I’d like to focus on the text’s theme of moving on from the past, which Chekhov argues is not achievable without a full separation from it. With this, I find it interesting that Chekhov also promotes suffering as the result of separation, noting that it is a necessary part before things get better.Chekhov uses the cherry orchard as a way to express this point. The cherry orchard, serving as a representation of  the past– both for Russia and Lyobov Andreevna– is tied with Russia’s history of serfdom to its abolishment  after Alexander II, and Lyuba’s personal history as it served as her childhood residence. This provides a great opportunity for Chekhov to use these events to shape his characters. The situation surrounding the orchard also sets up the differences between the past and the future, which is further explored as Lyuba, who  has no idea how she will keep her estate.

The best example of Chekhov’s argument on suffering and separation to reach harmony is the conversation between Anya and Petya. Petya says,” to live in the present, we’ve got to expiate our past, make a clean break with it. And the only way we can do so is through suffering–suffering and relentless hard work”(225).  As the story continues, his advice is overshadowed by Lyuba’s fear of forgetting her past. She doesn’t want to lose her estate because her son’s memory and her childhood memories live there. After all, her inability to face reality led her to flee to Paris and her lack of authority in making an effective plan in keeping her estate. Chekhov highlights this point in his work by delving into Lyuba’s excuses for not leaving and by her criticisms of Petya rather than contemplating his advice. By the end of the story, when the cherry orhard is sold to Lopakhin, Lyuba views the loss of her property as unbearable. Nonetheless, she leaves to start a new life. Petya exclaims how things will get better as the worst has already occurred. We can all just hope that things work out for the family.

The motif of “dreams” and “dreaming” is consistent throughout “The Cherry Orchard.” In just a cursory once-over of the play, I counted that those words appear six times, mostly concentrated in the very beginning and the very end of the work. The most interesting parallel use of this word occurs in its use surrounding the ownership of the cherry orchard. In the beginning of the play, when Lyubov Andreevna first returns to the orchard for the first time in years, she exclaims, “Is this really me sitting here?…But what if I’m only dreaming? Dear God, how I love my country how I cherish it!” (202). Lyubov Andreevna is so overcome with joy at returning to her family’s estate that she cannot even believe that it is real. When Lopakhin purchases the orchard to buy out Lyubov Andreevna’s debts, he proclaims similarly, “Good God in heaven, the cherry orchard is mine! Tell me I’m drunk, out of my mind. Tell me it’s only a dream” (238). Lopakhin’s elation stems from the fact that his father and grandfather worked as serfs for Lyubov Andreevna’s family on this orchard before him, and now Lopakhin has turned the tables. Although the two characters have different core reasons for why they love the cherry orchard, their invocations of God and their self questionings of whether or not they are dreaming indicate the common significance of the orchard. In these parallels, Chekov is emphasizing to the reader the weight of land ownership to Russians. It is self-identity and place in society. For Lyubov Andreevna, it is her seemingly charmed childhood as the daughter of a serf-owning landowner, and for Lopakhin, it is his transformation into a landowner himself.

I think that “The Story of How One Russian Peasant Fed Two Generals” is easily my favorite story that I have read in this class this semester so far.  The sheer relentlessness of the work is what really stands out to me. The comedic moments, such as the one in which the Generals suddenly decide to resort to cannibalism, are given virtually no build up. What little lead up there is to such moments gradually becomes shorter and shorter. At the same time, the generally non-existent presence of basic cause and effect becomes increasingly less existent as the story goes on. By the end of the tale, I actually laughed whenever the narrator suddenly declared some sort of fact which radically and conveniently altered the Generals’ situation. (This is epitomized by the moment in which the narrator states that the peasant started “doing things” for the general.)

“The Story of How One Russian Peasant Fed Two Generals” seems to be making fun of the Russian class system, illustrating the ridiculous way in which two men simply assume that a peasant would appear in their hour of need. It is interesting to me how utterly helpless they truly are without the peasant. Perhaps then that this story is meant to shine the light on the irony of the Russian class system. Perhaps the upper classes are supposed to assume their own superiority, and are yet helpless without various creature comforts provided by the supposedly lowly lower classes.

Zhizdra Region

Most of the Russian literature we have read has been dominated by glorious czars, valiant warriors, and pious monks. “Khor and Kalinych”, “Three Deaths”, and “How One Russian Peasant Fed Two Generals” vividly depict the quotidian lives of Russia’s more common figures and all of the shades that they occupy. In the majority of the representations of serfs that we have viewed we have seen them through a monochromatic lens: stupid comedic reliefs like in The Snow Maiden. In my opinion, of the three stories “Khor and Kalinych” best illustrates the idiosyncratic nature of the peasantry. 

Readers need not lay eyes on the Zhizdra region to grasp the distinction between the Orlov and Kaluga people. Turgenev’s depictions of Orlov and Kaluga provinces and peoples perfectly set up the story as one that adds depth to our literary understanding of Russian serfs. He displays the hierarchical and cultural differences between the two peoples: “The Orlov peasant is a man of little stature… taking part in no trade, eating poorly and wearing bast shoes whereas the Kaluga peasant, who pays quit-rent… has a tall build… trades in grease and tar and wears boots on feast days” (Turgenev 19).  ‘Little’ and ‘tall’, ‘taking part in no trade’ and ‘trades in grease and tar’, and ‘bast shoes’ and ‘boots’ display the binaries that can exist between peasants that live in the same region. The juxtaposition of these descriptions works to enhance the differences between peasants and calls the reader to imagine what other ways that serfs may differ. 

Despite Turgenev’s progressive depiction of serfs, it is important to note that his attention to detail was reserved only for males. Sexist language is used throughout the text. Women are called ‘stupid’ and referred to as workers ‘about the house’ (26). Also, not a single female character is named. After being amazed by Turgenev’s forward-looking illustrations of peasants, I was thoroughly disappointed that he chose not to portray female peasants in the same technicolor light he gave the men. 

Death is central in Leo Tolstoy’s story “Three Deaths.” To start the text, we are introduced to Vasili’s wife, who is referred to as an invalid who wants to travel abroad for her health. Vasili’s wife shows defiance and stubbornness in light of her pain and inevitable death, which is why she insists on traveling despite her condition.  Her obvious pain is overlooked by those around her, including her husband and doctor when they leave her unattended. Included in this is an air of observance, which is exemplified by Aksuisha and Masha,  who walk by her carriage only to see how Vasili’s wife is close to death. In this instance, the acknowledgement of death by characters who are not experiencing it view it with fascination or disregard. Later on in the text, we meet Seryoha, a driver. He visits the driver’s room to see Khveodor, whom he refers to as Uncle Khveodor. As Eva pointed out in her analysis, other drivers and the station owners viewed Khveodor’s poor condition of bad coughing and intense weakness as an opportunity to take advantage of him–as Seryoha did by asking for new boots to replace his worn out ones– or tolerate his condition altogether.

In regard to unfulfilled wishes, Vasili’s wife never makes it to Italy but dies at her home, while Khveodor’s wish of a gravestone is not honored by Seryoha at the ending of the story. This point contradicts the story’s direct acknowledgement of death by providing an equally direct silence by leaving the deceased unanswered in their requests.

One final point about death in this story:

Tolstoy wants to point out the universality of death by depicting the death of an upperclass woman and that of lower-class driver. In this way, he shows how the treatment of all people in ill health or after their death only differ in their execution.

This is one last point I wanted to make about the title being “Three Deaths,” with the title referring to two people dying and the death of a tree. In a way, Tolstoy may refer to the last death as that of the loss of morals or of humanity in the symbol of a fallen tree– although this may only refer to Seryoha (as he was reluctant to fulfill Khveodor’s last wish in a timely manner of a gravestone). What do you guys think?

The story “Khor and Kalinyich” presents a positive narrative on Russian peasants. While peasants in Russian society were treated in a demeaning manner that solidified their lower status, this text humanized them and emphasized their social importance. By interacting with the peasants, the narrator is able to convey how the peasant’s labor is vital to society through agricultural work and assisting their masters. While the narrator is generally appreciative of the peasants, I read the text as somewhat glorifying peasant labor and overlooking their hardships. Khor is described as “always busying himself with something” implying he voluntarily chooses to engage in a constant state of labor, overlooking the impact of the master-peasant power dynamic (33). The narrator also exercises subtle judgements on the peasants. Khor tells the narrator that most of his family cannot read or write (32). While the narrator acknowledges that Khor himself is intelligent, he also calls out his hatred for and prejudices against women, implying that peasants have both high mental capacity but also are in some ways more socially and morally backward than higher classes. The narrator also questions Khor’s decision to stay with his master rather than buying his own freedom (25). This judgement is ignorant of the social and economic limitations of peasants’ status and minimizes the peasants’ dependence on their masters. Overall, the text allows a humanistic lens of the peasants’ lives, regarding them as individuals rather than generalizing and degrading the entire social class. Yet the seemingly open and objective narrator exercises judgements that serve to ignore the daily hardships faced by the peasants and the overtly unequal power dynamic between the peasants and their masters.

This story, among the others that we were assigned, displayed the importance of the role of the peasant in Russia as well as exposing the reality of the upper class. The two Russian Generals did not know what to do or even say when they found themselves stranded on an island. The generals were going to starve if they did not find the peasant. The peasant performed many impressive deeds that made him seem heroic, such as making a snare out of his own hair, making a rope out of wild hemp, or building a boat that survived through “storms and various winds.” The relationship between the peasant and generals can be translated to the lower and upper class of Russia. The upper class relies on the lower class for simple chores that are necessary for the country to survive.

The story made me think of Repin’s “The Barge Haulers on the Volga.” A similar message is sent in the painting as the peasants are literally pulling the ship to shore. The peasant are doing the dreadful chore of pulling the ship that has to done. In this painting the ship signifying the upper class among of things. I am not sure if this is the correct analysis of the painting but “The Story of How One Russian Peasant Fed Two Generals” prompted me to this analysis.

The power dynamics among the characters in each story are striking. Even in modern times, those perceived as powerful are those with money, social capital, and other markers of wealth. Those with money, social capital, and other forms of societal power the top dogs in any society, whatever society it may be. However, in these stories, especially in “The Story of How One Russian Peasant Fed Two Generals,” the power dynamics are challenged. In this story, the wealthy and powerful depend on the peasants in a multitude of ways. A quiet power that the peasants hold becomes obvious as both the powerful and the powerless are described in these two stories accurately.
In “The Story of How One Russian Peasant Fed Two Generals,” this power the peasant holds becomes apparent as the generals meet him on the island. Although the generals have fancy garbs and reminisce of their elaborate meals back home, they can’t do anything themselves. Early in the story, this becomes obvious when the two of them can’t find the cardinal directions, which one would assume generals could do. They are unable to feed themselves, and rather than learning how too, they feel it would be easier to find a peasant on a sparsely populated island to do this for them. This desire to be waited on struck me, as it already shows how the wealthy upper-class needs their poor peasants for survival. As the story progresses, the generals refer to their peasant as “lazybones,” when it is quite the opposite. However, the generals expect that the peasant would help them, and to not do so is lazy.

The inability of the generals to do anything that would be beneficial to their survival shows a lack of power. They are not in control of their survival, but the so-called “lazybones” peasant is. The peasant has a sort of power over these generals, although no party would say that out loud. The exacerbation of the generals’ ineptitude may be part of the story, but the general ideology behind it is real. Without the poor, the rich have no way to continue on living.

Throughout the three stories assigned, the effort to challenge the perception of the peasant and noble classes is apparent–just as the itinerants were doing through their various works of art.  Which struck me in the literature, however, was not only only painting the peasantry in a more positive, humane, valued, light, but the obvious goal to expose the hypocrisy and foolishness of the nobles.  

Throughout the texts, the peasants, not the nobles are presented as the heros and wise ones of the story.   In “Khor and Kalinych”, both peasants educate and enlighten the narrator. The dynamic between the narrator, Khor, and Kalinych reveal the value that peasants bring to society.  But beyond that, Khor and Kalinych’s “master”, Polutykin heavily depends on their presence to survive–which flips the popularly held belief that peasants are dependent on their master.  

This ‘role-reversal’ is taken even farther in “The Story of How One Russian Peasant Fed Two Generals”.   Even the title begins to challenge the statically held power-dynamic between master and peasant, suggesting the general class is, in fact, dependent on the peasants.  Furthermore, the text illustrates the generals as foolish, uneducated, and unable to support themselves. It is only after the peasant enters the story that the two nobles are able to survive–highlighting not only the practical skills and abilities peasants often go uncredited for but also revealing how nobles depend on peasants to stay alive.  Perhaps the most pointed critique of the noble class comes when the generals refer to the peasant as “lazybones” prompting the reader to realize that those in the noble class are the true “lazybones”.  

Finally, in “Three Deaths” I found it fascinating how the tree’s death is included in the title and is the most beautifully described of the three.  This further highlights how the superfluous nature of the noble class goes unrewarded in the long run, and that the simple nature of the tree is to be most valued.

When I read “The Story of How One Russian Peasant Fed Two Generals,” the only thing I could think of is Bong Joon-ho’s triumphant tragicomedy “Parasite.” Although these two pieces are infinitely separated in origin they both employ fairy-tale element and satire to make a commentary on the parasitic nature of the upper class. While “Parasite” begs the question of which class (wealthy or poor) is the most parasitic in its narrative, the Russian short story makes it distinctly obvious that the rich generals are the parasitic creatures. The peasant’s pseudonym of “lazybones” is extremely ironic as the generals are the people who are lazy and unable to be self sufficient while the peasant is their ultimate savior. I also found the focus on food as another striking similarity between these two works. The poor family in “Parasite” is only seen to buy food and liquor with their newfound wealth, while the short story spends most of its run time focusing on the pursuit of food and the generals’ hunger. I wonder why is food is a central focus in the parasitic creatures in these works. The scene where the generals almost resort to cannibalism is the most striking out of all the hunger scenes. Food is possibly used as a symbol of unrelenting hunger (or want) of parasitic creatures. Almost an idea that they need to be constantly satisfied and won’t conform to any other way. Overall, I think these two works both show the issues with the socio-economic systems in both scenarios, but also shows how higher class needs there to be a lower class to survive.