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>> "Hope Dies Last" <<
(a paper for school!!)
by -> Neko
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"It is childish to study a work of fiction in order to gain
information about a country or about a social class or about the author,"
(Nabokov 318) wrote Vladimir Nabokov in his thoughts on his book _Lolita_.
Studying a work to gain information on a country, however, is exactly the
task undertaken herein. If one believes Nabokov's assertion that a culture
cannot be understood merely through its literature, then it must also be
believed it is coincidental that a socio-literary theme can dominate a
country's thoughts, actions, and writings.
The Russian society, of which Nabokov retains membership, has been
oppressed under one regime after another for the past half century: the
Tsarist regime followed by the late Communist regime. Throughout all of this
oppression, one thing in Russia has remained constant: her peoples
commitment to the hope of a better tomorrow. An old Russian saying is
"nadezhda umeraet poslednye": hope dies last. Hope pervades Russian
literature - it must. The depression of day-to-day life in Russian society,
from serfdom to the current remnants of communism, has presented its
citizens with such a bleak future that only *hope* can save them. In Russian
literature, hope acts as the glue holding the words together.
Alexander Pushkin, the most famous Russian poet, wrote hundreds of
poems during his life. What follows are two of his untitled poems:
Should this life sometime deceive you,
Don't be sad or mad at it!
On a gloomy day, submit:
Trust - fair day will come, why grieve you?
Heart lives in the future, so
What if gloom pervade the present?
All is fleeting, all will go;
What is gone will then be pleasant.
and:
I loved you; and I probably still do,
And for awhile the feeling may remain -
But let my love no longer trouble you:
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew
The jealousy, the shyness - though in vain -
Made up a love so tender and so true
As may God grant you to be loved again.
The preceding two poems serve as perfect examples of the unique
Russian paradox of despair and hope walking hand in hand. In both poems the
hope for a better tomorrow greatly overshadows the melancholy overtones.
Although life is painful now for the narrator, tomorrow death will engulf
him and although the reader, the "you" of the poem, will feel sorrow for his
passing, it is better because the narrator is out of pain. The second poem
treats the reader to a tour of despair - jealousy, shyness, even
hopelessness. Suddenly, at the end, a ray of light shines through - the
narrator provides hope for his loved one, even if he is to be unable to love
her.
Written in 1869, _War and Peace_ has proven to be an enduring novel
of epic proportions. Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece tells the tale of Russian
families caught up in the strife of Napoleon's invasions on Russian soil.
Although Napoleon's troops are slowly converging on Moscow, the Muscovites
remain hopeful until the last minute that their city will be saved. Their
hope provides a source of pride for the Russian people - a refusal to go
quietly. When the time comes for Napoleon to invade Moscow, the Muscovites
all leave, humiliating Napoleon and leaving the Russian people with the
pride that Moscow has not fallen and the hope that it will be retaken.
Tolstoy writes thus about Moscow's last day: "It was a clear, bright autumn
morning, a Sunday. The church bells everywhere were ringing for services,
just as on an ordinary Sunday" (1028). As the main part of the story ends,
the reader is left with main character Pierre's hope for his future with
Natasha: "Pierre felt as if he was vanishing, as if neither he nor she
existed any more, that nothing existed but happiness."
Happiness and hope are themes encountered again in Nikolai Leskov's
novella _The Enchanted Wanderer_. Leskov's tale acquaints us with Ivan
Severyanych Flyagin, a tough man, who discovers early in life that he has
been promised to God by his mother. Ivan endures the serfdom he was born
into, until one day he abandons hope and becomes a highwayman. From this
point, Flyagin's life continues to spiral downward: first he is accused of
murder, then becomes a slave of the Tartars. All of this happens because
Flyagin has abandoned his hope. Flyagin continues his descent into decadence
simply because he cannot regain the hope he has lost. He enters a monastery
but the same problems confront him again : he is a murderer, a slave, a
criminal. Flyagin, the Enchanted Wanderer, prays to God to help him - but
cannot accept God because he cannot find hope. His inability to understand
the duality of hope and a high power dooms him to a life of death and
destruction.
In addition to his fame as a playwright, Anton Chekhov was also the
author of numerous short stories. One such story is _Easter Eve_. Chekhov
tells the sad tale of a lonely monk, sad that his friend, a fellow monk and
composer, has died on Easter eve. As we meet the lonely monk, he is on-duty
rowing a boat back and forth to take visitors to and from the monastery -
some sort of modern-day Charon. No one comes to relieve this boatman, and no
hope is given for the future. Written during the same time period as Leskov
wrote, Chekhov, Leskov and their contemporaries hint at a depression that
could not be overcome by hope, as hope could not be found. The only thing
that could save them would be a revolution changing social, cultural,
economic, and political boundaries.
In 1917, the revolution that had been hinted at since the turn of the
century finally took place. The Bolsheviks, Communists, under Vladimir Lenin
took control. Lenin's outlook on the future of Russia was a positive one. In
1902 he wrote _What Is to Be Done?_, a treatise on Bolshevik organization
and how to positively transfer power in Russia to a Communist state. Lenin
wrote that "Social-Democracy must change from a party of the social
revolution into a democratic party of social reforms" (55). Regardless of
what the Communist Party and Soviet Union became, it is clear that Lenin
dreamt only of a positive future for Russia and the world and engaged his
whole life in hoping for a better tomorrow.
The Soviets were incredibly proud of their accomplishments and
dreams. It seems that Lenin and the Communists were able to provide the
Russian people with something they had lost under the Tsar - their hope.
Under Communism, literature had a bottom line: entertaining the proletariat.
Mikhail Bulgakov wrote many short stories under the reign of Communism.
Two of his most famous stories, _The Fateful Eggs_ and _Heart of the Dog_,
combine the Soviet love for science as well as subtle political criticism of
the Soviet government. In the former, a Muscovite scientist discovers a
frequency of light that, when radiated over an object, will cause it to grow
at exponential rates. At the same time as the scientist developing his ray,
a plague hits the chicken population of the Soviet Union, killing them all.
An enterprising young Soviet Army officer decides to use the ray - virtually
untested - on chicken eggs to replenish the supply. His hope for the future
is soon shattered when the Soviet government accidentally reverses the
shipping order - the Army officer gets reptilian eggs while the scientist
gets chicken eggs. In _Heart of the Dog_, Bulgakov revisits a scientific theme.
This time two doctors decide to create a man out of a dog. At first their
experiment goes well, but it soon becomes apparent that one truly cannot
teach an old dog new tricks, in this case the tricks of humanity. Bulgakov
wrote with a cynical hope for the future. He and a new school of Soviet
writers wrote of their distrust and doubts of the Soviet government, masking
their barbs in a hope for the Soviet future.
Russian expatriate writer Vladimir Nabokov brings up an interesting
situation in his novel _Lolita_. In _Lolita_, an older man, Humbert Humbert,
falls in love with a twelve year old girl, Lolita. The novel depicts his
trials and tribulations as he goes from a man without an outlet for his love
to the hope that Lolita will accept him and become his outlet to their love
and finally ending in Humbert's despair. Humbert always hoped for the best
for Lolita - from the moment he first saw her until the moment he attempted
murder to keep her pure in his eyes. Nabokov describes Humbert's delight at
meeting Lolita as, ". . . the king crying for joy, the trumpets blaring, the
nurse drunk" (41).
One author, Nobel prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn, has felt the
barbs of the Soviet government and wrote about his experiences in the novel
_One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich_. Solzhenitsyn based his novel on
his own experiences in a Soviet gulag and, as such, the only hope the
characters feel is a reprieve by death. In stark contrast to the focus on
hope in much Russian literature, Solzhenitsyn had a broader agenda. By
publishing his accounts, Solzhenitsyn placed his hope in the readers
worldwide to question the Soviet government's actions and to hold it
accountable for them. Many other Soviet writers followed suit, exposing the
atrocities of the Stalinist government.
Stalin's government remains a hot topic in modern-day Russia, even
after the fall of Communism. In Nikita Mikhalkov's Oscar-winning portrayal
of life under Stalin, _Burnt by the Sun_, a hero of the Revolution and his
family come to terms with the brutal realities of the Stalinist era of
Soviet government. We are acquainted with the main character, Colonel
Kotov, as he employs his charisma and prestige to halt the Soviet Army from
destroying a wheat field near his country home. He does this out of the hope
of protecting his family, especially his young daughter, and their friends
for the future. The plot quickly thickens when a mysterious stranger from
Kotov's wife's past comes for a little more than a social visit. Kotov's
daughter, young and innocent, never fully comprehends the magnitude of the
situation the stranger has put her father in. Coincidentally, the real name
of the actress playing Kotov's daughter is Nadezhda, the Russian word for
hope. As the stranger takes Kotov to be purged, Kotov tells his family that
he will return even though he knows his fate is certainly the gulag or even
death.
Nadezhda umeraet poslednye. Throughout the modern history of Russian
literature hope, or the conspicuous lack thereof, has recurred as the
dominant theme. Without hope a society lives without a discernible future.
Hope is the future, and, as Russian writers remind us, hope dies last.
---
WORKS CITED:
1. Lenin, Vladimir. _Essential Works of Lenin_. New York: Dover
Publications,Inc., 1966.
2. Nabokov, Vladimir. _Lolita_. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons,1955
3. Pushkin, Alexander. "I loved you; and I probably still do."
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/loved.html. 15 Dec. 1997.
4. Pushkin, Alexander. "Should this life sometime deceive you."
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/should_life.html. 15 Dec 1997.
5. Tolstoy, Leo. _War and Peace_. New York: New American Library, 1968.
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* (c) HoE publications. HoE #161 -- written by Neko -- 12/17/97 *