Tetsunori Koizumi, Director
It was in 1992 that Queen Elizabeth II of England used the phrase “annus horribilis” in a speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of her Accession to look back on the year in which members of the royal family were involved in a number of scandalous events, prompting her to say: “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.” Queen Elizabeth II was not the first to use the phrase, for it had already been used by an Anglican periodical in 1891 to express the sense of repulsion to the dogma of “papal infallibility” the Church of Rome adopted at the First Vatican Council (1868-70). However, Queen Elizabeth II should be given the credit of popularizing the phrase, for it has since been used by many notable individuals to reflect on the year in which “horrible events” took place in their individual lives and in the world.
Twelve years later in 2004, the phrase was used by none other than Kofi Annan, who was General Secretary of the UN at the time, to look back on the horrible events that took place in that year in the world. A horrible event did take place in 2004 to one notable political figure by the name of Vladimir Putin, who was by then serving as Russian President. Though it was not Putin himself who used the phrase, Richard Holbrook, former US ambassador to the UN, used it to declare: “Make no mistake about it: 2004 has been Vladimir Putin’s annus horribilis”, in reference to popular upheavals in the two former Soviet states of Georgia and Ukraine which brought pro-Western presidents to power.
What about 2022, twelve years since Vladimir Putin had his annus horribilis? For one thing, Queen Elizabeth II is no longer with us to share her opinion about what kind of year 2022 has been for her and the world, for she passed away on September 8, 2022. Given what happened in 2004, the Russian invasion of Ukraine that started in February could be regarded as Putin’s way of regaining what he lost in that horrible year for him. In any event, the continuing military conflict in Ukraine is enough to make 2022 an annus horribilis, not just for the people in Ukraine but also for the people around the world as we had to go through hard times due to interruptions in the flow of vital resources and commodities needed for our living.
We kind of year will 2023 turn out to be? Only time will tell, as a popular saying goes. We can only hope that horrible events that took place in 2022 will find resolutions that are acceptable, if not pleasing, to all the parties involved so that 2023 will become a year for which we can use the phrase “annus mirabilis” in stead of “annus horribilis”.