Yuri Trifonov chronicled the life of a Soviet conformist named Vadim Aleksandrovich Glebov in his novel, “The House on the Embankment.” Vadim Glebov leads a life in support of the Soviet Union’s tyranny and oppression of human rights in order to gain the high social status and power he envied beginning in childhood. The novel is a narrative that revolves around Glebov’s education and success, and it depicts what life was like as a Soviet citizen between the 1930’s and 1970’s. Through Glebov’s revealed repressed memories, we see the ultimate example of conformity. Glebov was raised near the House on the Embankment, a large and elegant government building where many honorable Soviet citizens lived. Although he was always near the admirable building, he was raised in the shade of the building with his family in a small apartment “in which had been born” (200). Young Glebov knew several classmates who had lived at this house, and he envied their lifestyle. The envy that he experienced as a child continued to be a driving force throughout his …show more content…
The second narrator of the story, Yura, described him as a “colorless creature who was neither one thing nor another” ( )That description meant that he lacked a defined personality: individuality. “He seemed to fit in with everybody,” and he wanted this because he was afraid of being out of the norm since it was looked down upon by the regime ( ). Conformity was safety for the people in the Soviet Union during that time because they were convinced and afraid that being different would get them in trouble. Glebov saw it happen when his uncle was arrested in the 1930’s as a public enemy and was in “a prison camp in the north” (231). When in conflict, Glebov often chose the conformist route not only because he was pressured and had the least consequences, but also because he could use reap the
The obvious benefits of communism are shadowed by the dark truth that the ruling party and their agenda will effectively alienate the common people in order to protect the state. As history has shown, socialism on a large scale has evolved from theory to tyrannical regimes that embody the same principals of sustaining a dictatorship. “Omon Ra” by Victor Pelevin, published in 1992 by the Tekst Publishing House in Moscow, gives great insight into the structure of a Leninist hierarchy in a post WWII Russian setting. Throughout the novel the main character Omon is constantly and slowly separated from his family, friends, and peers until his mind has adopted a reality of complete isolation from the rest of his “comrades”.
In conclusion, many soviets citizens appeared to believe that Stalin’s positive contributions to the U.S.S.R. far outweigh his monstrous acts. These crimes have been down played by many of Stalin’s successors as they stress his achievements as collectivizer, industrializer, and war leader. Among those citizens who harbor feelings of nostalgia, Stalin’s strength, authority , and achievement contrast sharply with the pain and suffering of post-revolutionary Russia.
Mau, Vladimir. " The road to 'perestrokia': economics in the USSR and the problem of
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken writer, who used his short stories to be vocal about the reality of Soviet society. Many pieces of Soviet literature were regulated, in which the reality was masked by Soviet Union propaganda. Solzhenitsyn broke past this wall barrier in his two short stories, Matryona’s Home and An Incident at Krechetovka Station. Both novellas describe the harsh reality of Soviet life, the former in rural Russia, and the latter during World War II at an army station. While having different and distinct plots and characters, both pieces of literature play on key themes of the real Soviet life. Matryona’s Home emphasizes Soviet society’s blatant disregard of Russian tradition, while An Incident at Krechetovka comments on the society’s blind trust on the failing Soviet system. Both of Solzhenitsyn’s novellas focus on the perpetual suffering that all individuals went through in Soviet society.
The political climate during Mikhail Gorbachev’s upbringing was turbulent. In the 1930s, when Gorbachev was still very young, he suffered the trauma of seeing his maternal grandfather, Pantelei Gopkalo, arrested during the Great Purge. Gopkalo was accused of being a Trotskyite counterrevolutionary and wa...
Here, Vertov dictates spectators to assume a participatory role in giving interpretation to the finished film. For instance, Vertov constantly uses stop-motion and substitution splicing. These techniques are used to make the chairs of the movie theater fold down supernaturally as if to greet his viewers. And even though the film does represent Soviet society positively in terms of being modern, growing, and advantageous to the proletarians whose labor is now accurately valued and compensated with beach trips organized by the government, the film does have room for interpretation and even components of social critique. For example, one might question why, in a progressive soviet society where there is a beneficial unification of technology and human labor seemingly at every turn, where there is an emphasis on public services (ambulances, fire brigades, medical services, health and hygiene in general), there are still homeless people young and old sleeping on park benches or the ground. In addition, Vertov illustrates these same industrial workers abusing the efficient mass production of consumer goods: during their leisure time, certain wayward workers drink champagne to excess in a bar where rows and rows of champagne bottles are shown being opened. While simultaneously, the viewers see a class hierarchy prevalent in the Soviet Union. For instance, a wealthy family in a car has a driver who carries their bags inside as a barefoot, probably homeless child crosses paths with them entering the building. We also see wealthy men and women satisfy themselves lazily in a salon being shaved and having their hair washed, while the proletarians work hard in the polluted and hazardous factories or mines for their own welfare. The inevitable summary is that for all its commendable characteristics and progress, Soviet society still has challenges to overcome before classless equality becomes a reality. The key to
The famine in Russia alone led the peasants to become angry and fed up with the Russian government, suggesting a future revolution. Because of the peasants’ unrest, they began to break the law by as stealing food for their families and shouting in the streets. Russia had attempted revolution before, and a fear of an uprising was feared again. Their everyday routi...
In 1934, Sergey Kirov a rival to Stalin was murdered. Stalin is believed to have been behind the assassination, he used it as a pretext to arrest thousands of his other opponents who in his words might have been responsible for Kirov’s murder. These purges not only affected those who openly opposed Stalin but ordinary people too. During the rule of Stain o...
In the late 1930’s while the United States was going through The Great Depression the Soviet Union was going through its own turbulent times. This would be known as the Moscow Show Trials, which took place under the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The book Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler takes place during this time period. The main character Nicholas Rubashov has been imprisoned even though he always has been loyal to the goals of the party (Koestler). This showed a shift that was happening in the country and an attempt by Stalin to eliminate any possible opposition even if they were heroes in the revolution. In the text two different concepts come to light vivisection morality where the party comes before the individual and anti-vivisection morality where the individual is sacred. Rubashov in the beginning does not embrace individualism however throughout the novel he begins to adopt individualism that he refers to as grammatical fiction. Vivisection morality is never a justifiable political system. Suppressing the rights of human beings is not only inhumane but also counter productive in creating an effective and wealthy society.
In the early 1980s prior to Gorbachev’s presidency, the soviet economy was wracked by chronic shortages of food and consumer items. These shortages were in part due because of Leonid Brezhnev leadership being inefficient at directing the soviet economy. It was against this backdrop of economic decline and political instability that Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. Gorbachev came from a peasant family and this humble background played a large role in his political thinking and gave him a strong humanitarian sympathy. His separation from the old regime gave him greater freedoms to move away from old thinking and enact policies grounded in a new way of thinking. Gorbachev was under different circumstances than past leaders because people at around this time wanted the country to move in different directions and at the same time, this led to Gorb...
Using diary entries as his literary vehicle, Dostoyevsky takes us inside the minds of his characters in a way that makes us voyeurs because of his realistic portrayal and honest disclosure of human emotion and sentiments. The story revolves around Roulettenberg, a German spa town where the rich gamble. We get the inner life of Alexei as it is portrayed in his diaries. He is poor but educated, and he is very aware of his class in society. He is conflicted, however, because he both covets and ridicules the lifestyle of the aristocracy with all its pretensi...
In George Orwell’s famous allegorical novel of the evils and inhumanities that are intertwined in totalitarian states and their government methods and representatives called animal farm he does more than merely expresses the torment and fear the Russian people endured under the rule of Joseph Stalin. he reveals the painful truth about the ever present quality of frailty and treachery amongst the human race .societal structures, and individual values through the symbolic characters, events, and even the inner thought of the reader as they analyze the ever evolving complexity that is Animal farm.
...Russian society and social norms. The greatest reminder of this is found in the fact that Lopahkin, the man who Ranevsky once spoke to condescendingly, is now the family’s last hope for survival. Ironically enough, Lopahkin is often glancing at his watch, a reminder that time is changing, and a message that he, himself, is a testament to.
Arthur Ashe once said, “From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however makes a life.” Such is the case in Nikolai Gogol’s short story The Overcoat. Gogol takes a man without a friend in the world and gives him a new overcoat. The new overcoat represents a new life and a new identity for the man and instantaneously he is much happier. The man, Akaky Akakievich, basis his “new life” upon the love that he gives to his overcoat, and what he feels it gives him in return. Before long, Akaky begins to care more about his beautiful coat and less about the people around him. Thus is the theme of the story. Often material things are more important in our lives than people, resulting in the emptiness of one’s heart and soul. One cannot be truly happy with his possessions alone. He needs more than that. He needs people his life, whom he can call friends.
“The only people for whom we can even begin to imagine properly human, individual, existences are the literate and the consequential, the wazirs and the sultans, the chroniclers, and the priests—the people who had the power to inscribe themselves physically upon time” (Ghosh 17). History is written by the victorious, influential and powerful; however, history has forgotten the people whose voices were seized, those who were illiterate and ineloquent, and most importantly those who were oppressed by the institution of casted societies. Because history does not document those voices, it is the duty to the anthropologist, the historiographer, the philosopher as well as scholars in other fields of studies to dig for those lost people in the forgotten realm of time. In In An Antique Land, the footnotes of letters reveal critical information for the main character, which thematically expresses that under the surface of history is something more than the world can fathom.