"the yoke of oppression"?

I immediately thought of the Bulgarian expression "The Yoke" which described 500 years of Turkish oppression. The most famous novel in Bulgaria is titled "Under The Yoke" by Ivan Vazov and describes the closing years of that particular yoke. The Yoke, of course, is the heavy piece of wood that rests on the shoulders of two Oxen which have to pull a plough. The general impression is of slow, heavy work with no prospect of an end to it.