy child of a bridewrapped in faded kimono, as I likewise was wrapped in wind,a man of thirty, weathered by work in the green seasof cane, my savings finally enough to take my wedding vows. Before then, it was to the coming world that I made vowsto wrest a new life from the earth and leave the fieldsso I might cast my eyes without sorrow from mountains to the sea,never again to falsify who I was in a photographas though I were a clerk or a saddler, sheltered from the constant winds,the image I'd sent, a deception to my young bride. She was young but daily growing, my new bride.We stood on the pier and took our vows,and I led her to the North Shore, its mountains torn by winds,below them the rippling green fieldsof cane stretching all the way to the sea,a landscape no one would care to photograph. [End Page 328] Before we left, someone took a photograph—this laborer and downcast picture bridehalf his age at their dockside ceremony of vows—staged before a background of slate-gray seasand the small curls of waves tossed by winds,impassive faces resigned to a hard life in the canefields. We were destined never to leave the fields—my wife gave birth to a son we did not photographas, before he could cry, he was taken by the windthat came betrothed as his own promised bride,journeying from the Afterworld over storm-tossed seas,our mortal dreams of a better life all but disavowed. She herself died within a year of our vowsand so finally escaped the sugarfields,a ghost in flight, ha-alele-hana, over the dread seasthat never would be captured in a photograph,so that, ever after, only resolve would be my brideand my mourning cloak a coat of harsh winds. Only the wind knows my sorrows now, whatever vowsmy bride and I made are forever lost in the sugarfields,this photograph the one moment we lived apart from life's cold seas. [End Page 329] Garrett Hongo Garrett Hongo was born in Volcano, Hawai'i, and grew up in Los Angeles. His latest books are The Perfect Sound: a Memoir in Stereo and a forthcoming collection, The Ocean of Clouds: Poems. He is the recipient of the 2022 Aiken Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry, and he teaches at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Copyright © 2023 The University of the South

Listening to the Soviet Union’s “Silent” Majority: The Evasion of Labor Obligations on the Home Front, 1941–45

AbstractLarge‐scale evasion of the requirements of the law is a substantial part of the interaction between citizen and state under authoritarian regimes. Forced to exist within a coordinate grid established against their will, people routinely play games with the state with the goal of minimizing the hardships of life. Tactics of covert resistance are not necessarily politically motivated by conscious opposition to the regime. Instead, these are a matter of accommodation and survival. It is precisely these popular illegalities that, paradoxically, do not so much weaken a system intended to achieve full implementation of its instructions, but instead strengthen it to a certain degree. Evasion serves as a safeguard against social burnout, replete with unpredictable reactions born of desperation. This article examines practices of mass illegality via examples of evasion of labor obligations in the Soviet Union during the war with Nazi Germany. It analyzes instances that primarily involved peasants, especially women, who predominated in the Soviet rear areas after the men were conscripted into the army. This discriminated‐against and uneducated majority rarely enters historians’ field of vision, which concentrates on the diaries and memoirs of the educated, urban part of the Soviet population.