Understanding 20th Century Russian History Through Literature: A Workshop for High School Teachers

1
Understanding 20th Century Russian History
Through Literature A Workshop for High School
Teachers

• By Gina M. Peirce
• Assistant Director, Center for Russian and East
  European Studies
• University of Pittsburgh
• Workshop given on October 9, 2006 at
• Gateway Senior High School, Monroeville, PA,
• in cooperation with the Allegheny Intermediate
  Unit

2
Introductions

• Name, School, Subject and Grade Level Taught
• Why are you interested in 20th century Russian
  history and literature? How much background do
  you have in these subjects?
• What do you hope to learn from this workshop?

3
Historical Timeline

• February and October Revolutions, 1917
• Civil War and war communism, 1918-21
• New Economic Policy proclaimed under Vladimir
  Lenin in 1921, officially ended under Josef
  Stalin in 1929
• Soviet Union established, 1922
• Great Terror under Stalin, 1934-38
• Pact signed with Nazi Germany in 1939 USSR
  invades and annexes territories on its western
  border
• Germany attacks USSR and Great Patriotic War
  begins, 1941

4
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)

• Grew up in Moscow, studied philosophy, then began
  writing poetry in 1914
• Initially supported Bolshevik Revolution,
  published several poetry collections and
  autobiographical stories in 1920s and 30s
• Disillusioned with Communist ideals after
  Stalinist terror and purges, feared publishing
  own work and began publishing translations
  instead (most famously Shakespeares Hamlet)
• Wrote his masterpiece novel, Doctor Zhivago, in
  1946-55
• Soviet authorities would not allow novels
  publication first published in Italy in 1957

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Boris Pasternak, continued

• Doctor Zhivago then translated into many
  languages, but never published in USSR until 1987
  under Mikhail Gorbachev
• Pasternak awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in
  1958, but was threatened with deportation and
  refused the prize under pressure from Soviet
  authorities
• Died shortly after, in 1960
• 1965 film version of Doctor Zhivago (much
  simplified from the novel) became blockbuster
  around the world, but also not shown in USSR
  until shortly before breakup of Soviet Union

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Themes of Doctor Zhivago

• Story of life of fictional doctor and poet, Yuri
  Zhivago
• He and wife Tonia are from affluent families,
  must struggle for survival (along with most
  Russians) after 1917 Revolution
• Accounts of First World War and Russian Civil War
  through Zhivagos eyes (serves as doctor in each,
  though unwillingly in latter case after captured
  by partisans)
• Conditions of life in Moscow contrasted with
  provinces (town of Yuriatin and its environs in
  Ural Mountain region of Russia)
• Love affair with Lara Antipova, woman from modest
  background whose husband leaves her to become a
  partisan commander in the Civil War

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Themes of Doctor Zhivago, continued

• Much of novel consists of Zhivagos musings on
  love, art, history, etc., but also contains many
  realistic details of Russian life during this
  turbulent period
• In Doctor Zhivago, Everyone is reduced to a
  primitive, prehistoric level of bare subsistence
  even as they participate in one of the
  defining historical moments of the twentieth
  century The raw facts of history in Doctor
  Zhivago are about death and ruin and, indeed,
  physical and metaphysical homelessness. (Edith
  W. Clowes, Doctor Zhivago A Critical Companion,
  Northwestern University Press, pgs. 38-39)

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Excerpts from Doctor Zhivago

• Chapter 6 Zhivagos return to his home and
  family in Moscow in summer 1917 (between the two
  Russian revolutions), after serving as a doctor
  for Russian troops in First World War
• Descriptions of chaotic conditions in Moscow and
  references to housing crisis/redistribution of
  space, economic hardships experienced by
  population as basic goods became scarce (pgs.
  166-171)
• Dinner party for Zhivagos homecoming, featuring
  a duck given to him by an eccentric he met on the
  train returning from the war front

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Excerpts from Doctor Zhivago, continued

• The large duck was an unheard-of luxury in those
  already hungry days, but there was no bread with
  it, and because of this its splendor was somehow
  pointless it even got on ones nerves. The
  alcohol (a favorite black-market currency) had
  been brought in a medicine bottle with a
  glass stopper But the saddest thing of all
  was that their party was a kind of betrayal. You
  could not imagine anyone in the houses across the
  street eating or drinking in the same way at the
  same time. Beyond the windows lay silent, dark,
  hungry Moscow. Its shops were empty, and as for
  game and vodka, people had even forgotten to
  think about such things. (p. 175)

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Excerpts from Doctor Zhivago, continued

• Account of Bolshevik Revolution, pgs. 190-195
• Unusually cold winters characterized by famine,
  1917-19, as private enterprise was driven
  underground and no effective state-controlled
  distribution system yet established (pgs.
  195-199)
• Civil War and war communism period, barter and
  black market trade widespread as people tried to
  survive
• Zhivagos family decides to move temporarily from
  Moscow to his wifes familys former estate in
  the Urals to survive by growing their own food
  description of Yaroslavsky train station (p. 210)
  shows further evidence of social disorder and
  breakdown of countrys transportation system

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Excerpts from Doctor Zhivago, continued

• At end of novel, Zhivago returns to Moscow during
  NEP period (1922), having been separated from his
  family and Lara due to civil war and threats of
  political persecution
• Description of effects of removing ban on private
  enterprise (p. 473) and social classes in
  theoretically classless society
• Zhivago and his unofficial third wife Marina
  chopped wood for a good many of the tenants on
  the different floors. Some of them, particularly
  speculators who had made fortunes at the
  beginning of the NEP and artists and scholars who
  were close to the government, were setting up
  house on a comfortable scale. (p. 479)

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Excerpts from Doctor Zhivago, continued

• One more example of housing crisis
• Gordons room was part of a curious structure,
  which had once been the premises of a fashionable
  tailor The premises were now divided into
  three. By means of floor boards an extra room had
  been fitted into the space between the lower and
  the upper levels. It had what was, for a living
  room, a curious window, about three feet high,
  starting at floor level and with part of the gold
  letters remaining. (p. 480)
• Many more examples of this type in Zoshchenkos
  stories

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Mikhail M. Zoshchenko (1894-1958)

• Grew up in St. Petersburg, studied law
• Served in First World War
• Served in Red Army during Russian Civil War
• Attempted various jobs including postmaster and
  cobbler (repairing shoes), 1919-22
• Published first stories in 1922 published in
  Soviet satirical press starting in 1923 until
  most satirical publications were shut down around
  1930
• Fell out of favor with Soviet authorities and was
  subjected to Communist Party harassment from 1946
  until his death

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Background Information NEP

• New Economic Policy introduced by Vladimir
  Lenin in 1921 to recover from economic
  devastation of Civil War period
• Permitted some private agriculture, private
  traders and craftspeople
• Businesspeople known as NEPmen gained
  reputation for greed and lack of cultural
  sophistication (somewhat like new moneyed class
  or New Russians in 1990s)
• NEP accompanied by tolerance of literature by
  fellow travelers, or writers whose works were
  not openly anti-Soviet but not necessarily
  favorable toward Soviet system
• NEP ended in late 1920s after Stalin consolidated
  power private enterprise then eliminated

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Soviet Cultural Policy During NEP

• Central Directorate for Matters of Literature and
  Publishing (Glavlit) created 1922, had to
  approve publication of any printed material
• Relatively permissive at first, but laid
  foundation for later, much stricter censorship
  under Stalin
• Debate among literary critics throughout 1920s on
  whether since the Soviet state had set up the
  proper legal procedures for uncovering and
  eradicating social ills, satirical literature was
  no longer necessary (Jeremy Hicks, trans., The
  Galosh and Other Stories by Mikhail Zoshchenko,
  Angel, pg. 9)
• Satire remained enormously popular with the public

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Zoshchenko and Soviet Satire

• In 1922-28, seven satirical magazines in Moscow
  and Petrograd/ Leningrad (formerly St.
  Petersburg) had combined print run of over half a
  million copies
• Approximately equal to daily circulation of
  official Communist Party newspaper, Pravda
• Zoshchenko estimated to have sold 100 million
  copies of his stories
• Huge popularity attributed to his simple writing
  style, use of colloquial language/slang, timely
  subject matter to which many people could relate

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Zoshchenkos Audience

• Stories appealed to many Soviet citizens who had
  just completed basic literacy courses through
  Bolsheviks literacy campaign --illiteracy was
  widespread in society composed mainly of peasants
  before Revolution
• Many people migrated from countryside to major
  cities after Revolution in search of work, then
  faced problems similar to those of Zoshchenkos
  characters

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Themes of Zoshchenkos Stories

• Confusion of ordinary Russians over new Marxist
  political vocabulary characters often try to
  use this vocabulary and make humorous mistakes
• Overcrowding and housing shortage in cities due
  to rapid influx of people
• Shortages and poor quality of consumer goods as
  emphasis was placed on developing heavy industry
• Widespread theft, bribery and corruption,
  conflicting with declared ideals of socialist
  society
• Bureaucratization of Soviet life

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A Favorite Topic The Communal Apartment

• To deal with housing shortage, Communist
  government converted many large apartments into
  communal apartments
• Several families shared a kitchen and bathroom,
  with each family having only one room of their
  own
• Separate rooms often created by adding thin
  plywood walls, causing lack of privacy
• Many conflicts among strangers forced to share
  such close quarters a favorite target of
  satirical literature

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Reading and Discussion of Zoshchenkos Short
Stories Small Groups

• Group 1 Crisis and Guests
• Group 2 Nervous People and Hard Labour
• Group 3 Red Tape and Of Lamp-shades
• Read and discuss the selected two stories in your
  small group.
• Give a brief synopsis of the two stories to the
  entire group.
• Comment on what the stories illustrate about
  Soviet life in the 1920s under NEP.

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-)

• Studied physics and mathematics at Rostov
  University and completed correspondence course in
  literature, 1936-41.
• Served as officer in Soviet military during Great
  Patriotic War against Germany, 1942-45. Arrested
  at the front for making critical comments about
  Stalin in personal correspondence. Sentenced to
  eight years of hard labor.
• Confined in prison camps, 1945-53, including a
  camp in Kazakhstan for political prisoners only
  in 1950-53. Conditions in this camp would be
  reflected in his famous story One Day in the Life
  of Ivan Denisovich.

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (continued)

• Spent three years of exile in Kazakhstan before
  being permitted to return to European Russia in
  1956.
• After Stalins death in 1953, new Soviet leader
  Nikita Khrushchev begins de-Stalinization
  campaign in 1956 and denounces Stalinist terror.
  In the context of this cultural thaw,
  Solzhenitsyn is permitted to publish Ivan
  Denisovich in the Soviet literary journal Novy
  Mir in 1962 (but it is later banned).
• After Khrushchev is ousted and replaced by Leonid
  Brezhnev in 1964, Solzhenitsyn is prevented from
  publishing most of his work in the Soviet Union
  and can publish only abroad.
• Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature, 1970.

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, continued

• Deported to West Germany, 1974.
• Moved to Vermont, USA, 1976.
• Upon collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the
  1974 charge of treason against Solzhenitsyn was
  annulled.
• Moved back to Russia in 1994.

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Background Information The Soviet Gulag System
(from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag)

• Penal system of forced labor camps operated by
  the NKVD (secret police)
• Held political prisoners as well as common
  criminals
• Most located in remote areas of Siberia or
  Central Asia
• Some camp facilities set up as early as 1918 as
  extension of labor camps operated in tsarist
  Russia
• GULAG (Russian acronym) officially established as
  a department of the secret police in 1930
• Major growth of prison camp population through
  1930s as prison labor was used for
  industrialization efforts

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The Soviet Gulag System, continued

• Mass arrests during Great Terror in 1937-38 led
  to hundreds of thousands being sentenced to long
  prison terms for counterrevolutionary
  activities, mostly arbitrarily
• Over 1.5 million people in Gulag system by 1939
• Gulag population declined during Second World
  War, as hundreds of thousands of inmates were
  conscripted into military service
• Increased again after war, to 2.5 million in
  early 1950s, including hundreds of thousands of
  former soldiers accused of treason for such
  offenses as being having been captured by
  Germans, liberated from concentration camps by
  Americans, etc.

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The Soviet Gulag System, continued

• Gulag system declined after Stalins death in
  1953, most camps closed down by end of 1950s
• GULAG officially dissolved in 1960
• 18-20 million people were held in Gulag at some
  point during Stalinist period, with over 1.6
  million documented deaths
• Deaths resulted from disease, malnutrition,
  overwork and exposure (due to inadequate food,
  clothing and medical care), and brutal treatment
  by guards and fellow prisoners
• Once released, former prisoners were often
  prohibited from living in major Russian cities or
  holding a wide range of jobs, so they could not
  return to former homes and occupations

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Background Information on One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich

• Solzhenitsyn sought to portray a typical day in
  the life of an ordinary camp inmate, the peasant
  Ivan Denisovich Shukhov
• Wrote in Russian 19th century realist tradition
  The great Russian prose writers of the last
  century took pride in the way their works
  addressed and reflected the actual historical,
  social, or moral conditions of their homeland.
  Literary achievement was not seen in the ability
  of a powerful imagination to create a vivid
  fictional world but rather in the writers
  skill in selecting, shaping and ordering the data
  of reality. Alexis Klimoff, One Day in the
  Life of Ivan Denisovich A Critical Companion, p.
  6

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Background Info on One Day, continued

• Story takes place in January 1951 at a Special
  Camp for political prisoners in Central Asia
• Special Camps allowed prisoners to write only two
  letters home per year, and denied them even token
  payment for hard labor performed
• Ivan Denisovich is imprisoned for treason after
  having been briefly captured by Germans during
  the war (he escaped) many fellow prisoners for
  similar reasons
• Story is told from Ivans viewpoint as a simple,
  honest man without strong political beliefs who
  is mainly concerned about day-to-day survival

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Excerpts from One Day

• First 12 pages morning routine, reveille,
  illness, cold (p. 10 prisoners not made to work
  outdoors if temperature was under 41
  degrees C, 41.8 degrees F! Length of workday
  mentioned later in book 11 hours.)
• There is no worse moment than when you turn out
  for work parade in the morning. In the dark, in
  the freezing cold, with a hungry belly, and the
  whole day ahead of you. You lose the power of
  speech. You havent the slightest desire to talk
  to each other. (p. 28)

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Excerpts from One Day continued

• Since hed been in the camps Shukhov had thought
  many a time of the food they used to eat in the
  village whole frying pans full of potatoes,
  porridge by the caldron, and great hefty
  lumps of meat. Milk they used to lap up till
  their bellies were bursting. But he knew better
  now that hed been inside. Hed learned to keep
  his whole mind on the food he was eating. Like
  now he was taking tiny little nibbles of bread
  Dry black bread it was, but like that nothing
  could be tastier. How much had he eaten in the
  last eight or nine years? Nothing. And how hard
  had he worked? Dont ask. (p. 50)

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Excerpts from One Day continued

• Shukhov no longer knew whether he wanted to
  be free or not. To begin with, hed wanted it
  very much, and counted up every evening how many
  days he still had to serve. Then hed got fed up
  with it. And still later it had gradually dawned
  on him that people like himself were not allowed
  to go home but were packed off into exile. And
  there was no knowing where the living was easier
  here or there. (p. 178)
• Last line of story Just one of the 3,653 days
  of his sentence, from bell to bell. The extra
  three were for leap years. (p. 182)

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Conclusions

• Various challenges and opportunities with using
  these texts as a teaching tool
• Historical details in Doctor Zhivago are embedded
  in a very long and complex narrative assigning
  entire book could be appropriate for an advanced
  literature class, but less so for history/social
  studies
• Using film version might be helpful to provide
  students with outline of story, while using
  excerpts from novel such as those we read to
  point out realistic historical details that were
  not emphasized in film

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Conclusions, continued

• Zoshchenko stories are short and easily
  digestible, but will require some background
  information to be presented by teacher or through
  other, factual reading assignments
• Students could be asked to respond by writing
  their own humorous short stories about, for
  example, what they think it would be like to live
  in a communal apartment
• Satire humanizes Soviet history that is usually
  presented very seriously may help students to
  see beyond ideological conflicts and view
  Russians as ordinary people with problems they
  could imagine having

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Conclusions, continued

• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a short
  text (in its entirety, with some background information
  provided by teacher
• Could be used to provoke broader discussion on
  authoritarian vs. democratic political systems
  and justice systems (arbitrary punishment of
  ordinary people for offenses such as treason)
  can any similar contemporary examples be found?
• Could also stimulate creative writing assignments
  focusing on life in prison camps (e.g., imagine
  that you are spending a day in the Gulag and
  describe your experiences)

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Conclusions, continued

• Other ideas for how you might use any of these
  materials in your classroom? Discuss.
• What kind of follow-up would you like to see from
  this workshop? For example, a website maintained
  at Pitt where you could submit ideas or lesson
  plans you developed on this topic links to other
  information resources related to this topic
  other?
• Resources currently offered by Pitt/REES for K-12
  educators resource lending library, school
  visits program, outreach newsletter, other
  professional development workshops for all world
  areas through UCIS
• Outreach World, www.outreachworld.org

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Bibliography

• Clowes, Edith W., ed. Doctor Zhivago A Critical
  Companion. Evanston, IL Northwestern University
  Press/AATSEEL, 1995.
• Klimoff, Alexis, ed. One Day in the Life of Ivan
  Denisovich A Critical Companion. Evanston, IL
  Northwestern University Press/AATSEEL, 1997.
• Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago. Trans. Max
  Hayward and Manya Harari. New York Pantheon,
  1958.
• Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. One Day in the Life of
  Ivan Denisovich. Trans. H.T. Willetts. New York
  Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1991.
• Zoshchenko, Mikhail. The Galosh and Other
  Stories. Trans. Jeremy Hicks. London Angel,
  2000.

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Contact Information

• Gina Peirce
• 412-648-2290
• gbpeirce_at_ucis.pitt.edu
• www.ucis.pitt.edu/crees