“The Slynx”, the first novel of Tatyana Tolstaya, had been under process of writing for nearly 14 years and was finally released in 2000. Tatyana Tolstaya is a Russian author, who began her writing career in mid-1980s as a publisher of short stories in various literary magazines. In 1986 she started working on “The Slynx”, a.k.a. “Кысь”. This novel is an intentional example of writing during the censorship period. Therefore, it is largely inter-textual, ironical and, most importantly, Aesopian. The plot is based in “the town of Fyodor-Kumichsk” (Tolstaya 10), which is in fact, the city of Moscow, 200 years after a mysterious and apocalyptic catastrophe – the Blast. The society, however, is not advanced at all, it reminds more of the medieval communities full of exclusion, inequality, tyranny and illiteracy.
Although the novel depicts a variety of characters, it mainly revolves around one figure – a young man, named Benedikt. From the beginning he seems to be rather naïve and comparable to the traditional Russian character – Ivanushka Durachok (Иванушка Дурачок). He does not ask questions, he goes with the system and, in general, is quite ignorant of the world. However, he does experience a major character transformation once he encounters the “joy” of books. Although, what is supposed to bring happiness and knowledge, to him becomes a physical addiction without the mental benefits – he reads just to read, not to understand. Besides Benedikt, there are other characters that seem to stay in the background. They are very strictly divided in to the social groups, as the Golubchiks, the naïve and easily controllable commoners; the Olderners, people who survived the Blast, do not get older and resemble the intelligentsia; the Murzas, ...
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...em with Benedict and his overwhelming witlessness. It just does not makes sense for him to be so ignorant about the world, when his own mother and a neighbour are Oldeners, who talk (used to talk) about the old days on daily basis. I would have wanted him to possess some more knowledge about the world and be more respectful towards the literature, society and, definitely, towards the women.
Tatyana Tolstaya’s “The Slynx” is a book that perfectly depicts the living situation under an oppressive regime. The life in the town she describes is full of fear, class division, trust issues, daily struggles of finding food and, most importantly, the strict control over the minds, and the words, both verbal and printed. Finally, there is always the unbearable fear in the darkness which blurs the thoughts of the people and makes them forget all the difficulties and oppression.
In the book Sofia Petrovna, the author Lydia Chukovskaya writes about Sofia Petrovna and her dreadful experiences as a widowed mother during the Russian Stalinist Terror of the 1930s. There were four basic results of the Russian Stalinist Terror: first, it was a way of keeping people in order; second, it kept Stalin in power and stopped revolutions from forming, made people work harder to increase the output of the economy, and separated families as well as caused deaths of many innocent people due to false charges.
To conclude, because the government was able to use censorship and promote ignorance, they were able control and manipulate their citizens. This novel also has resemblance to our world, this novel is a reminder of how powerful media can become if used the right way, society can be mislead into thinking false things. By promoting ignorance, the citizens started having very bland lives with no depth. People did not talk about ideas and feelings because they were obsessed and dependent on instant pleasure, they will start denying they own feelings because of this. Television and easy access to entertainment made books nonexistent.
The use of mass terror was one of the most representative characteristics of the Stalinist regime. The Gulag embodied the constant and large scale use of fear by the Bolsheviks to administer the population. Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales and Fyodor Mochulsky’s Gulag Boss stood out by their treatment of the question. While relating the same events, namely the daily routine of an arctic Gulag, these two works dealt with this topic from two diametrically opposed perspectives. Indeed, Shalamov was a political prisoner for seventeen years while Mochulsky was a supervisor in the camp. Therefore, their experience of the Gulag diverged in nearly every aspect. Furthermore, Mochulsky and Shalamov pursued different designs. On the one hand, Shalamov attempts to depict the Gulag’s ability to dehumanize prisoners. On the other hand, Mochulsky wrote his book after the fall of the USSR. As a former guard, he attempted to justify his past behavior, not to say exonerate himself.
...looked at as he is the literate outsider who knows how to write and read , yet this presupposed privilege later on makes Liutov as minor instead of being superior . During the story , Liutov gives up gradually his academic superiority and in other words gives up his ‘individual’ identity in order to be part of this solidarity and collectivism that shape the Cossacks society.
Dostoyevsky's writing in this book is such that the characters and setting around the main subject, Raskolnikov, are used with powerful consequences. The setting is both symbolic and has a power that affects all whom reside there, most notably Raskolnikov. An effective Structure is also used to show changes to the plot's direction and Raskolnikov's character. To add to this, the author's word choice and imagery are often extremely descriptive, and enhance the impact at every stage of Raskolnikov's changing fortunes and character. All of these features aid in the portrayal of Raskolnikov's downfall and subsequent rise.
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.
The novel: A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (written by Alexander Solzhenitzyn), tells the story of a Russian soldier’s life in a Siberian labor camp around the time of World War II. The protagonist in the story, Ivan, better known as “Shukhov”, is wrongly accused of committing treason and is sentenced to full 10 years of imprisonment in the camp. Throughout the story, the author makes vivid references to help the reader identify with the setting, climate, and overall feeling of what Ivan must deal with on a day-to-day basis. This helps the reader to better understand the points and the reality of what it was like living in one of these camps.
The tight censorship employed in the city ensures that the very idea of resistance or rebellion continues to be a foreign notion, a necessary state of things if the rulers are to be able to continue to control the masses by purely mental and psychological means. The strongest of punishments – the death penalty – is reserved for “this one crime of speaking the Unspe...
Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg is a large, uncaring city which fosters a western style of individualism. As Peter Lowe notes, “The city is crowded, but there is no communality in its crowds, no sense of being part of some greater ‘whole.’” Mrs. Raskolnikov initially notices a change in her son marked by his current state of desperate depression, but she fails to realize the full extent of these changes, even after he is convicted for the murder. The conditions and influences are also noticed by Raskolnikov’s mother who comments on the heat and the enclosed environment which is present throughout the city. When visiting Raskolnikov, she exclaims "I'm sure...
Under a backdrop of systematic fear and terror, the Stalinist juggernaut flourished. Stalin’s purges, otherwise known as the “Great Terror”, grew from his obsession and desire for sole dictatorship, marking a period of extreme persecution and oppression in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s. “The purges did not merely remove potential enemies. They also raised up a new ruling elite which Stalin had reason to think he would find more dependable.” (Historian David Christian, 1994). While Stalin purged virtually all his potential enemies, he not only profited from removing his long-term opponents, but in doing so, also caused fear in future ones. This created a party that had virtually no opposition, a new ruling elite that would be unstoppable, and in turn negatively impacted a range of sections such as the Communist Party, the people of Russia and the progress in the Soviet community, as well as the military in late 1930 Soviet society.
The tone of “Notes from Underground” is sharp, strange and bitter. The bitterness of the book is traced to the multiple personal misfortunes the author suffered as he wrote his novel. Through these personal tragedies it can be argued that the author presented the position of the “underground man” through his own experiences. Additionally, the research holds the second belief that the novel’s presentation of “underground man” is founded on the social context the novel addresses (Fanger 3). Through this, it was found that Dostoevsky presented the suffering of man under the emerging world view directed by European materialism, liberalism and utopianism. As he began writing his novel, Dostoevsky had been directed by the romantic error that looked at utopian social life and the social vision of satisfying and perfecting regular life for man. The failure for the society to gain these achievements was as a result of the distant liberalism and materialism that reduced the power of reasoning and...
The arena for this ideological contest is Petersburg, full of slums, revolutionary students and petty titular councilors. Scientifically and artificially constructed in the midst of marshland, the city itself is a symbol of the incompatibility of logical planning with humankind's natural sensibilities. The city did not grow randomly or organically, but entirely by czarist decree. Nonetheless, it is a dank and depressing place to live, at least for those in the vicinity of Haymarket Square, where the story takes place. Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky's biographer, says of ...
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,
Dostoyevsky's characters are very similar, as is his stories. He puts a strong stress on the estrangement and isolation his characters feel. His characters are both brilliant and "sick" as mentioned in each novel, poisoned by their intelligence. In Notes from the Underground, the character, who is never given a name, writes his journal from solitude. He is spoiled by his intelligence, giving him a fierce conceit with which he lashes out at the world and justifies the malicious things he does. At the same time, though, he speaks of the doubt he feels at the value of human thought and purpose and later, of human life. He believes that intelligence, to be constantly questioning and "faithless(ly) drifting" between ideas, is a curse. To be damned to see everything, clearly as a window (and that includes things that aren't meant to be seen, such as the corruption in the world) or constantly seeking the meaning of things elusive. Dostoyevsky thought that humans are evil, destructive and irrational.
A. The Epic of Russian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950. 309-346. Tolstoy, Leo. "