"For the ethical force with which he pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature." - This quote from the Nobel Prize Citation for Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1970 remains a testament to his literary prowess. In 1962, Solzhenitsyn burst onto the literary scene with his groundbreaking work, One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, which quickly became a sensation in the USSR and beyond. However, by 1963, Solzhenitsyn and other liberal figures in Soviet culture, including the editor of Novy Mir, Khrushchev, and Tvardovsky, became targets of a campaign to restore Stalinist orthodoxy to the arts. Despite this, 1962 was an important year in Soviet history, marked by the De-Stalinization Campaign and the emergence of liberal voices in the arts, such as Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznesensky. The liberal journal Yunost' (Youth) published Vasily Aksenov's trailblazing story A Ticket.
Trotsky, L., 2014. The Overthrow of Tzarism and the Triumph of the Soviets. In: L. Trotsky, The Russian Revolution, 1st ed. Garden City, New York: Doubleday.
In the late1960’s American politics were shifting at a National level with liberalism being less supported as its politics were perceived as flawed, both by people on the left who thought that liberalism was not as effective as more radical political enterprises and by conservatives who believed that liberal politics were ostensibly crippling the American economy.
Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illych has proven to be a profoundly important work in the understanding of mortality. By adding to this understanding, Tolstoy implores readers to accept the ultimate reality that death is inevitable. If there is one thing Tolstoy makes quite clear, it is that nobody lives forever and death can be a horrifying, painful, and sobering experience. Ivan Illych, a successful man of the law, ends up fatally injuring himself whilst putting up curtains. With his health in decline, the reader gets to experience death through Ivan’s eyes. Tolstoy attempts to have the reader feel the same anxiety that Ivan feels and in some sense the same pain. And indeed, Tolstoy brilliantly conveys this agony to the reader. Specifically, Tolstoy decides to focus on two very important threads of the cloth that makes up death. From Ivan Illych’s perspective, Tolstoy focuses on regret with one’s life and the utterly different mindset the dying adopt versus the living.
In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s incendiary allegations against the State Department led to a government purging that would eventually cost over a thousand people their jobs. These particular individuals, however, were not dismissed because of any direct ties that they had to the Communist Party, but instead because of their sexual orientation. McCarthy’s original accusations concerning the presence of over 200 Communists working in the government—specifically the State Department—included two allegations that specifically referenced homosexuality, suggesting that homosexuality was itself a danger to the security of the United States. Even as McCarthy—cognizant of growing pressure from his colleagues for him to produce evidence of his claims—reduced his original allegations from 205 card-carrying communists to 57 “bad risks” (Johnson 2004), the public conception of the threat of homosexuality in the government persisted and ultimately materialized into the Lavender Scare, a mass hysteria that paralleled and was concurrent with the Red Scare. Capitol Hill, with the nation alongside it, was quickly overtaken by the Lavender Tide.
There are many definitions of the term "freedom." Some will say that to be free one must be allowed to do as one pleases in terms of one's physical body, while others will say that one must only be able to think to be truly free. Yet another group will argue that both aspects must be present for true freedom to exist.
The short story “The Death of Ivan Ilych” is about a man who realizes he is dying and that no one in his life cares about him. Even more disappointing for Ivan is the realization that besides his success as a high court judge, he has done nothing else to make his life worth saving. The death of Ivan Ilyich, sadly, comes as a release of stress to all. In the end, Ivan is soothed by the release of death, his family and friends are relieved of having responsibility of Ivan taken off their shoulders, and the reader is released from the stressful journey. Tolstoy teaches the audience through the structural elements of the “black sack” metaphor and pathos about the unavoidability of death and the relief of accepting it.
Warning to the West is a criticism of both the west and his own nation. Solzhenitsyn expresses his deep pain and frustration toward the nations of the world for ignoring the atrocities and even aiding the Soviet Communist Government in which he hails from. Solzhenitsyn expresses his slanted view of a perfect Détente and what he feels should be a true Marxist state by showing some of the atrocities claimed by the Soviet regime. He expresses to the United States that nations can no longer stand by and let communism take over the world.
Lermontov, Mikhail. A Hero of Our Time. Ed. Neil Cornwall. Trans. Martin Parker. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1995.
· Emphasis on coming out and gay rights. They expected and demanded acceptance for who they were.
Kjetsaa, Geir. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, A Writer's Life. New York, New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1987,
Being one of the greatest Russian writers of 20th century, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn had a unique talent that he used to truthfully depict the realities of life of ordinary people living in Soviet era. Unlike many other writers, instead of writing about “bright future of communism”, he chose to write about everyday hardships that common people had to endure in Soviet realm. In “Matryona’s Home”, the story focuses on life of an old peasant woman living in an impoverished collectivized village after World War 2 . In the light of Soviet’s propaganda of creating a new Soviet Nation, the reader can observe that Matryona’s personality and way of life drastically contradicted the desired archetype of New Soviet Man. Like most of the people in her village,
Tolstoy, Leo. "The Death of Ivan Ilych." The Longman Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. Dana
work of art good or bad. Tolstoy believes that a work of art can be
Kjetsaa, Geir. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, A Writer's Life. New York, New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1987,
We live in a world where a 21st century woman can vote, work full time, and raise a family on her own terms. Woman can choose when to have children, if they want to achieve a higher education, and obtain jobs that women in the 60’s only dreamt about. Most of these accomplishments were brought on by the Women’s Movement of the 1960’s. They brought up conventional thoughts and ideas that changed the course of history. However, in their quest for women’s rights and equality amongst men, there were some that were left out of the mass movement. Lesbians of the 1960’s were considered to be social pariahs by the Woman’s Movement of the 1960’s and not to be connected with. By being the outcasts, Lesbians created and founded their own movement that focused on not only Women’s Rights, but Gay Women’s rights as well. This movement was just as controversial if not more as the Women’s Movement of the time, but made just as big of an impact.