What Russian Literature Can Teach Conservatives

Heritage Foundation ^ | December 13, 2016 | Gary Morson

[DiogenesLamp]

Exactly. Also his “men have forgotten God.” Speech.

[Fiji Hill]

Peter Krasnov's critically-acclaimed novel From Double Eagle to the Red Flag (New York: Duffield, 1926) concerns the Bolshevik Revolution. Krasnov, an anti-Communist general during the Russian Civil War was handed over to the Soviets at the close of WWII as part of Operation Keelhaul and hanged by the Stalinists.

I'm not sure if the book, first published in Russian, is still in print, but it's available for free online.

[apocalypto]

Sounds interesting.

[NorseViking]

Both Dostoyevski and Ayn Rand did more to explain leftism from conservative perspective than any Western author. And then comes Solzhenitsyn.
The People’s Cube (who are Ukes and Russians) are doing a better job than Western authors in that too.

[dr_lew]

My condolences. It’s something I’m aware of these days. Eventually on my own part, but for others in passing.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

There is a disturbing trend in the literary world that is making the works of foreign authors less accessible to English only speakers.

What I'm talking about is the politically correct elimination of transliterated foreign text and replacement with text in the alphabet of the foreign language.

So, for example, you may not see words like gulag or samizdat. Instead you will see a group of indecipherable Cyrillic characters.

If you complain about it you will be told to shut up and learn Cyrillic you lazy, racist bastard.

I learned so much about Soviet atrocities and the failures of Communism by reading books with translated and transliterated words.

I'm sorry but I don't have the time or desire to learn Cyrillic. I know some Greek characters only because I had lots of math in college. But putting them together to form words takes more time and takes me out of the text.

So the PC crowd that pretends it wants to bring peoples together is actually turning us more into a disconnected Tower of Babel day by day.

[Bob434]

[[When those circumstances changed, the men vanished into obscurity,]]

Prime example was Lewis and Clark- who rose to the occasion, accomplished an astonishing feat (with the help of Sacajawea) and then afterwards Lewis i believe it was (mighta been Clark), went on to obscurity- dying in poverty and depression

[AllAmericanGirl44]

Bkmk

[Jimmy Valentine]

He forgot Tergenev, who gave us the concept of Nihilism,well practiced by some politicians here.

[Krosan]

Golden State Rose, don’t forget that 19 out 20 of Russian Golden Age authors were sentenced for wrongthink. Knowing this piece of history pokes a big hole to the arguments of those saying we should support the Czar Putin because of Tolstoy, who in fact was sentenced to death and not Tzarinista at all.

[GoldenState_Rose]

I agree with you Krosan, if Russian people truly understood their literature, their society and givt today would look a lot different...but as it stands...it seems they live as the very characters their great writers despised and warned against.

[Aliska]

Re Chekhov, forgot to mention I think he was trained as a doctor but took up writing to augment the family income. Two of his works stand out the most for some reason, Late Blooming Flowers and In the Ravine.

Most literature it is hard to think of happy endings. Russia being cold and dismal for many and living conditions might have been prone to pessimism and melancholy. Although I note that their folk art and gatherings are filled with exuberance, very colorful. And they have beautiful lace curtains ;-). I pick up little factoids here and there but in the Russian schools in the winter, kids were given Vitamin D. We had milk in the earliest grades. Or sometimes ice cream ;-).

I never got into the Cherry Orchard, think there was one about Goosberries I liked, too, short story.

Somewhere I read about "holy babblers", people who had left the official church and still prayed to their corner icons in their homes. The author noted that once they left the fold, they didn't seem to fare too well. Might have been treated like outcasts.

Contrast that to the Mediterranean peoples in peacetime, especially the Italians. Tended to be bright and cheerier in the warm, sunny climate.

Your other insights are interesting and I would say valid. I quit reading literature so much, not sure why, quite some time before the internet. I've had more time to reflect and think more for myself, not that it is easy or I come up with anything worthwhile. It's something I need to do.

And I read very little Shakespeare, studied King Lear in English Lit in college. I know it was to my cultural detriment.