Victor Pelevin’s Homo Zapiens provides a rather complex image of the immediate post-Soviet era and in it a plethora of social commentary that offers a vivid depiction of the years immediately following the end of communism. In providing Tatarsky as a character that attempts to starkly break away from the past and search for meaning in the new post-Soviet era, Pelevin offers his readers to ability to better understand the transition from the Soviet Union to Russia. Oushakine instead attempts to illuminate “loss of language” in the immediate post-Soviet era throughout his text In the State of Post-Soviet Aphasia: Symbolic Development in Russia. These two works are starkly different in that one is written in an academic style whereas the other …show more content…
While at face value Pelevin uses these examples to demonstrate massive change in Russia during this transitional period, it is revealed throughout the duration of the book and Tatarsky’s search for meaning that this transition is far from profound and is in fact superficial at best. Tatarsky’s drug and alcohol escapades as well as his spiritual experimentations with the Oujia Board are revealed early on to be attempts by Tatarsky to learn more about advertising; however, much of what is provided through these instances of intoxication is instead meaning in the Post-Soviet transition. As such, it becomes apparent that while Tatarsky explicitly is searching for answers to his various advertising questions, he is also more subtly trying to find meaning in the Post-Soviet era. It is revealed that reality is a social construct from Tatarsky’s first encounter with Che Guevara. This fact provides a point of continuity from the Soviet times to the Post-Soviet times. To further enhance his knowledge of advertising and also find meaning in the Post-Soviet transitional period, Tatarsky pursues these moments of psychedelic …show more content…
Ignoring the fact that much of the evidence Oushakine uses can be easy written off as unreliable as in the case of him using suggestive language in his interviews which he later used to confirm this notion of “Post-Soviet Aphasia,” Oushakine’s suggestion of this loss of language reveals much about the transition to capitalism from communism that runs in conjunction with Pelevin’s work. The very fact that Oushakine hopes to explain this transition and find meaning in it, can be similarly associated with Tatarsky’s personal search for meaning in the Post-Soviet period through drug and spiritual experimentation. Oushakine gives a rather compelling argument; however, under greater scrutiny his argument is revealed to be wrongly constructed. From this, what is also revealed is that the search for meaning in the transitional period was a relatively common Russian phenomenon and often this search came up empty handed. In the case of Oushakine this is due to the reliability of his work being drawn into question and in the case of Tatarsky’s search for meaning in the Post-Soviet era, it is discovered that just as in Soviet times, the Post-Soviet transition is also characterized by societal control. This focus on meaning in the Post-Soviet era suggests a loss of meaning that must have existed during Soviet times. Therefore, the focus on discontinuity and loss
This was, of course, only a humorous exaggeration, a case of political satire. Yet beneath the humor, there lies a very profound testament to the belief that Russia's political culture has been inherited from its czarist days and manifested throughout its subsequent development. The traditions from the pre-Revolution and pre-1921 Russia, it seems, had left its brand on the 70-years of Communist rule. The Soviet communism system was at once a foreign import from Germany and a Russian creation: "on the one hand it is international and a world phenomenon; on the other hand it is national and Russian…it was Russian history which determined its limits and shaped its character." (Berdyaev, "Origin")
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
The issues that affected Stalin's rule and decisions are more numerable than simply the welfare of the Soviet people. Undertaking the task of analysing Stalin's regime in this period of 13 years is not an easy feat. There are a broad range of subjects and ideas to comprehend and attempt to convey to begin to understand the overall view of Stalinist Russia. A logical starting point for the consideration of Stalin's actions as he sought to drag the Soviet Unioninto a position where it stood amongst equals on the international stage is the impact of Stalin's rule when compared to the wider history of Russia. In the beginning, five years into the new 20th
A. Soviet History. Marxists.org. 2010. Web. The Web. The Web.
For many people, the 1917 revolution heralded a new age, much as the French revolution had. But instead of bringing on an age of secular republics, and liberalism, it brought on an age of oppressive states based on the Soviet Union’s model of government. To the untrained 20th century eye, the 1917 revolution’s model of state organization was something truly new, bizarre and intriguing. Yet, a brief synopsis of Russian history would quickly reveal that there were more similarities between the Soviet and Tsarist governments than Stalin or any other Soviet official would have cared to admit; the revolution was not as revolutionary as it seemed. This paper will use Hannah Arendt’s definition of revolution to demonstrate that the 1917 Bolshevik
Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Emphasized throughout Soviet Russia, ‘vertical collectivism,’ occurs when hierarchy defines one’s rank, and submission to authority comes at the cost of self-sacrifice. “Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Millions of what? Stomachs, and heads, and legs, and tongues, and souls. And it doesn’t even matter whether they fit together. Just millions. Just flesh. Human flesh” (Rand 403). In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, that cost of ‘self-sacrifice’ was one’s individuality—the defining factors that allowed one human to be unique, different from the rest. “There are things in men,” Andrei Taganov argues in the face of his Party, “in the best of us, which are above...
A while after my banishment, My family and I moved to Samara, in 1889 and that’s when I expressed my love for communism. I studied to be scholar in Marxism. I studied Friedrich Engel, Georgi Plekhanov and many others’ works. Their writings mesmerised me as it formed my outlook on communism. Communism is a political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production . Forming a communist party, the Bolsheviks in 1903, was the best thing I have done as I destroyed 300 years of Romanov reign. The Romanovs always lived the luxury lives while many of us had to work by working all day, providing food for our families and for even them. I believe that Russia needed a political change, they needed communism. I gave the people what they wanted, which was peace, land and bread in the form of communism. However, many Russians were not content and were against the communist lifestyle, thus they revolted in the Civil
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...
My best (and favorite) subject in school is Math. Ever since I was very little I have loved math, and worked very hard at it. When I do not fully understand topics I do extra problems to make sure that they become clear to me. I spend a lot of time working on math to make sure I understand the topics throughly. I have been in math clubs since 4th grade, and in 7th grade I represented my school at the MathCounts® competition where I won a two silver pins. I won the Virginia State Math Award in 7th grade, and this year I got an 800 in math on my SSAT. As a result of my hard work I am currently one of three students in my school to be in the highest math group, Precalculus.
"From Autocracy to Oligarchy." The Structure of Soviet History: Essays and Documents. Ed. Ronald Grigor. Suny. New York: Oxford UP, 2003. 340-50. Print.
Stalin was determined to go ahead with this radicalism through economic and social change. His totalitarian leadership however was far from perfect, it was in fact a political system that was defectively flawed. The main issue was the lack of control the administration and party h...
Exploring the October revolution and the establishment of communism, Richard Pipes concludes that the origin of communism can be traced back to the distant past in Russia’s history. Pipes states that Russia had entered a period of crisis after the governments of the 19th century undertook a limited attempt at capitalisation, not trying to change the underlying patrimonial structures of Russian society. (Pipes, 1964)
Rethinking the Soviet Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Gorbachev and Glasnost: viewpoints from the Soviet press. Isaac J. Tarasulo, Ph.D.