Yesterday, beloved citizen Mikhail Alexandrovich (Berlioz) passed away in a horrific accident. According to witnesses, he slipped on an ice-like substance and was thrown onto the rails of the tramway. One witness said, “He fell flat on his back and hit the back of his neck against the cobblestones.” In the moments leading up to his death, Berlioz saw the “horror-stricken face” of the female streetcar driver. She pulled on the electric emergency brake, causing the car to jump and shattering the glass windows in the process. Sadly, the steel wheel of the streetcar had already run over Berlioz’ neck, decapitating him and causing his head to roll down onto the stones of Bronnaya Street. We all remember Berlioz as the editor of an anti-religious literary journal and the chairman of MASSOLIT. He was well loved, for he was a good follower of the policies of the USSR and represented the intellectual elite of the great communist nation. While we mourn this man’s demise, we must also investigate the circumstances of …show more content…
Woland argued how everyone knew that the Gospel stories were completely false, to which Berlioz responded with the claim that nobody knew that Woland’s story was true. Woland, in a fit of rage, proclaimed that it was a true story due to the fact that he was present for it all. Berlioz and Bezdomny believed Woland was a crazy foreigner who needed to be detained as swiftly as possible. Woland asked the friends whether or not the devil exists, and Bezdomny quickly answered “No”. Now extremely angry, Woland yells at the friends for being so ignorant. Subsequently, Berlioz goes to make a phone call, before which Woland asks Berlioz to believe that the devil existed. Berlioz shrugged off Woland’s question and proceeded to make the phone call alerting authorities a suspicious foreigner was in
The next text analyzed for this study is the first monograph read for the study, therefore, there is a lot of information that had not been previously discussed by the latter authors: Claudia Koonz 's 1987 text Mothers in the Fatherland. The author begins her text with a Preface where she discusses her interview with Gertrude Scholtz-Klink, the leader of the Women 's Labor Service. While this is not the first time in the study that Scholtz-Klink 's name appears, but Koonz 's discussion of the interview personifies Scholtz-Klink, rather than just make her a two-dimensional character in historical research. For the first time in this study, the reader can understand the reasoning some people (right or wrong) sided with the Nazi Party. The interview
The short story, “Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt”, explicates the life of a man named Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka. We see him briefly in his young years, followed by his life in the army, and his return to the farm where his strong characterized aunt resides. We can see immediately that this man lives in constant cleanliness and dutiful paranoia; these are some of his desires that he wishes to exhibit to others. We can also see his fears, which reside in the confiscation of his masculinity and independence. This short story has many elements that resemble others in the Nikolai Gogol collection.
In “Nevsky Prospect,” the third person narrator pulls double duty by describing two stories that parallel each other in time. After describing the seemingly harmless bustling avenue, mustaches, and clothing of Nevsky Prospect, the narrator happens to come upon two different characters: an artist and an officer. First, he follows the artist and right away, the narrator seems to be absorbed in the world of the artist. We see this occur when it is often hard to tell when the artist is dreaming or awake. The narrat...
In a quest to justify and rationalize his actions, Mochulsky pushed the reader to question the extent of his free will. Ultimately, Mochulsky prompted us to wonder whether he was a perpetrator or a victim. Indeed, Mochulsky’s relationship with the Bolshevik Party was ambiguous. He was a pure product of the Soviet regime being born after the October Revolution and having completed his education under the Soviet rule. He owed the Bolshevik government his upward mobility. Furthermore, he actively participated in the repression apparatus. However, the author blurred the lines between convicts and guards by emphasizing on the lack of leeway of the latter. The camp leadership lived allegedly under the constant threat of being sentenced to the Gulag: “And we looked at the […] ...
Frequently, the public debate over the those problems which occur in poverty-ridden urban environments is presented as if the inhabitants were copies of Dostoevsky's underground man who differed mainly in that they frequently had less education and more pigment in their skin. That is to say, although there are valid comparisons that can be drawn between the Underground Man and the inhabitants of west Baltimore who are so vividly depicted in The Corner, there are also important differences that make any claim of strict equality between a Russian intellectual from the nineteenth century and a 20th-century tout or slinger an absurd caricature. Moreover, the intent of portraying inner-city residents as Underground Men and Women is, frequently, to blame these people for all of their own problems, something t...
In the opening the narrator gives a short summary of life on Nevsky Prospect, examining how life flows on Nevsky Prospect at different times of the day, the kinds of people who pass through at what time, how they dress depending on their professions and socio-economic statuses. This is the first way S...
Rodion Raskolnikov is a murderer, a damning criminal. Yet, he also has a warm heart that no one can equal. This character of paradox, of contradictions, of irony, is the true Raskolnikov. He is the Jekyll, and he is the Hyde; the zenith and the nadir. This hallowed literature of human nature provides us with important moral lessons, and at the same time helps the reader understand Dostoevsky’s philosophy on society better. Raskolnikov is not entirely a cold-blooded murderer, since he still has a feeling of love: The love towards Sofya Marmeladov. In this paper, we will go in-depth of how Sofya has an impact on Raskolnikov, by discussing their similarities and differences.
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.
...s tale turns into an attack on the ridiculous, heartless nature of Russian society – especially Russian in civil service. Gogol portrays the trivialness of this through the use of distinct contrasts, mostly between how the poor official in this tale sees his prized overcoat, and how his fellow workers view it, and him, with scorn and mocking laughter. It is not a pleasant tale, and there is no happy ending. But it is effective in how well it presents the absurdities of life at this time in St. Petersburg.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn carefully and tediously depicted what life is like in a prison. Ivans monotonous life prompts the reader initially to think that Ivans day is a living death of tedious details. Yet, in truth, Ivan i...
Catherine Genovese, a twenty-eight year-old who was on her way home in her build-up neighborhood in a late night shift as a bar manager. She was a manager in Queens, New York, but that night she was suddenly attacked by a man named Winston Moseley with a knife. Catherine was screaming and pleading for help that she got stabbed, but nobody comes to help her even though they heard her yelling for help. People not just didn't try to help, but didn´t even refuse to help her call the police. They didn't want to help or call the police because they didn't want to be involved in it. Murderer Moseley saw lights coming nearby and knew people were watching him , so he escaped and left Catherine there injured. Catherine was dragging herself towards a doorway bleeding, she could survive at this point, but later Moseley the attacker came back and started doing the same thing that he was doing to Catherine because he said in the court that nobody wants to help her or try to stop him for attacking. As badly
Cassier, M. (1999) The Shattered Horizon, How Ideology Mattered to Soviet Politics. Studies in European Thought, 51(1). 35-59.
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) Berlioz (bear-lee-ohz) was a French composer whose father was a doctor; to please his father, he went to medical school, but he spent more time going to concerts and to the theatre than studying medicine. Berlioz played flute and guitar, but is best known as a composer and orchestrator. As a student at the Paris Conservatory, he tried several times to earn the prestigious Prix de Rome, finally winning in 1830. During his medical school days, Berlioz attended performances of an English theatrical troupe.
Through themes involving hyper-consciousness, calling into question free will, and suffering in isolation, Dostoevsky’s “Underground Man” serves as a character who exemplifies everything Dostoevsky believes is wrong with the belief in a Russian society perfected by laws, mathematics and science. The tragic ending of The Idiot manifests itself as product of the continual struggle of its characters throughout the book, namely through the downfall of the traditional Russian family, the mockery of Christ-like qualities, and the tensions between good and evil members of society. Both Notes from Underground and The Idiot speak to Dostoevsky’s critique of the rising popularity and prominence of utopianism and socialism ideals in Russian society.
After inferring from the rationality of Raskolnikov’s hypothesis on illness that the rest of his working theory would too be correct, the reader is led down a path of definite expectations for his/her “extraordinary” narrator. This path would have been one whereby Raskolnikov was able to implement widespread well being as a result of his murders. Furthermore, he would have been able to avoid submission to the common law of the “ordinary” people in order to preserve his greatness.