The
political turmoil surrounding Russia's history creates an environment
ripe for emotionally powerful works of art. A people struck with
fear, need, and wavering national pride turned to fiction in
literature as a means of communicating dangerous ideas against the
state. Magical Realism followed naturally, fitting comfortably with a
cultural love of mythos and fantasy. The resulting canon of popular
Magical Realism literature is gritty, bleak, and darkly funny. Black
humor is brought to readers through deadpan absurdities and
hopeless causes. Popular themes of repressed human dignity and
circular history are upheld across decades and borders, touchstones
of a strange, shared reality in a time of equally absurd propaganda.
Mikhail
Bulgakov's
Heart
of a Dog
is an apt satire of the Communist revolution's failed attempts to
make mankind in its own image. This is truly not a book for the faint
of heart; it is a trigger warning with a dust jacket. A
Russian scientist, in the style of Dr. Moreau, implants the brain and pituitary glands of an unfortunate human victim into the living body
of a trusting stray dog. What
follows is a close introspection of Party politics, a failed
common-law marriage, eugenics, the meaning of the discontinuity of consciousness, and several strangled cats. The novel was riotously successful and has been adapted into a play, an opera, a musical, and
a movie.
Heart of a Dog was finished 1925, promptly banned, and then
nationally distributed by the seditious and industrious anyway. By the time that the novel was officially released by the government in
1987, every man, woman, child, and politician had read and discussed
its contents with great interest. Heart of a Dog is a good example of
the
tradition of "samizdat", or covertly and privately
published banned materials. Devotees would reproduce and distribute
manuscripts despite threats of heavy legal retribution, relying on
tenuous webs of trust and secrecy for their freedom. You, good
reader, can buy this book for a dollar from the comfort of your couch. Check the Link List below for your very own copy.
Next
to Bulgakov's body of work, Karel Capek's R.U.R.
is a lighthearted romp about the end of humanity as a species. Karel
Capek, a Czechoslovakian author, wrote under the
shadow of the USSR for the greater part of his career. His
journalism and literature remained staunchly anti-communist,
anti-fascist, and pro-rationalism. He
earned the enmity of the state, but vastly influenced modern Czech literature, an anti-Marxist intellectual tradition, and Czech as a
written language. Near the end of his life, Capek earned the title of Czechoslovakia's "public enemy number two" from the Nazi
Gestapo; a better character reference could not be conceived.
R.U.R.
is a play concerning heavy topics such as the suppression of the
working class, concepts of modern slavery, and the rights of sentient to dignity, but it is a genuinely hopeful tale that
contains wonder and grace. Creatures spun of
flesh and bone on factory lines rise against
their owners to inherit the earth. These "robata",
creatures named by the nature of serf labor and drudgery, rediscover
the kind and the beautiful parts of human nature once freed. This
slim volume also contains zany situational humor among the human cast
members and an irrepressible sense of hope for naturally good sentience, creating a more reader-friendly example of this
era's literary classics.
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Link List:
Mikhail Bulgakov:
Heart of a Dog
Karel Capek:
R. U. R.
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Resources:
Nothing but years of experience, love, and obsession.
Please comment if any links are broken!
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