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. Glebov was raised near the House on the Embankment, a large and elegant government building where many honorable Soviet citizens lived. Although he was always near the admirable building, he was raised in the shade of the building with his family in a small apartment “in which had been born” (200). Young Glebov knew several classmates who had lived at this house, and he envied their lifestyle. The envy that he experienced as a child continued to be a driving force throughout his …show more content…
life. Trifonov refers to the envy as “unfairness” and a “burning resentment” that stayed with him forever (201). The unfairness and resentment that Glebov had experienced depicts the social norm during that time. The majority of Soviet citizens had not been part of the political hierarchy that those living in the House on the Embankment were part of. Glebov though about this inequality while watching The Blue Express at the little theatre. He wondered “Why the hell should one person have everything?” (211). The thing that the protagonist had to be “a little proud of “was “taken away from him and given to another [person] who already [had] everything” (211). Those who were not part of the government were simply left to fend for themselves with extremely limited resources, which is why education became so important to Glebov. Education was the only free thing that he could obtain to hopefully change his life. While in (idk what year in) school Glebov faces his first conflict that alters his life trajectory to the direction of conformity. He witnessed an attack on his classmate, Lev, and was coerced into revealing the truth. Lev’s step-father had been of high status and lived in the house on the embankment. He had asked Glebov to expose his friends who had took part in the attack, even though by being there he was also guilty. He fell for the intense interrogation that he was subject to however keenly justified his testimony as “quite fair, because those who would be punished were bad” (231). This was the unfortunate assumption that was made by Soviet citizens when the purges were occurring. They believed that people could not possibly be arrested unless they had committed a crime. He conformed to the belief that was pushed on him because of the fear that he had experience, which is essentially what had occurred in the entire population. When he betrayed his friends, he made a life changing decision to begin conforming to the ideals that were imposed by the regime. As Glebov grows older he continues to make decisions that conform him to the Soviet regime’s mold of a proper and useful citizen.
The second narrator of the story, Yura, described him as a “colorless creature who was neither one thing nor another” ( )That description meant that he lacked a defined personality: individuality. “He seemed to fit in with everybody,” and he wanted this because he was afraid of being out of the norm since it was looked down upon by the regime ( ). Conformity was safety for the people in the Soviet Union during that time because they were convinced and afraid that being different would get them in trouble. Glebov saw it happen when his uncle was arrested in the 1930’s as a public enemy and was in “a prison camp in the north” (231). When in conflict, Glebov often chose the conformist route not only because he was pressured and had the least consequences, but also because he could use reap the
benefits. Another example of Glebov’s choice to conform was when his relationship with Sonya became more serious. He met Sonya in their younger school years, but regained contact with her when he was in graduate school. Sonya’s father, Ganchuk was a professor at his school and Glebov admired his status. Professor Ganchuk was an honorable Soviet citizen because he fought for them in the Civil war and was of use as a journalist. The novel reveals that Sonya had fallen in love with Glebov when she saw the patchwork on his jacket for the first time because she had an “unselective proneness to pity others” (249). Although she had always been in love with Glebov, he had not felt the same way until he realized that their relationship could be of use to him. “He was not very interested in Sonya, but Professor Ganchuk himself was an important figure” and he could be “valuable to him” early in graduate school (238). He decided that he could learn to love Sonya as an opportunity in his education and to gain more success in reaching his goals of being a high status citizen. His learning to love Sonya was conforming to her idea of a relationship, while he gained. Glebov’s strategy was not abnormal, in fact it was a common pathway of those in power to have stepped on or compete with others to gain their position. With such limited opportunity, betrayal was Glebov’s easiest way to get what he needed to obtain his goal of status. As Glebov’s relationship with Sonya got more serious, so did his relationship with her father. Professor Ganchuk became his supervisor at school and they had been close. Glebov was finally gaining some status because of this relationship. He was the “vice chairman of the Student Academic Society,” and the majority of the school, including the dean, knew about his association with Professor Ganchuk (318). In his final year if graduate school Glebov was confronted by dean Druzyaev in regards to some questions he had about Ganchuk. He was again interrogated in the same way that Lev’s stepfather had when he was young. He again was stricken with nervousness because each answer he gave was potentially incriminating. Although Glebov tried his best to not say anything that would harm Professor Ganchuk, he ended up revealing something that led to a barrage of questions directed toward incriminating his supervisor. When he admitted these things and conformed to the requests of the dean, he once again betrayed someone close to him in order to protect himself from any negative consequences. Glebov immediately felt conflict because knew that Professor Ganchuk was an honorable man regardless of what Druzyaev was trying to make him out to be. He compared this situation to ones experienced by other prominent scholars such as Boris Astrug saying “Astrug had made a few mistakes in his time—there were some methodological lapses in his book on Gorky” (307). He understood that those who made reference to non-ideological people or works were not “ideologically hostile themselves” and “were not [the] enemies” that the regime had made them out to be (308). Although he regarded Astrug and Ganchuk as talented scholars, he conformed to Soviet ideals by recognizing that references to non-ideological information and writers were “mistakes.” This is because thinking differently and acknowledging those who thought differently was abnormal, thus unacceptable in the eyes of the Soviet regime. This was not the only part of the conflict that he was forced to conform to what he was told to do. Glebov faced conflict once again in this situation when he was bombarded with orders and requests from both the dean and fellow students. The dean “ordered [ him] to change his superviser , then tell them about Ganchuk’s ideological deviations” (311). He was also asked to speak on behalf of Ganchuk after the news broke that he had been fired. Nonetheless, Glebov was conflicted because he was being torn apart by both the dean and by fellow students who had also respected Ganchuk greatly. He wondered why “it was essential to humiliate people to such a degree” that Duzyaev had requested. On the other hand, he could potentially lose his scholarship, which he desperately needed as he was close to finishing his dissertation and completing graduate school. He had a choice to make, but because he was a conformist and formed to the rules it was a difficult one to make. Fortunately in this case, his grandmother had saved him one last time in his life. Grandma (name) had been his primary caretaker even though he was raised with his parents. She had saved him because she became sick and pass away, causing him to miss the event in which he was requested to speak at. However that was not the last of the conflict. There was a second event held later in the year in which he was asked to do the same thing. At that event, he denounced Professor Ganchuk, which lead to the start of his successful, but inhumane career. He chose to keep his scholarship and allow himself to yet again benefit from conforming through betrayal like times before. He gave up his relationship with both Professor Ganchuk and Sonya, and repress their memory deep within his mind. Later in Glebov’s life after becoming very successful following his education, he sees a recognizable face at a furniture store. Glebov could not remember the name of this face at first because he had repressed the memories of the two for so long. The face was Lev Shulepnikov, his old friend that had “dropped out of sight” (191). Lev was there thought his “distant past of, of mean and stupid things” (191). The narrator explains that if Glebov “were to be honest with himself, he hated that time.” Glebov hated the time of which he suffered from the inequality in the Soviet Union. He wanted to forget the time in which he was not successful. His thought process was much like that of the regimes in regard to their own memories, per say. The regime suppressed the times in the past in which they were unsuccessful. Each of the memories in the novel are an example of the Soviet Union’s ideology at this time. Each of the memories that resurfaced in the novel was one that Glebov wanted to forget for one reason or another. For that reason, Glebov is conforming to the idea that if he forgets his faults, they did not happen. Through the series of memories of Glebov throughout the novel, Yuri Trifonov illustrates what it was like to be a Soviet Citizen during the 1930’s to 1970’s. He shows what inequality and fear could drive someone to conform because Glebov and others thought it was the only way they could succeed and stay out trouble. However by becoming a “colorless creature” he began a string of betrayals that was common when one was seeking status or success during that time. Betrayal led Glebov to the ultimately sympathize with the ideologies of the party one step at a time. His life was an example of conformity for many reasons, but ultimately because he believed the same thing as the regime; if he had forgotten an event, it did not happen.
New York, Oxford University Press. Moorehead, Alan, Ed 1958. The Russian Revolution. New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers Inc. Pipes, Richard, Ed 1995.
The obvious benefits of communism are shadowed by the dark truth that the ruling party and their agenda will effectively alienate the common people in order to protect the state. As history has shown, socialism on a large scale has evolved from theory to tyrannical regimes that embody the same principals of sustaining a dictatorship. “Omon Ra” by Victor Pelevin, published in 1992 by the Tekst Publishing House in Moscow, gives great insight into the structure of a Leninist hierarchy in a post WWII Russian setting. Throughout the novel the main character Omon is constantly and slowly separated from his family, friends, and peers until his mind has adopted a reality of complete isolation from the rest of his “comrades”.
Mau, Vladimir. " The road to 'perestrokia': economics in the USSR and the problem of
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken writer, who used his short stories to be vocal about the reality of Soviet society. Many pieces of Soviet literature were regulated, in which the reality was masked by Soviet Union propaganda. Solzhenitsyn broke past this wall barrier in his two short stories, Matryona’s Home and An Incident at Krechetovka Station. Both novellas describe the harsh reality of Soviet life, the former in rural Russia, and the latter during World War II at an army station. While having different and distinct plots and characters, both pieces of literature play on key themes of the real Soviet life. Matryona’s Home emphasizes Soviet society’s blatant disregard of Russian tradition, while An Incident at Krechetovka comments on the society’s blind trust on the failing Soviet system. Both of Solzhenitsyn’s novellas focus on the perpetual suffering that all individuals went through in Soviet society.
Here, Vertov dictates spectators to assume a participatory role in giving interpretation to the finished film. For instance, Vertov constantly uses stop-motion and substitution splicing. These techniques are used to make the chairs of the movie theater fold down supernaturally as if to greet his viewers. And even though the film does represent Soviet society positively in terms of being modern, growing, and advantageous to the proletarians whose labor is now accurately valued and compensated with beach trips organized by the government, the film does have room for interpretation and even components of social critique. For example, one might question why, in a progressive soviet society where there is a beneficial unification of technology and human labor seemingly at every turn, where there is an emphasis on public services (ambulances, fire brigades, medical services, health and hygiene in general), there are still homeless people young and old sleeping on park benches or the ground. In addition, Vertov illustrates these same industrial workers abusing the efficient mass production of consumer goods: during their leisure time, certain wayward workers drink champagne to excess in a bar where rows and rows of champagne bottles are shown being opened. While simultaneously, the viewers see a class hierarchy prevalent in the Soviet Union. For instance, a wealthy family in a car has a driver who carries their bags inside as a barefoot, probably homeless child crosses paths with them entering the building. We also see wealthy men and women satisfy themselves lazily in a salon being shaved and having their hair washed, while the proletarians work hard in the polluted and hazardous factories or mines for their own welfare. The inevitable summary is that for all its commendable characteristics and progress, Soviet society still has challenges to overcome before classless equality becomes a reality. The key to
The Soviet citizens during the 1930s, particularly the younger ones, believed “they were participants in a history process of transformation, their enthusiasm for what was called ‘the building of socialism’” (68). The Soviets built hotels, palaces, and had blueprints displayed all throughout “that was supposed to set a pattern for urban planning throughout the country and provide a model of the socialist capital for foreigners” (69).
The political climate during Mikhail Gorbachev’s upbringing was turbulent. In the 1930s, when Gorbachev was still very young, he suffered the trauma of seeing his maternal grandfather, Pantelei Gopkalo, arrested during the Great Purge. Gopkalo was accused of being a Trotskyite counterrevolutionary and wa...
The famine in Russia alone led the peasants to become angry and fed up with the Russian government, suggesting a future revolution. Because of the peasants’ unrest, they began to break the law by as stealing food for their families and shouting in the streets. Russia had attempted revolution before, and a fear of an uprising was feared again. Their everyday routi...
In George Orwell’s famous allegorical novel of the evils and inhumanities that are intertwined in totalitarian states and their government methods and representatives called animal farm he does more than merely expresses the torment and fear the Russian people endured under the rule of Joseph Stalin. he reveals the painful truth about the ever present quality of frailty and treachery amongst the human race .societal structures, and individual values through the symbolic characters, events, and even the inner thought of the reader as they analyze the ever evolving complexity that is Animal farm.
...Russian society and social norms. The greatest reminder of this is found in the fact that Lopahkin, the man who Ranevsky once spoke to condescendingly, is now the family’s last hope for survival. Ironically enough, Lopahkin is often glancing at his watch, a reminder that time is changing, and a message that he, himself, is a testament to.
In the early 1980s prior to Gorbachev’s presidency, the soviet economy was wracked by chronic shortages of food and consumer items. These shortages were in part due because of Leonid Brezhnev leadership being inefficient at directing the soviet economy. It was against this backdrop of economic decline and political instability that Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. Gorbachev came from a peasant family and this humble background played a large role in his political thinking and gave him a strong humanitarian sympathy. His separation from the old regime gave him greater freedoms to move away from old thinking and enact policies grounded in a new way of thinking. Gorbachev was under different circumstances than past leaders because people at around this time wanted the country to move in different directions and at the same time, this led to Gorb...
Arthur Ashe once said, “From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however makes a life.” Such is the case in Nikolai Gogol’s short story The Overcoat. Gogol takes a man without a friend in the world and gives him a new overcoat. The new overcoat represents a new life and a new identity for the man and instantaneously he is much happier. The man, Akaky Akakievich, basis his “new life” upon the love that he gives to his overcoat, and what he feels it gives him in return. Before long, Akaky begins to care more about his beautiful coat and less about the people around him. Thus is the theme of the story. Often material things are more important in our lives than people, resulting in the emptiness of one’s heart and soul. One cannot be truly happy with his possessions alone. He needs more than that. He needs people his life, whom he can call friends.
Using diary entries as his literary vehicle, Dostoyevsky takes us inside the minds of his characters in a way that makes us voyeurs because of his realistic portrayal and honest disclosure of human emotion and sentiments. The story revolves around Roulettenberg, a German spa town where the rich gamble. We get the inner life of Alexei as it is portrayed in his diaries. He is poor but educated, and he is very aware of his class in society. He is conflicted, however, because he both covets and ridicules the lifestyle of the aristocracy with all its pretensi...
Rethinking the Soviet Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Gorbachev and Glasnost: viewpoints from the Soviet press. Isaac J. Tarasulo, Ph.D.
“The only people for whom we can even begin to imagine properly human, individual, existences are the literate and the consequential, the wazirs and the sultans, the chroniclers, and the priests—the people who had the power to inscribe themselves physically upon time” (Ghosh 17). History is written by the victorious, influential and powerful; however, history has forgotten the people whose voices were seized, those who were illiterate and ineloquent, and most importantly those who were oppressed by the institution of casted societies. Because history does not document those voices, it is the duty to the anthropologist, the historiographer, the philosopher as well as scholars in other fields of studies to dig for those lost people in the forgotten realm of time. In In An Antique Land, the footnotes of letters reveal critical information for the main character, which thematically expresses that under the surface of history is something more than the world can fathom.