Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein on November 7, 1879, in what is today known as Ukraine. He was the fifth child of a wealthy farmer, David Leontyevich Bronstein, and Anna Bronstein. The family was ethnically Jewish but not religious. At the age of nine, Trotsky was sent to Odessa to attend school, and as Deutscher points out in his biography, ‘Odessa was then a bustling cosmopolitan port city, very unlike the typical Russian city of the time. This environment contributed to the development of the young man's international outlook.’ Trotsky was always ‘quick-tempered, arrogant and a stubborn believer in intellectual solutions.’…
John Cheever was born on May 27th, 1912 in Quincy, Massachusetts. Cheever’s parents were mature and he had an older brother, Frederick. As a young boy, Cheever decides to become a writer. He discovers that he has a gift for spinning yarns, and that stories are a great escape from his dreadful childhood and adolescence. (Donaldson 18) “During homeroom his teacher at Thayer Academy used to promise her class that John would tell a story if they behaved. With luck and increasing skill, he could spin the story out over two or three class periods so that the teacher forgot all about arithmetic, and geography, and social studies.” (S. Cheever 1)…
I think what I really like about Chekhov is the way he uses words: he does them justice by acknowledging the power they have and the impact they can convey. He lets everything speak for itself, he does not put in frills or excessive wording for added sophistication, and, most importantly, everything has a purpose in his tales.…
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Tolstoy, is the story of a man who is faced with suffering and death in which no one seems to believe him. He’s a common man with common dreams. He’s not extraordinary in any way. Ivan Ilyich is a good literary protagonist. His character goes though ups and downs, is well rounded and relatable.…
He is a Russian novelist, dramatist, and historian. He was born the son of a widowed mother. Solzhenitsyn was brought up in the Caucasus region in Russia. His father died while he served in the army. Solzhenitsyn studies mathematics at Rostov State University while also taking classes from the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History. Aleksandr served in the Red Army as an artillery commander in East Prussia, during World War II. During his term there Aleksandr criticized Joseph Stalin to a friend, he was then sentenced to an eight-year term in a Russian Gulag. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn became famous for writing many pieces of literature, the first piece he wrote was a novel named, The First Circle, which was a novel that pertained to his imprisonment at the Russian Gulag. He later wrote, One day in the Life of Ivan Denisouich, in that novel he wrote about his experiences at Ekizbautz, another Russian Gulag where he was transferred. Later in Solzhenitsyn's life he was diagnosed with cancer at Kol-Terek, the last camp he was confined to for a large part of his life. While at Kol-Terek he wrote a novel titled, The Cancer Ward, which became the basis of a story titles, The Right Hand. Later on in Solzhenitsyn life on of his stories, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisouich became published. Due to this Solzhenitsyn unveiled the Russian Labor camp system, which imprisoned him for…
“The Death of Ivan Ilyich” makes us understand that death is a must for all of us. This is a fact that we unpleasantly believe in; the bitter aspect being that we have to suffer first before facing death. Though our medicines may be better than those applied on Ivan by his doctors, we have not gotten closer to evading mortality (Tolstoy, 1886). Nowadays medicine might be better than the medicine that Ivan had . In fact, many people still die after long fight with disease . The story helps us understand what individuals go through before or when they are dying,…
An immediate way to recognize the lasting impression of a Vsevolod Meyerhold is by seeing whom he has inspired in the Soviet Union and abroad. Some of the various directors in which Meyerhold inspired in some fashion include Eugenio Barba, Joan Littlewood, Ariane Mnouchkine, Anatoly Efros and Yury Lyubimov. What in Meyerhold’s theatre or life left a lasting value or inspired these directors?…
Anton Chekhov, author who related his work of emphasized the depths of human nature, the hidden significance of everyday events and the fine line between comedy and tragedy, he was born on January 29, 1860, in Taganrog, Russia (“Anton Chekhov”). According to Contemporary Authors Online, At the age of eight he was sent to the local grammar school, where he proved an average pupil. Rather reserved and undemonstrative, he nevertheless gained a reputation for satirical comments, for pranks, and for making up humorous nicknames for his teachers. He enjoyed playing in amateur theatricals and often attended performances at the provincial theater. As an adolescent he tried his hand at writing short "anecdotes," farcical or facetious stories, although…
After studying with Stanislavski, Chekhov began to formulate his own methods to better the actor’s ability to become the character. While both theorists sought to develop a source of inspiration, Stanislavski believed this could be pulled from within, whereas Chekhov pulled from outside of the actor (Solomon 13,15). Chekhov viewed Stanislavski’s method of emotional memory as restricting to the actor, as he believed it would “exhaust” the actor and lead to them “imitating themselves” (Brestoff 63). He desired to bring the ideas of imagination, imagery, and physicalization to primary importance in order to “stimulate feeling”, seeing it as more efficient than Stanislavski’s method (Solomon 13, 15). These key points are the basis of Chekhov’s…
Author’s Profile: Anton Chekhov (1860 – 1904) Anton Chekhov was born in the sea port town of Taganrog when Anton was growing up he did not have a decent childhood due to his father’s anger and bankruptcies. The Father left Anton to finish school where he began to write short stories and drew sketches to pay for his education. In addition, Anton studies to become a doctor but he did not have a successful practice for he insisted on treating the poor at no cost. He continues to write after he became ill with tuberculosis. At last, he became a respected writer and have a debt in his final years a wrote in a villa by the Black sea this is where he wrote his most famous story “The Lady with the Dog”.…
Leo Tolstoy’s mother died when he was two years old. Tolstoy was born on august 28, 1828 to Countess Mariya Tolstaya and Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana (his family’s estate) in the Tula Province of Russia. At the time he was the youngest of four sons but one of five to left by the count and countess. When his mother died, Leo Tolstoy’s father put the children in the care of his cousin Tatyana Ergolsky. Nine years later Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy would also pass, making Alexandra Osten-Saken (Leo’s aunt) their legal guardian (Christian, R. F., 1969). Their aunt took care of them for three years before she as well passed, though her time with the young…
“A Hero of Our Time… is indeed a portrait but not of a single individual; it is a portrait composed of all the vices of our generation (Nabokov 16). Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time concentrates on Pechorin, an arrogant and manipulative military officer, who Lermontov considers typical for his generation. The novel takes place in 19th century Russia when Tsar Nicholas I reined. Literature at this time was constricted to the portrayal of life only approved by the Tsar. Lermontov’s superfluous man, therefore, was revolutionary and sparked a lot of controversy as people were “offended that such an immoral person as the Hero of Our Time should be set as a model to them.” In the authors preface Lermontov criticizes readers who only see his…
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) is a novel centering on forty-year old Soviet political prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukov’s experiences during a single day in a fictional Soviet labor camp in 1951. Before entering the labor camp eight years earlier, Shukov was a poor stone mason, with a wife and two daughters who he left behind when he entered military service in 1941 after the Germany army invaded the Soviet Union. During fighting, the Germans captured him, but he later escaped and returned to the Soviet army. Soviet officials then accused him of high treason, saying he deliberately joined the German cause and then returned to the Soviet army as a spy. Although innocent of the charges, Soviet…
Anton Chekhov’s “Misery”, a sledge driver, Iona Petapov, grief’s the loss of his son. Iona is not able to willing to listen to his misery as he long to express his anguish. Each person that Iona makes encounters with are preoccupied and did not care to hear his story. Iona ended up having to share his despair with his horse by because the ignorance of his fellow men had left him no choice.…
always been poor stretching back generations, and that they will never get out of these…