The August curse has been perceived as a phenomenon in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
, where from 1991 to 2001, the worst disasters and adverse events seem to have occurred in August. Many possible explanations have been presented for this observation, ranging from fact-based to supernatural.
Overview
In the early 21st century, journalists and observers noted that, since 1991, an unusual number of severe and fatal events in Russia had occurred in the month of August.
Examples included deadly accidents and incidents,
terrorist attack
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
s, and the outbreak of two major wars.
Explanation attempts
Russian media has speculated about possible explanations for such clustering. Seasonal influence on human activities, as opposed to the relative shutdown in winter, for instance, are among them.
For instance, many people take vacations in August: this leaves a kind of power-vacuum at some levels which terrorists and criminals can exploit.
, chief economist at
Trust Bank
A trust company is a corporation that acts as a fiduciary, trustee or agent of trusts and agencies. A professional trust company may be independently owned or owned by, for example, a bank or a law firm, and which specializes in being a trus ...
, has said that, for many events, the occurrence in August is simply a coincidence. But Nadorshin noted that vacations and official inattention were key factors in enabling the
2009 Nazran bombing.
Others have presented
supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
explanations for the August curse. Astrologist Elena Kuznetsova said in 2009, that the chaos will likely continue until mid-September because of the relative positions of Saturn and Uranus, and that Russia's horoscope is directly connected to the annual August turmoil.
The usually hot weather of August was identified in 2001 as a contributing factor.
It is a time when military or insurgent actions can be undertaken.
Other far-reaching historical events have occurred in August in Russia, a prime time for military movements. For example, the
Eastern Front of World War I
The Eastern Front or Eastern Theater of World War I (german: Ostfront; ro, Frontul de răsărit; russian: Восточный фронт, Vostochny front) was a theater of operations that encompassed at its greatest extent the entire frontier ...
was opened in August 1914 with the German invasion of
Congress Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
, part of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. Germany started the
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (later re ...
that month (23 August 1942), in which the Soviets were eventually victorious.
Examples
See also
*
Apophenia
Apophenia () is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. The term (German: ' from the Greek verb ''ἀποφαίνειν'' (apophaínein)) was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the b ...
*
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring ...
*
Tisha B'Av
Tisha B'Av ( he, תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב ''Tīšʿā Bəʾāv''; , ) is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian E ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:August Curse
History of Russia (1991–present)
August
Curses