Thats why the people attending the event - even though they didnt know each other, had a great feeling of connection and were prone to expressing their patriotic emotions. Later i spoke with one of the attendees and he explained that poetry (or literature in this case) is a way of connecting similair perspectives to life to people divided by the enormous distances in Russia. I guess it had to do a little with the fact that they were expats and the Russian poetry probably reminded them at home, but the energy in the room was so intense. I could literally feel what the artists were talking about and the reactions of the crowd. I didn't understand a thing but this made my whole experience of it even more beautiful. I attended a Russian poetry event by accident a couple of days ago. ![]() If the literary work is good enough - and I think most of Bulgakov work is - it can be enjoyed even on the surface layer, without going in too deep.īut if you don't like Dostoyevsky (I do not and feel no shame about it - it's just not my cup of tea) or Bulgakov - by all means Chekhov and Gogol have enough good stuff for anybody. But we can choose to enjoy their works both with and without the background. Swift surely meant a lot of contemporary references in his Gulliver's Travels, most of which are lost on modern reader without special background, and Shakespeare was no stranger to contemporary matters either. This is a common thing for many literary works. > She said that every element in the story is a jab at some aspect of life or politics from that era. Which part didn't work for you specifically? I would think it's hard to appreciate it completely, but I don't see why the plot makes no sense - I think even if you ignore all the references and the background, it has pretty good basic plot. I continued to stick with short stories by Chekhov and Gogol after that. She said that every element in the story is a jab at some aspect of life or politics from that era. She said that it's true that the grammar in The Master in the Margarita is easier, but you'll never really understand the plot without having lived in the Soviet Union. I told this experience to my Russian teacher, and she laughed uncontrollably. ![]() I found that I could read and mostly understand it, but the plot made no sense. So, I went to a Russian colleague of mine, who recommended that I try to read "The Master and the Margarita" instead of Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky has a very eloquent way of writing with very long sentences and complicated grammar, but it's very hard for a non-native speaker to understand. I couldn't understand the first page of Crime and Punishment even with a dictionary. After reading some short stories by Chekhov, I decided to delve into something harder: Dostoevsky. When I was living in the United States and studying Russian, I started to read some Russian literature. ![]() The very title of the first chapter is a reference to the paranoia and legitimate fears of the period. You're barely a few pages in when Ivan suggests Kant be sent to the Solovki, one of the OG Gulags. But the repression bits are not some particularly deeply hidden layer at all. It's a multilayered work and, stylistically, Bulgakov is often a circumspect narrator. And after the knock but before the buttons, our knowingly winking omniscient narrator suddenly disappears, stops being omniscient and refuses to tell us what happened! The buttons are a nice detail at the tail end on which to hang an explanatory footnote, perhaps, but not some hidden clue, left in there for readers to suddenly slap their forehead and say 'Aha!'. In fact, such readers would have a pretty good idea where things are headed the moment the new 'friend' Mogarich appears and is described. To a contemporary Soviet reader (or a modern one with a bit more context), it's crystal clear who the 'they' knocking on the window in the middle of the night are. That's a wonderful example and no, they aren't. Those missing buttons are the only indication
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