Russian realistic literature thrived in the second half of the nineteenth century under the political and social problems that shadowed the country. In the early nineteenth century, Czars had unconditional power and paid no attention to the needs of the people, especially the serfs who were defined and treated as slaves. Revolts began to spread, however, and the serfs were eventually emancipated in 1861. This reform gave the Serfs equal rights and opportunities as free citizens, including the right to marry and own property. With exception to house serfs, all others received a small plot of land from the government. Most were unable to pay the unfair taxes that they were subject to and most ended up renting land from landlords that had once contacted serfs. This issue and many others during the time sparked an arrival of literary works that chronicled the era and emphasized new ideas concerning the meaning of life and happiness. Anton Chekhov, who was the grandson of a serf, and Leo Tolstoy who descended from aristocrats, came from completely opposite backgrounds in Russian society, but expressed similar beliefs in their literary works. “The Bet” and “How Much Land Does A Man Need?” both use character, irony, and symbolism to demonstrate the overall theme of human stupidity. The lawyer and Pahom are the main characters from two different stories. They share the common goal becoming wealthy men and through reading we learn that they will do anything to reach their objectives. “The Bet” gives little information on the lawyer in the story so it is difficult to analyze who he really was. Money is no doubt his greatest motivator but his eagerness to take on this bet also raises some questions. Anyone who agrees to a bet that will compl... ... middle of paper ... ...oes A Man Really Need?” and the lawyer and the banker in “The Bet” were very similar characters. Through examining the character, irony, and symbolism between the two stories, it is evident that the characters sole meaning in life was to serve themselves and in the end it merely brought them loneliness, failure, regret, and even death. What is the point in living an entire life of unhappiness and sacrifice if all a person has to show for their life is a large pile of money and assets? No purpose. No legacy. So, why is it that Pahom was less happy than that of a peasant? It is because his drive for more wealth completely consumed his life, destroyed his relationship with his community, and left him constantly frustrated and unsatisfied. It is the strength of envy and greed that controls our lives, corrupts our values, and has the ultimate ability of ending our lives.
A sportsman sketches, by Ivan Turgenev, tells several short stories about himself traveling around Russia. In some of these short stories, he writes about the treatment of the serfs. In the short story called The Agent, Turgenev tells us about an acquaintance of his named Arkady Pavlitch Pyenotchkin. A landowner and retired officer of the Guards, Arkady like many nobles of the time spends his life looking after his estate. In the treatment of his peasants he considers himself harsh but just, believing that peasants behave like children and need a good beating once in a while. He cultivates many French goods and speaks some French phrases but has a dislike for German philosophy. Turgenev prefers not to get involved with the man and only visits the area for the quality of the game to hunt. One night he was forced to stay at Arkady Pavlitch estate while traveling to Ryabovo. While their Arkady asks to accompany
The need to abolish serfdom was a persistent and, according to Mosse writing in 1958, biggest problem in Russian society since the reign of Peter the Great. All the problems of Russian Empire stemmed from serfdom and would automatically be solved with its removal .
Serfdom was put to an end after it was evident that it contributed to Russia’s lagging behind of the wider European shift to the industrial and commercial ages. This was attributed to Russia’s remaining socially and economically behind because they perceived of the western changes as “unacceptable” ideologies. It was later in the decade that Russia realized that serfdom was responsible for its civil disorders, industrial poverty, overpopulation, food inadequacy, and military incompetence. It was for these reasons that tsar Alexander II called to an abolishment of the act as a means of strengthening Russia. This was, for instance pushed by the need to have a stronger and larger army to fight in the Crimean War unlike the previous one which only had serfs as military men .
During the year of 1861, Alexander II official issued the Edict of Emancipation, this freed over 20 million serfs. Looking back to the times of 1820, many of the Russians believed in abolishing serfdom. Despite this, the czars and nobles were reluctantly against it. You can imagine going back to the current time in 1861, after having serfdom for countless years, some Russians would be unwilling to change the system now. Unfortunately, his reform regarding serfdom only went halfway. Instead, peasant communities received about half of the farmland in the country, and the nobles were to keep the other half. The government then paid the nobles for their farmland. On the other side, the peasant communities had 49 years to pay the government for their land. Although, the reform had made the serfs free, the debt still remained which tied them to the land.
Chekhov is part of a non-typical category of artists, because he did not believed in his genius, on the contrary, there are evidence that he believed that his work will not conquer time and posterity. Spectacular, just like Russia at the border between the 19th and 20th century, Chekhov was born the son of serfs in 1860 (Tsar Alexander will abolish serfdom in 1861) only to become a landlord 32 years later, and a neighbor of Prince Shakovskoi. He bought the Melikhovo estate (unconsciously imitating Tolstoy, the patriarch of Iasnaia Polyana), not far from Moscow, with 13 thousand rubles of which he has paid an advance of five thousand.
Together with Pap, the King and the Duke do their share to put putrid moral ideas into the immature mind of Huck. The King and the Duke earn their living pulling scams on their fellow Americans. For instance, they advertised the "Royal Nonesuch" as a "thrilling tragedy" and charged the farmers in the area fifty cents to come and see it (121). But, the entire production consisted of the King walking around on all fours naked. They had promised a good show to the crowd, the King and the Duke did not think it was wrong to give the crowd nothing except for an empty pocket. The message they sent to Huck is that it is acceptable to cheat and lie.
In the late 19th century Russia had been notably behind Europe economically, they weren’t in possession of the modern farming technologies that could efficiently provide for a large country. As a result 90% of the Russian population were peasants (Massey, 4). The serfs lived in deep poverty; they didn’t have the appropriate apparatus to produce enough crops and most of their landlords had unbelievably high demands. In an effort to reform the economy’s recession tsar Alexander II liberated the serfs. However this created more bad for both the serfs and the nobles. In the beginning the serfs saw this is a great victory and another reason to be thankful for their tsar. But as timed pass by the peasants saw this life of liberty and freedom to be increasingly difficult. The government directly compensated the nobles, while the less desirable land was sold to the peasants at a much higher price. They monthly rent they paid the nobles was replaced with paying the state (Massey, 5). And while the population nearly doubled between 1861-1917 poverty increased not only with the peasants but with the nobles as well. Nobles found it hard to assimilate them to a new life style where they would have to trade their lavish goods with farming tools and as result many of them acquired a large amount of debt. This period signifies a time where the people of Russia opened their eyes to the deep poverty and lives of oppression they were living. This is the point where the feelings of peasants who previously worshiped the tsar turned bitter. After consistent resistance to industrialization the tsar had finally given in, aggressive approaches were put in place and railroads grew more than 15,500 miles in 1880 (Massey,6). As the Industrial production con...
As early as 1649, Russian landowners were granted complete control over the peasant serfs living in their land. Overtime serfdom had become a rising controversy in Russia, taking the blame for many of her problems. This led to Tsar Alexander II’s establishment of the Emancipation Reform of 1861. Although we see benefits since the Emancipation Reform of 1861, these benefits are connected to oppression, proven by many sources containing evidence of peasant land being mistreated, as well as evidence that they were still fighting for freedom from oppression.
“The social causes by the Russian revolution mainly became of centuries of domination over the lower classes by the Tsarist regime, and Nicholas’s failures in World War one.”5 As the rural agricultural peasants had been limitless from serfdom in the year 1861, the peasants still refused paying redemption payments to the state and demanded to be the private owner of the land that they worked. The only problem was further compounded by the never lasting failure of Sergei Witte’s land reforms during the early twentieth century. Peasant disturbances increased which sometimes ended up becoming revolts, with only the goal of securing the ownership of the land they worked. At that time Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants, which made up one and a half percent of the population owning twenty-five percent of the land.
In the years leading up to World War I, social unrest among the Russian people was spreading rapidly. There was a huge social gulf between the peasants who were former serfs and the landowners. The peasants regarded anyone who did not work as a parasite. They had always regarded as all land belonging to them. They regarded any land retained by the landowners at the time serfs were freed as stolen and only force could prevent them from taking it back. By the time Russia entered the war, one peasant rebellion had already been suppressed and several socialist revolutionary movements were developing.
The Russian Revolution was a historical moment that had occurred during the 1900s. It all started when the Czar of Russia was overthrown from his throne and was executed. Ever since, Russia 's government, economy, and society has changed. Five texts were provided to portray whether the French Revolution was a success or a failure. This paper will only focus on three of the sources, including Animal Farm, by George Orwell, “Education, Literacy, and the Russian Revolution”, by Megan Behrent, and “the Reasons For The Failure of The Russian Revolution”. All of these texts provide information for either claim, but are also limited in providing further examples. As a result, the Russian Revolution was a failure because the peasants of Russia lacked
... is not greedy at all because he doesn’t show off the fact that he is rich. He is loyal to his lord and a working-hard business man which is free from sloth, lust and gluttony. He is a perfect example of the human who lives their life best, not committing deadly sins unlike the pardoner. He disgusts of the miller in the book who is being very gluttony and lust. He warns the miller that he will be punished as in his tale says “He who does evil should not expect good.” He analyzes the miller in the book to the miller in the tale, Symkym; greed will bring disaster to him and will punish him by the fate. These completely different characters share the same theme for different reasons and purposes which tells the reader that the standard of morality is same to various people and they should not commit the sins which certainly will be punished in some way in the future.
The trait of selfishness is shown in Huck's father, Pap, and the conmen referred to as the king and duke. In the novel, Pap was a violent, ignorant, drunkard who wanted pleasure for himself at the expense of his son. After hearing about Huck's fortune, Pap finally reunited wi...
Since the beginning of time, the Russian country has made several tremendous impacts on the world that will go down in history forever. One of the major impacts that Russia has affected the world with was literature. Russian literature became significant during the time where everything politically was drastically changing in the 19th century. Russian literature became an interest because the stories were been written about the everyday Russian life that the rest of the world knew very little about, especially Europe: “. . . it was a European stereotype to refer to the Russians as “barbarians” (Massie, 169). The style of literature that focuses on everyday living is known as realism and romanticism. These were the highlighted points in literature that portrayed politics and culture to represent Russia to what it truly is. Nikolai Gogol and Fyodor Dostoyevsky are two of the main writers that wrote their stories like The Nose and The Double to show a representation of the Russian government system through the people of that time.
Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days leading up to Christmas. Consumers stand in line hours if not days before the doors open. The sales begin in the early hours of the morning; typically around 5 a.m. Shoppers save hundreds of dollars on all of the latest gadgets and accessories. But, the insane deals come with a catch. Several customers and employees end up bruised, injured, and even killed during the event. Greed for the lowest price during the holiday season has led to countless fights for a discounted item. Greed is a main theme expressed throughout The Hobbit written by J.R.R Tolkien