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Eurydice – Poem by Emily Roy

This poem titled Eurydice by Emily Roy was the winner of the Open Junior Section of the 2023 New Zealand Poetry Society International Competition, which World History Encyclopedia was proud to sponsor this year.

Emily Roy is a 15 year-old student attending Columba College, Dunedin, New Zealand. She explains the inspiration behind her award-winning poem: “For me, Eurydice was inspired by the overlap between both modern and ancient women. Whether it’s 3000 years ago or yesterday, our stories and tragedies often revolve around the man and how it affects him. I wanted to focus on the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice while focusing on the betrayal Eurydice would’ve felt rather than the pain of Orpheus for his own mistake. I’m also an enormous Plath enthusiast, so echoes of her may be present if you look for them.”

The World History Encyclopedia team congratulates Emily on her well-deserved win!

Eurydice

Walk like you have to.
Life entrusted in the head
that wishes to turn.
Don’t look at me.
For when you look at me
you merely look through;
You watch me slip away before you.
Skeletal fingers clutch my sides
a boned corset that your gaze tightens.

There’s something about the crinkling folds
of your scripture face
that tells me you only noticed how my hair falls;
Snaked down on my left side,
when I was pale-faced;
a corpse in the grass.
And when you count your steps
on the railroad to hell
tell yourself it’s for me.

A snake.
Just in time to latch;
a winding scaled sandal
with a poisoned buckle.
Now you walk before me.
Suddenly it’s difficult to avert your eyes,
Suddenly my presence is limited;
Suddenly we are blind leading the mute.
You still cover your ears.
Face me.
And know the shock in my face
is not because you failed.
But your eyes met mine
for the first real time.

For more of Emily’s work, follow @emilyroynz and @erismusicnz (her band) on Instagram.

How This Pandemic Could Change the World

If you paid attention in history class, you may remember that the system of Feudalism in Europe broke down after the Black Death because of worker shortages caused by the high death toll. If you haven’t, you can read all about it here at World History Encyclopedia. We’re now living through another pandemic, which I believe also has the potential to change the face of society.

A while back Facebook presented me with an ad for Newfoundland and Labrador, telling me: Picture yourself working from here. #WorkRemoteNL Wait, what? This was new! Previously, I had seen ads for cities or regions vying for the attention of businesses, but never had I seen an ad asking educated high-income workers to move to a remote and rural place. We’ve seen so many new things during the pandemic, but I am wondering whether this ad could be emblematic of an inflection point in one of the overarching trends in history?

Since the agricultural revolution made concentrated urban centers possible in ancient Mesopotamia, urbanization has been an overarching trend in history. Until the end of the Early Modern Period, this process was moving at a snail’s pace: According to Our World in Data, in 1700 only around 5% of the world population lived in cities. Urbanization really gained momentum with the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s. By 1920 about half of the population in the United States lived in cities. At the time of writing in 2022, over 83% of the US population lives in urban areas. Worldwide, we now have around 56% of people living in cities.

Urbanization is a vicious – or virtuous – cycle depending on how you look at it. Large-scale industry (whether manual or of the service type) is only possible with a large enough workforce qualified for the job. As a result, urban areas attract industry and develop the infrastructure to support it which, in turn, attracts more people looking for work in the city. According to a 2019 McKinsey report, the top 25 cities of the United States will see the most job growth in the coming decades. In 2020, the Brookings Institution found that 90% of innovation sector employment in the United States was concentrated in just five coastal cities. The resulting income inequality has contributed to the rise of populism and is fuelling crises in democracies around the world.

Let us also consider automation, another historical trend. Also called the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, predominantly manual jobs are replaced by machines, while human workers increasingly gravitate towards office work in the service and creative industries. These jobs in the service and creative industries can largely be performed remotely, without ever having to show up in the office. With the pandemic we are already seeing a rise in wages for manual labour, which will have the added effect of making companies more likely to automate.

While at World History Encyclopedia we’ve always worked remotely across the globe, it took this pandemic to force many companies to realize that remote work is possible for their office workforce. Numerous tech companies have already started hiring remotely: Job interviews are conducted via video conference and new hires are shipped a computer in the mail and start working from home, without ever having to set foot in the office. A tech whiz-kid in rural Kansas no longer has to move to San Francisco to find a fulfilling and well-paying job; they can continue enjoying the country life while working their dream job. 

Just as with the First Industrial Revolution in the mid 1800s, this present situation could be an inflection point for the dominant trend in urbanization: With more companies hiring a remote workforce and a larger proportion of jobs being “remote-friendly”, we could see more highly-paid jobs outside urban centers. Such an inflection could, in time, slow down or inverse the wealth disparity between urban and rural areas, increase people’s quality of life, and even reduce the environmental impact of work due to less pollution caused by commuters. Whether this is my techno-utopian dream or it will actually come true, nobody can say right now. We also don’t know what ramifications such a change might have on society and mental health. In any case, I cannot shake the feeling that right now we’re witnessing a perfect storm of converging factors that have initiated a shift in the historical trajectory of human society.

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Why Study History? Russia Teaches a Lesson.

Why should we study history? We all have our personal reasons why we love history; some like reading exciting stories that can be stranger than fiction, others let their imaginations transport them to worlds gone by. There are many reasons for loving history, but in this article I want to explore why history actually matters in the here and now.

Unfortunately, that belief is not universal. Around the world, budgets for social studies and history in particular are cut, and the focus in curricula is shifted to more practical subjects, such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in universities, and English and mathematics in schools.

St. Sophia’s Cathedral, Novgorod by Людмила Ф-С (CC BY-SA)

Yet we have to look no further than the top headlines in current affairs to understand why history is extremely important as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can only be understood through the lens of history. The primary reason for Russia’s war is neither economic (as wars so often are) nor religious (as wars so often were). No, it is Putin’s belief that Ukraine is the cradle of Russian civilization and should not be an independent country… especially not one that aligns itself with Europe. We know very well now that apart from dynastic lineage, the Kievan Rus had very little relationship to modern Russia. In the thousand years since the Kievan Rus, Ukraine has been at the crossroads of Poland-Lithuania, Austria-Hungary and Russia. 

In the lead-up to the war, Vladimir Putin published a long and somewhat rambling historical essay where he places Russia in direct opposition to its western neighbours (who he blames for estranging Ukraine from Russia). The historian Serhii Ploky wrote that “the Soviet Union was created in 1922-1923 as a pseudo-federal rather than a unitary state precisely in order to accommodate Ukraine and Georgia, the two most independent-minded republics.” Ukraine’s independence has been a thorn in the Russian leaders’ side for a long time, but at the start of the Soviet Union, Lenin sided with the Ukrainians while Stalin was against it but went along anyway. Ukraine’s unique cultural mix was accepted as independent during Soviet times, and by the fall of the USSR, 90% of Ukrainians supported independence. Putin wants to wind back the clock to imperial times, fully incorporating Ukraine (and other regions) into a unified Russia. According to Ukrainian journalist Veronika Melkozerova, many Russians share this view.

11th century CE Kievan Rus Territories by SeikoEn (CC BY-SA)

Russia’s claim to Kiev is not a new one. The Russian Imperial historian Vasiliy Klyuchevskiy already wrote in 1908 that “the Russian state was formed by the activities of Askold and later Oleg in Kiev.” He refers to the Kievan Rus, after which Russia is named, whose dynasty lasted from the Norse leader Rurik (r. 862-879) all the way to ​​Ivan IV, first Tsar of Russia (r. 1547-1584, also known as Ivan the Terrible). The medieval Tale of Bygone Years (c. 1113) called Kiev “the mother of all Russian cities” – which should be read Rus-sian, not Russian, to be historically accurate. Putin’s “favourite historian” Ivan Ilyin (1883-1954) was a fascist philosopher who argued for a greater Russia that included Ukraine. Much of Putin’s rambling historical essay is based on Ilyin’s nationalist beliefs, writes historian Timothy Snyder. Putin’s view completely negates hundreds of years of Ukrainian history, where the region was touched by more Western influences.

If culture is a tapestry, then history is the fabric it is made from. National identities are built upon our understanding of history, which is why in most countries, history has been a compulsory subject in school since the 19th century. Recent legislation regarding how the history of slavery is taught in the United States clearly shows that governments still recognize the power of history to control the national narrative. As the current crisis shows, national identity is a powerful force.

According to Russian historian Dina Khapaeva, “the leitmotif of Russian history [is] a steady fascination with the West, coupled with an urge to excel it in order to escape its influence.” When Vladimir the Great converted to Christianity before marrying the Byzantine Princess Anna in 988, he forced his subjects to be baptized by the river Dnieper in Ukraine, which was associated with pagan beliefs. As a newly Christian state, the Rus needed Christian rules: The Ruskaya Pravda, the first Russian code of laws, was most likely written by Byzantine judges and also forced upon the Slavic population. As such, Khapaeva writes, “people perceived culture and civilization […] as something enforced by foreign rulers.” Later Western reforms by Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and other rulers were always enforced at great cost to the general population. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the promise of democracy and a free market economy brought a short period of hope and expectation of prosperity which was crushed by economic crisis and political instability. This “idealization of the West therefore intensified the national inferiority complex”, writes Khapaeva: While in 1990 over two thirds of Russians considered themselves European, by 2007 only one third did. In the same 2007 survey conducted by Khapaeva, 80% of Russians believed that the history of their country should only stir feelings of pride. It is easy for a canny authoritarian leader to use all of this to his advantage.

In this context, Ukraine looking westward and aligning itself with the European Union is a major affront to Russia’s identity and Putin’s vision. After all, Putin and Russian nationalists see Kiev as the birthplace of the Russian nation. The current war can be seen as a calculated demonstration of Russia’s might and opposition to the West. While this is a risky gamble for Putin (who appears to have underestimated both Ukraine and the West’s response), the historical context gives it a sense of rationality, albeit a false one.

Only through an understanding of history and how it shapes national identities can we begin to comprehend the major events in current affairs. The past is used by politicians to actively construct national identities; it is misused as pretexts for wars; it is abused in misinformation campaigns on social media. History is very much present and it matters for the present, just as much as STEM subjects do, and must be prioritized accordingly in order to shield our democratic culture from such malignant perversions of history.

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Timeless Travels Magazine Review

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TT_LogoTimeless Travels magazine is a cutting-edge publication combining narratives of personal travel with in-depth history. It provides a reader with travelogues, historical narratives, reviews of museum exhibits and tours, and the latest news on archaeological excavations and their significance. The magazine is a must-read for anyone interested in history, travel, or the world at-large and is available in stunning print editions or online in easy-to-use formats. Read More

The Hadrianic Tondi on the Arch of Constantine

The Arch of Constantine, dedicated on 25 July 315 CE, stands in Rome between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill, at what was once the beginning of the Via Triumphalis. As described on its attic inscription, it commemorates Constantine’s victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on 28 October 312 CE over the tyrant Maxentius who had ruled Rome since 306 CE. It is one of the largest surviving Roman triumphal arches.

The North side of the Arch of Constantine, Rome.

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Festivals

Festivals in Ancient Greece and Rome: 9 Fascinating Facts

Festivals in ancient Greece and Rome were important periods of time during which people performed “activities that are most often thought of as communications with the superhuman world.” Marked by a variety of unique cultural rituals and traditions, festival days stood in stark contrast to ordinary life in ancient Greece and Rome. Processions, sacrifices, athletic events, and musical performances were just the start of some of the interesting highlights. The ways in which the ancient people chose to express themselves on these special calendar days is fascinating. In examining both its contrasts and similarities to today, studying ancient culture can be seen as the study of our own humanity.

To demonstrate some of the unique aspects of culture in ancient Greece and Rome, we compiled a list of these 9 facts about some festivals in ancient Greece and Rome.

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Roman Villa Borg

Ruins of a grand Roman countryside villa (villa rustica) were discovered by a local school teacher at the end of the 19th century outside the village of Borg in the municipality of Perl (Germany). The villa consisted of three wings covering an area of more than 7.5 hectares. The complex was excavated in the late 1980s and a plan to reconstruct an authentic representation of the buildings as they originally appeared in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD began in 1994. The project was completed in 2008 although further excavation work is still undergoing.

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