Here's the thing about about language: What isn't said can be as subtle as what is. While preparing to spend some weeks touring the late unlamented Soviet Union, I once took a highly abbreviated course in Russian offered by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Then I went off, armed with my pidgin Russian, to see what was then Leningrad (now St. Petersburg again), as well as points as far east as Novosibirsk. Wherever I went, my attentive hosts -- and there are no hosts more attentive than the minders assigned visitors in a police state -- tended to assume I was a comrade from Cuba, since my primitive Russian bore telltale traces of a Cuban accent. Little did they know that our crash course in Russian had been taught by an exile from that prison isle, who'd taken the first chance he'd gotten to make it over to the land of the free. And I certainly felt no need to go into detail. At one point in our whirlwind tour, our closely watched group of …show more content…
Then the well-armed captain proudly made it down the aisle. He seemed as relieved as the passengers to get his legs back on terra firma. The sound of a well-trained children's choir in Yerevan, Armenia, paraded out to show us the excellence of Soviet education whether they wanted to or not. They were forbidden to speak their native Armenian -- down with bourgeois nationalism! -- but were drilled in Russian. The hissing sound made by the obvious KGB man striding through a hotel and shooing away any and all in his path while he muttered muzhiki! -- peasants! The contempt in his voice was as obvious as his steel teeth, the pride of Soviet dentistry at the
Traveling is one of my family’s favorite things to do. The family has visited numerous places throughout the United States, however, none are as memorable as Atlanta, Georgia. In Atlanta, there are many places to go and sights to see such as: Cola-cola factory, Cabbage Patch Kids Factory, Under Ground Mall, the Zoo, Atlanta Braves Stadium, Six Flags Over Georgia, Stone Mountain Park, and the Atlanta Aquarium, are all in or near the city of Atlanta. The three that we visit on every trip to Atlanta are Six Flags, Stone Mountain, and the Atlanta Aquarium.
“They walked and talked of the strange light on the sea… talked of how sultry it was after a hot day” and discussed employment and birthplaces (897). After departing from Yalta, Chekhov details Gurov’s dreary life of “children [having] breakfast and getting ready for school… entertaining distinguished lawyers... walking his daughter to school” (901, 905).
The Soviet Union, after 69 years if being a country, has done a gaggle of things. From space achievements to putting the most funding into their military than any other country at the time, these events all deserve to be remembered in Soviet Union textbooks. However, there are three things that must be in those Soviet textbooks which would be geographic expansion, military strength, and their Olympic values. All of these show that communism was capable of producing greatness and nationalism in their people. Geographic expansion should be included in Soviet Union textbooks because it shows the determination of their country, their leaders need to protect their country, and it shows their ideals.
The first truth about the Soviet Union that textbook authors should emphasize is its great scientific, sports, and cultural achievements. One impressive scientific achievement was the many firsts involving the space race (Doc F). A notable victory in sports was the medal count of the Summer Olympics from 1952-1988 (Doc G). The Soviets also had globally admired ballet companies, including those that came to the United States in a cultural exchange to help ease relations between these two nations (Doc H). This is an important area for textbook authors to explore because despite the Soviet Union’s well-earned reputation for political oppression and militarism, the nation achieved great heights in culture and sometimes used their talent to promote international peace.
“Nice backpack, very stylish”, said one of them in quite a thick accent. The rest nodded in agreement. I smile, then I turn. But before I do, I hear them continue their conversations, but not in English, in Russian. Their words flowed gracefully like a waterfall, but fell
The USSR showed great educational progress as it is shown in the statistics , the literacy was twenty-five percent in 1915 and it grew to ninety-nine in 1980. Another example of Russia’s social condition is the massive instability and genocides during 1937 and 1938. In Document C it states “According to declassified Soviet archives, during 1937 and 1938, the NKVD detained 1,548,366 victims , of whom 681,692 were shot -an average of 1,000 executions a day ( in comparison, the Tsarists executed 3,932 persons for political crimes 1825 to 1910-an average of less than 1 execution per week).” (Document C) it shows how the NKVD, the police force that carried out Stalin’s orders to keep his people from rebelling and having freedom of speech
write in two, English and Russian. Having moved from Russia to America in my teenage
The Soviet Union did a few things that are notable of mentioning as positive aspects of the Cold War and of the USSR’s mindset. One example of something positive yielded from
Were it a testimony to the rigors and cruelness of human nature, it would be crushing. As it is, it shatters our perception of man and ourselves as no other book, besides perhaps Anne Franke`s diary and the testimony of Elie Wiesl, could ever have done. The prisoners of the labor camp, as in Shukhov?s predicament, were required to behave as Soviets or face severe punishment. In an almost satirical tone Buinovsky exclaims to the squadron that ?You?re not behaving like Soviet People,? and went on saying, ?You?re not behaving like communist.? (28) This type of internal monologue clearly persuades a tone of aggravation and sarcasm directly associated to the oppression?s of communism.
“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said in his impactful narrative that paints a picture of the Gulag labor camps in Soviet Russia through personal experience, eyewitness testimony and interviews, and primary research material. Solzhenitsyn is describing the silence that survivors of the Gulag were forced to exhibit after staring terror and fear directly in the face during their time in the Gulag. The silence Solzhenitsyn is describing, is claimed to be one of the reason the Gulag is often not given the attention in history books and in the forefront of our minds that the Gulag deserves. The Gulag is believed to be one of the most horrible and inhuman acts of the 20th century, yet western society tends to shy away from mentioning the Gulag when discussing tragedy. This paper will examine historians’ views on the Gulag and why it has been overlooked in history as the horrible tragedy it was and the impact that this silence has had, not only on the survivors, but also the impact it has had on Russia and its society as a whole.
From Stalin’s Cult of Personality to Khrushchev’s period of De-Stalinization, the nation of the Soviet Union was in endless disarray of what to regard as true in the sense of a socialist direction. The short story, This is Moscow Speaking, written by Yuli Daniel (Nikolai Arzhak) represents the ideology that the citizens of the USSR were constantly living in fear of the alternations of their nation’s political policies. Even more, the novella gives an explanation for the people’s desire to conform to the principles around them.
During Russia’s transition to communism in the early 20th century, conflict and unease permeated every part of life. Nothing was stable and very little of what the Bolsheviks had fought for had come to fruition by the time the USSR disbanded in 1991. The “classless society”, which was to work together for the prosperity of everyone, never became a reality. In the end, the majority of Russia’s 20th century was an utter failure on a grand scale. However, there were many amazing products of the system do to the great importance of education in Russian culture. Priceless novels were written, timeless movies were made, and great scientific endeavors were realized despite the rigid control placed upon Russian persons by the government. In
As I read more and more, what began as fun and silly playfulness has grown into deep appreciation. However this appreciation is, unfortunately, limited. How can I fully love the poetry of Pushkin when each word that he had meticulously chosen must be translated, sacrificing his poetic style, in order that I may read it? Even if I could read Russian, would not my understanding of the novels of Dostoyevsky be improved if I could visit his home country and experience the culture and society that influenced his life and works? By visiting Russia, learning the language, and thus growing in my understanding of Russian culture, I will be able to extract a richer experience from the writings that I already love so much. These are exactly the opportunities that the Intensive Summer Program in Russian will open up to me, and why I feel motivated to apply, so that I may take advantage of such opportunities. (eh that last sentence feels
When we hear the term Russian culture many Americans tend to have negative thoughts like the cold war, their government ruling with an iron hand, and the Red Scare. These thoughts do not do the justice to the Russian people or to their long history as a people dating back to INSERT DATE. One of the major themes throughout Russian history and this course is the idea that the Russian people value intangible things more than the tangible. The Russian people have a long rich heritage, they are deep in there Christian faith, and they pride themselves on hospitality and value there community, families, and fellow Russian people. They have learned how to sacrifice from the constant invasions and being forced farther and
As two countries that have different cultures, economics, and politics, Russia and United Kingdom have developed their own education systems respectively, which have their differences and in certain circumstances similarities. In the paragraphs that follow, some major aspect of these will be covered. This essay will present the main structures of the education systems in both countries and will compare and contrast the two systems in terms of number of taught subjects, the structure of educational institutes and the ability to pursue higher education at the universities. I will consider both paid and free education.