“丁戊奇荒”对山西人口素质的影响

Influence of “The Incredible Famine between 1876 and 1879” on Population Qualities in Shanxi

"丁戊奇荒"是中国近代历史上灾害等级最高,死亡人数最众的一次自然灾害。在受灾严重的山西,灾荒不仅对社会经济及生产生活造成了极大的破坏,对人口素质更造成了极大的影响。灾民深受饥饿造成的营养不良和疾病的折磨,造成身体素质的下降;学校大量停办、受教育人数锐减,山西民众文化技术素质大大降低;灾荒对灾民思想素质的影响更为深重,灾区人们普遍充斥着恐惧、失落、消沉的情绪,部分民众道德沦丧,行为堕落越轨,动摇了社会治安的稳定。灾荒期间也产生了民众合群倾向,这一方面有利于互相救助,合理抗灾;另一方面也会造成扰乱社会治安的消极影响。

“The incredible famine between 1876 and 1879” is one of the highest-level natural disasters with the biggest death toll in modern history of China. In Shanxi, the severely afflicted area, the famine caused great damage to social economy, production life, and people’s livelihood, as well as greatly affected population qualities. The victims suffered poor physical quality due to the hunger-triggered malnutrition and diseases. A large number of schools was shut down, resulting in a sharp decline of the educated population and a descent of the cultural and technical quality of the people in Shanxi. Even worse, the influence on the victims’ thought quality was severer. Prevalent among people in the disaster-stricken areas were terror, loss, and depression. Furthermore, some people turned perverse morally and degraded in their behaviors, greatly shaking the social stability at that time. However, the famine also created a tendency of people affiliation, which on the one hand is conducive to mutual assistance and reasonable resistance to disasters, and on the other, exerts a disrupting impact on public security.