{"id":426,"date":"2018-10-23T14:31:54","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T18:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/?p=426"},"modified":"2018-10-23T14:31:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T18:31:54","slug":"olenin-vs-john","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/the-domestic-exotic\/olenin-vs-john\/","title":{"rendered":"Olenin vs. John"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comparing The Cossacks <\/em>and A Dream in Polar Fog <\/em>\u2013 this last section of Rytkheu\u2019s A Dream in Polar Fog <\/em>reminded me of Tolstoy\u2019s The Cossacks <\/em>in a couple of ways, but I will discuss two here. First is the way in which two different social classes think about themselves and \u201cthe other\u201d. In The Cossacks, <\/em>Olenin and his aristocratic fellows of Moscow are divided both physically and socioeconomically from the people of the Caucasus. Olenin, of course, has his own preconceived notions of the Cossack people, but nonetheless claims to go on this journey with an open mind and lofty goals for self-improvement. At the start of Chapter 21, John says, \u201cThe thing that divides us from one another is stereotypes about others and wrong ideas about ourselves\u2026 I think that the biggest mistake might be this: Each nation thinks that it\u2019s the only one that lives in the right way\u2026 In itself, the idea is harmless. It even helps keep order in a society. But when a nation tries to change another\u2019s way of life forcibly, that\u2019s when things go wrong\u201d (Rytkheu 222). I believe this to be true in the majority of cultures and societies, but do not feel this overlaps with how Olenin feels about the Cossack society. As the story goes on, we see Olenin purge himself of the wealthy values he\u2019s adopted through high society Moscow in an attempt to integrate himself into this new village lifestyle he desires. He finds the simplistic lifestyles and values of the Cossack people beautiful and in this sense, does not appear to believe his aristocratic life is any better than that of the Cossack people. In fact, Olenin is sickened by the life he once led.<\/p>\n

Second, the personification of nature appears in A Dream in Polar Fog <\/em>as it does in The Cossacks. <\/em>Also, in this same chapter, Orvo says, \u201c\u2026man starts to believe that he is the strongest and the smartest, and that he is the only master of the earth. And this is how it goes, for a time. But then, nature, Narginen, the Outer Forces, take away all the extraneous things\u2026 This is the kind of storm the Outer Forces use to clear away all that can lift man about them\u2026 It\u2019s as though Narginen is reminding us: I\u2019m master here, and it\u2019s only on my sufferance that man lives here at all\u2026\u201d (Rytkheu 230). At the bottom of page 229, it is noted that *Narginen is defined as \u201cthe external forces that guide all life\u201d. In The Cossacks, <\/em>Olenin states, \u201cPerhaps in her I love nature, the personification of all that is beautiful in nature; But I do not have a will of my own, and what loves her is some elemental force passing through me all of God\u2019s world, all of nature presses this love into my soul and says: \u201cLove\u201d (Tolstoy 148). Olenin\u2019s quote here shows that nature is stronger than him and therefore has control over him and his love for Maryanka. In this instance, the Narginen Orvo references, to me, seems relatable to the elemental forces Olenin mentions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comparing The Cossacks and A Dream in Polar Fog \u2013 this last section of Rytkheu\u2019s A Dream in Polar Fog reminded me of Tolstoy\u2019s The Cossacks in a couple of ways, but I will discuss two here. First is the way in which two different social classes think about themselves and \u201cthe other\u201d. In The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":705,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,78,79,77,80,70,44,45],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-domestic-exotic","tag-a-dream-in-polar-fog","tag-john","tag-narginen","tag-olenin","tag-orvo","tag-rytkheu","tag-the-cossacks","tag-tolstoy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/705"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}