The most common thread in Isaac Babel’s The Red Calvary criticism is evident. In one article alone the critic describes the collection as “a vision of polarity and paradox,” “a tangle of irresolvable ambiguities,” and “a paradoxical world in which irreconcilable polarities are at the foundation” (Luplow 216, 223, 230). In the article, “Babel’s Red Cavalry: Epic and Pathos, History and Culture,” Milton includes a tedious list of contradictions for reader to explore: “the way of violence versus the way of peace, Cossack versus Jew, the new revolutionary order versus traditional society, noble savage versus civilized man, and a pair that may subsume all of these—nature versus culture” (Milton 231). With so much contradiction and polarities to explore, it is easy to see how many aspects of the story remain untouched. Since its publication in 1926, scholars have been studying Babel’s masterful prose in The Red Calvary and relentlessly searching for unifiers, meaning, and structure, but they have failed to fully examine the cultural influences of modern European artistic movements, primarily Expressionism.
In “Poetry of the Present: Isaac Babel’s Red Calvary,” the author highlights that Babel’s narration can not be separated from the revolution he was living in, nor did his modern experiences have time for reflection and resolution:
Living during the Russian Revolution, Babel’ was writing from within history rather than recalling a time safely past. Under the pressure of events memory could not do its healing work, leaving experience to disintegrate at times into a kaleidoscope of contradictions between what ought to be and what is, between past and present, Jew and Cossack, poet and commissar. (Klotz 160)
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“The Bielski Brothers” is a story of three amazing brothers, their journey of survival and experience they faced in World War II. Peter Duffy places this extraordinary story of survival in context by describing the Bielskis lives and experiences , quoting from Tuvia Bielskis previously unknown journal, and revealing the sociopolitical history, including the anti-Semitism of Belarus, a region the Bielski Brother’s had grown up in.
Authors sometimes refer to their past experiences to help cope with the exposure to these traumatic events. In his novel Night, Elie Wiesel recalls the devastating and horrendous events of the Holocaust, one of the world’s highest points for man’s inhumanity towards man, brutality, and cruel treatment, specifically towards the Jewish Religion. His account takes place from 1944-1945 in Germany while beginning at the height of the Holocaust and ending with the last years of World War II. The reader will discover through this novel that cruelty is exemplified all throughout Wiesel's, along with the other nine million Jews’, experiences in the inhumane concentration camps that are sometimes referred to as “death factories.”
In describing the setting, the general locale is the prison in the coldest part of Russia- Siberia, geographically but socially depicting the social circumstances in the prison, but draws analogies to the general social, political and economic circumstances of Russia during the Stalinist era (form 1917 revolution up to 1955). The symbolic significance of the novel and the film (genres) reflects experiences, values and attitudes of the Russian society. The genres reflect the origins of the Russian social disorders and massive counts of political misgivings which watered down real communism in Russia. We are constantly reminded of the social and cultural heritage and originality of Russian ethnic groups through those different levels of meanings
Few authors can convey the raw emotion of world changing events in such a moving and simplistic fashion. Anna Ahkmatova is able to capture this through her almost tangible use of imagery. Her words can transport the reader through time, allowing them to feel the same pain and fear she survived in Russia during Stalin’s reign of terror. Ahkmatova’s writing is known for its abrupt changes in point of view, and quickly shifting stanzas. Her unique style and poetic form can be attributed to the emotional turmoil of the world changing events she and her nation suffered through; and her innate love for music, as found in Mussorgsky’s Russian Opera, Boris Godunov.
During Russia’s transition to communism in the early 20th century, conflict and unease permeated every part of life. Nothing was stable and very little of what the Bolsheviks had fought for had come to fruition by the time the USSR disbanded in 1991. The “classless society”, which was to work together for the prosperity of everyone, never became a reality. In the end, the majority of Russia’s 20th century was an utter failure on a grand scale. However, there were many amazing products of the system do to the great importance of education in Russian culture. Priceless novels were written, timeless movies were made, and great scientific endeavors were realized despite the rigid control placed upon Russian persons by the government. In fact, some of the most memorable written works of the time were written protests to the creativity-stifling situation many writers found themselves in. Because of the danger to their lives should the wrong people be upset by their writings, Yevgeny Zamyatin and Mikhail Bulgakov wrote their most popular, Soviet-life condemning novels under the guise of satire. Even though they’re satirizing the same subject, in both We and The Master and Margarita respectively, they take very different paths to do so.
During World War I Avrom Sutzkever spent most of his early childhood in Siberia where he and his parents took refuge from German armies. His father died in Siberia and his mother then moved the family back to Avrom’s birthtown in nineteen twenty-one, three years after World War I had ended. Following the war Avrom attended a local Polish Jewish high school, attended university classes in Polish literature, and was...
For various decades’, raconteurs used a simple concept of good conquering bad to structure their stories. This topic is frequently utilized because it relates to several different aspects of authentic life. All religions address this opposition; despite of any cultural beliefs. This theme of good surmounting evil is evident in various varieties of art forms. Today’s society desires a fairy tale ending in movies instead of a dramatic ending. In addition to movies, many musicians enthrall the idea of the dark side against the world of good, and compose pieces incorporating the struggle between the two. Similar with writers, no matter what genre they are writing they all lean towards this struggle. This theme is reluctant in today’s movies, books, music, and in this case, a classic gothic novel. In the book Dracula, Abraham Stoker portrays the topic that true evil can never defeat pure good through the antithesis of light and dark, the characterization of Dracula and Lucy, and with Christian allegories.
In this essay you will notice the differences and similarities between ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ and ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ was written in nineteenth century by Alfred Lord Tennyson. In contrast, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ was written in the twentieth century by Wilfred Owen. The main similarity we have observed is that they both capture war time experiences. However, the poets’ present these events using their own style, and the effect is two completely different observations of war.
The delineation of human life is perceiving existence through resolute contrasts. The difference between day and night is defined by an absolute line of division. For the Jewish culture in the twentieth century, the dissimilarity between life and death is bisected by a definitive line - the Holocaust. Accounts of life during the genocide of the Jewish culture emerged from within the considerable array of Holocaust survivors, among of which are Elie Wiesel’s Night and Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower. Both accounts of the Holocaust diverge in the main concepts in each work; Wiesel and Wiesenthal focus on different aspects of their survivals. Aside from the themes, various aspects, including perception, structure, organization, and flow of arguments in each work, also contrast from one another. Although both Night and The Sunflower are recollections of the persistence of life during the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel and Simon Wiesenthal focus on different aspects of their existence during the atrocity in their corresponding works.
The charge of sexism on Rousseau and the badge of feminism on Wollstonecraft render their arguments elusive, as if Rousseau wrote because he was a sexist and Wollstonecraft because she was a feminist, which is certainly not true. Their work evinced here by the authors questioned the state of man and woman in relation to their conception of what it should be, what its purpose, and what its true species. With an answer to these questions, one concludes the inhumanity of mankind in society, and the other the inhumanity of mankind in their natural, barbarous state. The one runs from society, to the comforts and direction of nature; the other away from nature, to the reason and virtue of society. The argument presented may be still elusive, and the work in vain, but the point not missed, perhaps.
Gömöri, George. "Czeslaw Milosz: Overview." Reference Guide to World Literature. Ed. Lesley Henderson. 2nd ed. New York: St. James Press, 1995. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
The. Platt, Kevin M. F. and David Brandenberger, eds., pp. 113-117. Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda. Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 2006.
The poem “The action in the ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942” by Alexander Kimel is an amazing literary work which makes the reader understand the time period of the Holocaust providing vivid details. Kimel lived in an “unclean” area called the ghetto, where people were kept away from German civilians. The poet describes and questions himself using repetition and rhetorical questions. He uses literary devices such as repetition, comparisons, similes and metaphors to illustrate the traumatizing atmosphere he was living in March 1942.
Eva Hoffman’s memoir, Lost in Translation, is a timeline of events from her life in Cracow, Poland – Paradise – to her immigration to Vancouver, Canada – Exile – and into her college and literary life – The New World. Eva breaks up her journey into these three sections and gives her personal observations of her assimilation into a new world. The story is based on memory – Eva Hoffman gives us her first-hand perspective through flashbacks with introspective analysis of her life “lost in translation”. It is her memory that permeates through her writing and furthermore through her experiences. As the reader we are presented many examples of Eva’s memory as they appear through her interactions. All of these interactions evoke memory, ultimately through the quest of finding reality equal to that of her life in Poland. The comparison of Eva’s exile can never live up to her Paradise and therefore her memories of her past can never be replaced but instead only can be supplemented.
... story but it also reflects Russian society. This, however, isn’t why many Russians still continue to hold this piece of literature as central to their culture. Although, it tells of their heritage and society, it is the simple genius of the structure of the novel of –14-line stanza form-and his lyrics, which are complex and meticulous but are written with such ease that they appear effortless, simple, and natural.