Tag Archives: Ginzburg

Winter Transformations

Both the excerpt from the “Blockade Diary” and “The Cave” highlight winter’s great transformative power and ability to upset the status quo. In Ginzburg’s “Blockade Diary,” the characters are transformed from sensible to senseless beings through the brutality of the cold and paucity of available food. The city dwellers, despite their acknowledgment of the danger, are not afraid of the relentless shelling of the city, and “instead of being frightened, [they are] annoyed; instead of being afraid of death, [they are] afraid of being stopped on the way and herded into shelter” (35). Additionally, “the man of winter,” as the city dwellers are described, no longer fears the military danger of the siege and instead is fixated on “starving [and] freezing” (34-35). While the people would normally take immediate shelter from the shelling, the winter transforms their senses to the point that they no longer think completely rationally and focus only on staying warm and finding food. The winter and scarcity of food renders the people just shadows of themselves, as they no longer feel any emotion and accept that death is upon them. One girl is described as “grown numb,” and “not a person at all” as a result of the sordid conditions, which causes her to “[not] care because [she knew she] could die at any minute” (53). As the winter has brought with it a sense of the inevitability of death, the city dwellers accept death and completely lose care for anything in their lives. As the girl claims, there is no use in caring when you could die at any moment.

Zamyatin focuses heavily on winter’s transformative power in “The Cave.” Not only do the characters’ behaviors change as a result of winter’s approach, but the humans are frequently portrayed using non-human descriptions. When Martin Martinych contemplates stealing Obertyshev’s wood, one transformation occurs as “The caveman, gnashing his teeth, knocked the other Martin Martinych down and… plunged his hand into the stack of wood” (95). While his old persona, “the Scriabin one” would not have committed the crime, the cold has transformed him into a criminal “caveman,” seen as he steals the wood to provide himself with warmth (95). Not only does the cold lead to Martin to commit crime that he normally would not, but it also causes him to be described as both “Mammothlike” and as having “mechanical contrivances” as limbs (98-99). There are many more examples in both works about the transformation of people and the world, which stresses winter’s unrelenting power to upset the status quo.

Working From Home

Both the Zamyatin and the Ginzburg stories describe the role of food during starvation in relationships between men and women, but the two stories depict the role of men and women during these periods of starvation very differently.

Although the Zamyatin and Ginzburg stories take place in very different venues, the Ginzberg in an urban setting and the Zamyatin in a remote setting, they both focus on the roles of men and women during extreme rationing. The Ginzburg story discusses siege queues in great detail. Though there are no enforced rules about the queue, Ginzberg tells us that it is mostly a woman’s job. She says that “men cope particularly badly with queues, since they are used to the idea that their time is valuable… A man considers that after work he is entitled to rest or amuse himself; when a working woman comes home, she works at home” (39). Ginzberg begins this thought by just saying that men tend to be more frustrated in siege cues, but ends it with a more broad social commentary about difference in how men and women value time. In times of conflict it seems that these values are exaggerated. She argues that men feel like “a stray individual, a woman is the representative of a collective” (39). Because it is normal for women to spend hours on end in queues, it is no longer considered inconvenient, whereas a man is incredibly inconvenienced by this hardship.

The Zamyatin story focuses on one specific couple, Martin and Masha, rather than a starved population. Martin and Masha are living in a very remote setting without easy access to food or resources. Masha is very unwell and she is unable to contribute to gathering and preparing food and wood. The story begins one day before Masha’s birthday, which Martin is preparing for by stealing wood in order to please her. When he boils water for tea, they realize that there is not enough for both of them to have some: “She saw. A moment shot through and through with clear, naked, cruel electric light… ‘Mart, darling! Give it to me!’ Martin smiled distantly. ‘But you know, Masha, there’s only enough for one” (101). Although he considers taking the tea for himself, Masha argues that she’s “not living any more. This isn’t me any more, anyhow, I’m going to… Mart you understand, don’t you? Mart, have pity on me! Mart!’ … Martin Martinych slowly rose from a kneeling position. Slowly working the crane with an effort, he took the blue little bottle from the desk and handed it to Masha” (101). Unlike the Ginzburg story, Martin is the one who is constantly working. Masha is unable to help provide, yet she expects all of the fruits of Martin’s labor.