/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12731742]

Why is Russian literature so depressing?

[Anonymous No.12731746]

It reflects the reality of living in Russia.

[Anonymous No.12731750]

>>12731742
Because Russia is pretty much always cold and grey. Also they suffered under Tsarist serfdom for centuries, had a brief span of hope with the Revolution, and then got crushed all over again by Stalin.

[Anonymous No.12731755]

Cold weather
Being on the edge of Europe
Political repression
Cultural repression
Superiority-inferiority complex

[Anonymous No.12731768]

>>12731750
Russia is one of the most beautiful and ecologically diverse nations on the planet. Only the tundras are always cold and grey.
Also Serfdom (which wasn't that bad desu) ended half a century before the Revolution came. It is so obvious that you know nothing about Russia's history.

[Anonymous No.12731771]

Пoпpoбyй тyт пoжить.

[Anonymous No.12731786]

>>12731768
>Only the tundras are always cold and grey.
>he hasn't lived in Saint Petersburg

[Anonymous No.12731791]

>>12731768
>Also Serfdom (which wasn't that bad desu)

[Anonymous No.12731792]

>>12731786
Saint Petersburg is gorgeous.

[Anonymous No.12731803]

>>12731791
It wasn't people act as if it was the racial chattel slavery of America when it was just a formal way to tie the peasants to the land not unlike the systems that dominated most of human history.

[Anonymous No.12731804]

>>12731768
>Also Serfdom (which wasn't that bad desu)
i hope you choke on your own spit and die desu

[Anonymous No.12731808]

Is metro worth a read?

[Anonymous No.12731812]

>>12731792
gorgus

[Anonymous No.12731838]

>>12731792
Yeah sure.

[Anonymous No.12731868]

>>12731838
>One picture of a foggy bridge can adequately sum up a city of 5 million people
Ok, so this on should work too, right?

[Anonymous No.12731886]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_soul

The concept of a Russian soul arose in the 1840s chiefly as a literary phenomenon. Famous author Nikolai Gogol and literary critic Vissarion Belinskii jointly coined the term upon the publication of Gogol’s masterpiece Dead Souls in 1842. At the time landowners often referred to their serfs as “souls” for accounting purposes, and the novel’s title refers to the protagonist’s scheme of purchasing claims to deceased serfs. Apart from this literal meaning, however, Gogol also intended the title as an observation of landowners’ loss of soul in exploiting serfs.[2]

Vissarion Belinskii, a notedly radical critic, took Gogol’s intentions a few steps farther and inferred from the novel a new recognition of a national soul, existing apart from the government and founded in the lives of the lower class. Indeed, Belinskii used the term “Russian soul” several times in his analyses of Gogol’s work, and from there the phrase grew in prominence, and eventually became more clearly defined through the writings of authors such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky. This famous brand of nationalism, however, was the product of a continuous effort by Russia’s various classes to define a national identity.[2]

Gogol and his contemporaries established literature as Russia’s new weapon of choice, the tool by which it could inform itself of its greatness and urge the nation to its destined position as a world leader. Gogol may not have had such grand notions, but with the help of Vissarion Belinsky he paved the way for a new concept of Russian identity - the great Russian soul. As opposed to the preceding “Russian spirit” (Pyccкий дyх), which focused on Russia’s past, “Russian soul” was an expression of optimism. It stressed Russia’s historical youth and its ability, by following the wisdom of the peasant, to become the savior of the world. Indeed, although the concept of the Russian soul grew upon Western ideas, its advocates believed that Russia had made those ideas its own and would use them to save Europe from itself.[2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRRGYEFZF4A

[Anonymous No.12731890]

>>12731868
>a foggy bridge
It's not fog, it's low clouds and drizzle, a typical petersburg weather. I appreciate your russiabooism but you clearly don't know what you are talking about. Speaking of 5 million people, most of them live in commieblocks anyway.

[Anonymous No.12731894]

Because Russian life is depressing

[Anonymous No.12731912]

>>12731890
I'm not a Russiaboo, I'm honest. The point of the image over saturated image of a famous landmark was to show the flaw of you using your image as an argument.
> Speaking of 5 million people, most of them live in commieblocks anyway.
so, in other words, pretty m,uch the same as most major cities across the world?
Yeah, there are shitty parts of St. Petersburg the same way that there are shitty parts of Paris, New York, Beijing, Tokyo, etc.
You people misrepresent Russia as some apocalyptic frozen waste where everybody has depression and is starving when it objectively is not.

[Anonymous No.12731929]

>>12731912
I'm living here you nigger, right in Saint fucking Petersburg. It's not too bad overall but the weather is atrocious and no amount of wishful thinking on your part is going to change that.

[Anonymous No.12731980]

>>12731929
Move to St. Pete's, FL ;)

[Anonymous No.12731991]

>>12731929
if you think saint petersburg is bad you gotta see the shit past the urals where everyone has black lung and is injecting heroin into their eyeballs lol

[Anonymous No.12732014]

>>12731808
absolutely
2034 is a bore though

[Anonymous No.12732019]

>>12731838
I don't see the issue
>hurr it foggy in de winter!
so is everywhere

[Anonymous No.12732024]

>>12731804
It really wasn't you trannymerican larper.

[Anonymous No.12732154]

Hello friends. I'm Russian but haven't lived in Russia since I was 4(24 now). I know the language but not as well as English and my main one. I want to get baclinto to it because I neglected it too much. Who is the best Russian author and his best work? Preferably something rather short so I won't get lost.
>already read Dostoevsky's Underground in English

[Anonymous No.12732175]

>>12731791
>>12731804
Yea dude, every system before modern democracy was completely broken and felt like pure torture hell to live under.

[Anonymous No.12732212]

>>12732175
It was if you were poor and a peasant

[Anonymous No.12732253]

>>12732212
Being a poor wageslave now is not hell?

[Anonymous No.12732269]

>>12731742
Russians are crazy motherfuckers living in a vast nuclear winter wasteland. And you expect them to be perky little tarts?

[Anonymous No.12732274]

>>12731894
Basically russian culture is introverted and feeling one as oppose to american one.

[Anonymous No.12732280]

>>12732212
Your opinion is nothing until you've read Levin's grass mowing chapter.

[Anonymous No.12732522]

>>12732253
A distinction without a difference

[Anonymous No.12733565]

Bump

[Anonymous No.12733586]

>>12732280
Tolstoy was basically a weeb but for idealized peasant life instead of idealized japanese life, not exactly an accurate source

[Anonymous No.12733630]

>>12731791
>>12731804
During the Napoleonic era something interesting happened. Soldiers signed in for the army and they had a psychical checkup to measure their quality. Well, people who were free and lived in the liberal cities, generally speaking, were shorter and more frail than those who lived in the country under serfdom (as little as they were). That is to say that, despite going hungry, you could still be better fed under feudal rule than in a city where you were thrown into the street to fend for yourself working your ass on a factory earning peanuts. Serfdom is unquestionably inefficient and leads to stagnation, but it also implies a mutually beneficial relationship (mutual, not fair or egalitarian) between the lord and his serfs, whereby the lord is responsible to making sure the peasants don't starve to death, as they cannot buy and sell agricultural lands nor hire or fire workers; the peasants you had and their children were all you had, so you best take care of them. Far from an ideal system, and not the one I'd like to live in, but it wasn't necessarily hell as people describe it. Fuck, most peasants worked less than their contemporary and our contemporary workers; 8 hour shifts were unheard of; you took care of the fields for as long as you needed, which used to be a few hours a day, and the rest of the day you spent doing other shit.

[Anonymous No.12733654]

>>12731742
Such is life.

[Anonymous No.12733834]

>>12733630
>Being a slave is better

[Anonymous No.12733850]

>>12732014
What about roadside picnic?

[Anonymous No.12733874]

>>12733834
Slaves have value labourers don't.

[Anonymous No.12733882]

>>12733630

[Anonymous No.12734071]

>>12732253
>guy who has no rights and can’t marry who he wants or have any freedom whatsoever vs Someone with the option to choose whatever job he wants and whom wants to love and has multiple freedoms

[Anonymous No.12734195]

>>12732212
Most peasants weren't all that poor though, some were quite wealthy. And poverty isn't so bad because you fit within a broader structure, which supports you regardless. Certain times such as wars and famines would be horrible without wealth to fall back on though. Poverty today is really bad because you're just fucked without gibs. It's basically a difference between collectivism and individualism, and which you would prefer.

[Anonymous No.12734205]

>>12733834
>>12733874
Being a serf is far better than being a wageslave, the former is part of an establishment that will look after you, the latter has no establishment, you'll be discarded on a whim. Unless you're a boomer, as they had the easiest time in human history.

[Anonymous No.12734214]

>>12731742
Pushkin isn't depressing

[Anonymous No.12734215]

>>12731742
Bleak plaxe 2 live

[Anonymous No.12734246]

>>12734205
>>>>Unless you're a boomer, as they had the easiest time in human history
Know I know you’re fucking retarded

[Anonymous No.12734250]

>>12731768
>Also Serfdom (which wasn't that bad desu)

[Anonymous No.12734251]

>>12733850

Not him but Roadside Picnic is pretty damn good. A short read too so you can breeze by it on a bus ride or two, depending.

[Anonymous No.12734391]

Who does apocalyptic settings better, Russia or America?

[Anonymous No.12735296]

>>12734391
America tries to imagine what an apocalyptic environment looks like; Russia has seen it.

[Anonymous No.12735303]

how much more advanced would russia be if the mongols and reds hadn't invaded?

[Anonymous No.12735312]

>>12735303
Germany (and most of Europe) in 1914 knew that Russia would become unstoppable if it industrialized, so who knows; they might have become the next major European power.

[Anonymous No.12735392]

>>12731791
>>12731804
Brainwashed libdem retards

How does it feel knowing that you work more hours on average than a serf, wageslave? I bet those horribly oppressed and exploited serfs couldn't stand working 6 hours a day for 180 days a year, what a truly awful life. And they didn't even have iphones!

[Anonymous No.12735398]

>>12734391
Russia is living in an apocalyptic setting right now.

[Anonymous No.12735489]

>>12733586
This, he was a peaboo
Just like van Gogh

[Anonymous No.12735565]

>>12731750
>and then got crushed all over again by Stalin.
Leninist apologists should be shot. He hijacked the revolution and instituted his dictatorial government against the wishes of the majority of the population who were moderate socialists. They got into power on the promise of bread and peace, and then plunged the state into a total civil war that was bloodier than ww1. When the soldiers that originally supported them against the tsarist government and which Lenin owed his entire position to began protesting against hunger and other issues in the capital he had them all rounded up and killed.

>>12731768
>Also Serfdom (which wasn't that bad desu)
Romanticism.
>ended half a century before the Revolution came.
The way in which it ended left many peasants just as poor and many others even poorer than they were. They got insufficient land to support themselves, and still had to creep and crawl for the local landowners and work their fields in addition to their own if they didn't want to starve to death.

>>12731808
First book yes.

[Anonymous No.12735575]

>>12732154
Go read Heart of a Dog.

[Anonymous No.12735669]

>>12735392

You realise that both wageslavery and serfdom can be horrible and not preferable for different reasons, right? What is the deal with the brainlets lately requiring choice x or y and nothing else?

[Anonymous No.12735748]

>>12735565
>total civil war that was bloodier than ww1
Could you prove this? I'm not calling you a liar, as I agree with everything else you said, but this claim sounds a little outrageous to me.

[Anonymous No.12735894]

>>12731768
>Also Serfdom (which wasn't that bad desu)

[Anonymous No.12736022]

>>12735748
7-12 million casualties in the civil war, 9-10 million casualties in ww1. Perhaps not bloodier, as the eastern front was a massacre, but the nature of the two conflicts were very different. Central Russia, Ural, Volga, Asia were untouched by ww1, which is one of the reasons why people were so apathetic to the war effort, why fight for some strip of land thousands of miles away when there is no apparent threat to me and my village?
Instead of waging a frontline war in Poland, Galicia and Belarus, the civil war engulfed the entirety of the country, bloody campaigns between anarchists, reds, whites, cossacks, muslims and all manners of different colours. Families split apart, local population in the middle of the fighting and repression, food production being plundered and hindered by armies and so on, complete destruction of infrastructure, death of all the best and brightest. In my eyes that makes the conflict bloodier even though the loss of life is comparable between the two.

[Anonymous No.12736060]

>>12736022
>Families split apart, local population in the middle of the fighting and repression, food production being plundered and hindered by armies and so on, complete destruction of infrastructure, death of all the best and brightest
I believe all those are applicable to WW1 as well, but I see your point; in that conflict the damage was split between several nations, while the Russian Civil War struck mainly Russia and it's closest neighbors. It also involved, if I'm not wrong, other smaller civil wars in those brand new nations such as Lithuania and Ukraine as their inhabitants were for the most part split between independence and wanting to rejoin the motherland. It is hard to frame events such as this in specific conflicts, considering that our method to do so is completely artificial, but I don't believe it'd be too outrageous to call the Russian Civil War a continuation of WW1 after the rest of the Allies and Central Powers had given up on their hostilities.

[Anonymous No.12736140]

>>12736060

Considering that major powers sent troops against the proletariat you're not entirely incorrect. Bunch of class cucks.

[Anonymous No.12736156]

>>12736060
I was thinking ww1 confined to the Russian context, so not counting Belgium and France and so on. Most of the heavy fighting happened in Galicia, Poland, and later on in Belarus and the Baltics. Ukraine was for instance completely untouched by ww1, as you can see on this map of the final frontline before tsarism collapsed. During the civil wars however, Ukraine was a complete mess in total disintegration, roving bands of cossaks, nationalists, greens, blacks, whites and reds fighting back and forth, destroying villages and crops, most of the dead being not fighting men but civilian populations.

>It also involved, if I'm not wrong, other smaller civil wars
Yes, it would be more correct to label it the russian civil wars in plural, because in every new nation the reds, whites, nationalists and other forces where fighting each other, and this destruction spread through all of the Ural, Volga, Caucasus and Central Russia, even in Central Asia there were civil wars between muslims, reds and whites, and even the chinese got involved.
It sprung out of ww1, but I would not call it a continuation of that war, since all focus was on the ideological struggle of what would replace tsardom, no one wanted to continue the war with Germany.

>>12736140
They should have sent a lot more to be honest. Japan just wanted to conquer the East, only reason the US got involved was to keep eyes on the Japanese.

[Anonymous No.12736263]

>>12736156
>I was thinking ww1 confined to the Russian context
I see; I misunderstood you. In that case I don't think I can argue against that; Russia did really suffer more post WWI than during it (generally speaking; I'm aware that Russia had to deal with a lot of shit after they tried to pull out of the Great War following the October Revolution, including a second invasion from Germany during peace talks. The Brest-Litovsk Treaty really did a number on the country). Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Ukraine did get involved in the war upon German occupation? I'm not sure about this one, however, it just sounds familiar.
As for your reasons on why you don't consider it a continuation of WWI, I respect that you place motivation and the general pillar on which a war is founded regarding how to address it. But, and I might be mixing concepts up here, couldn't we call it a continuation of WWI based on the fact that there was much interest in undoing the Brest-Litosvk Treaty, imposed by Germany, in order to fund the Communist International? The Bolsheviks did take several territories that had previously been part of the Russian Empire, and had they not been stopped at Warsaw, it was likely that they would have continued going into Germany.

[Anonymous No.12736274]

>>12731768
do you also have tigers?

[Anonymous No.12736284]

Why are russian games so abstract ?

[Anonymous No.12737047]

>>12731768
>Also Serfdom (which wasn't that bad desu)

[Anonymous No.12737359]

>>12736284
thats what living in russia is like

[Anonymous No.12737382]

>>12731768
>Russia is one of the most beautiful
t. never been to russia

[Anonymous No.12737409]

>>12735565
>The way in which it ended left many peasants just as poor and many others even poorer than they were. They got insufficient land to support themselves, and still had to creep and crawl for the local landowners and work their fields in addition to their own if they didn't want to starve to death.
so, in other words, Serfdom wasn't that bad.

[Anonymous No.12737453]

>>12737409
The landowner could punish and whip you arbitrarily, he could decide marriages for you or your children, he could split your family on a whim, if your daughter was cute he could take her as a maid and make her his fucktoy.

Maybe you could argue that a benevolent and enlightened landlord would have been a positive force, just like a benevolent despot might not be so bad. But the system was ripe with abuse and it degraded the populace. The peasants spontaneously rose up and slaughtered them in revenge and burned their estates when they got the chance, long before the commies took effective power of the countryside, and I think that speaks for itself.

[Anonymous No.12737476]

>>12736263
Brest-Litovsk was never intended to be a lasting agreement, just a political move to safeguard the revolution until it could be reversed.

>>12736284
The developers have a thread with a list of russian literature they drew inspiration from on their forums.

[Anonymous No.12738374]

>>12737476
>Brest-Litovsk was never intended to be a lasting agreement, just a political move to safeguard the revolution until it could be reversed.
Was it? Are you sure that had Germany not lost the war, they wouldn't have kept those territories as a permanent part of the Reich? I would have to look it up to be certain, but I recall that being the case; upon German victory, they would have kept those terrotiries; they were only divided among independent nations because Germany lost the war and because the Allies didn't want to give them back to the Reds, as they favored the White Army.

[Anonymous No.12738598]

>>12738374
It was written on the wall that Germany would lose the war, especially with the US intervention. Say what you will about Lenin, but he was quite deft politically and his intuition was spot on in this case, those territories quickly fell back under Russian influence. Baltic states would have become protectorates with German aristocracy becoming heads of state, Poland would be annexed, Ukraine would become independent, though we don't know how things would have turned out in practice. Either way, I find it very difficult to imagine Germany winning the war, or to see them hold onto their gains in a post war depression.

[Anonymous No.12738895]

>>12738598
That really depends on which moment you are talking about; for a long time it appeared as though Germany would win the war; the kaiserschlacht really put the fear of God into the Allies. Even after it failed, it wasn't 100% clear that Germany would lose; the evidence of its defeat only grew from then on, but until that point the Allies had a good reason to fear Germany; hell, they even evacuated Paris in 1918. As for the US joining the war, keep in mind that they weren't a powerhouse in 1917, when they joined; Germany wasn't specially worried and neither were the Allies; they didn't see the US as an game changer and expected to have to babysit them throughout their involvement. The US army was pretty small, around 130000-160000 men total when they entered the war, and it wasn't until 1918 that they had begun to toll millions of soldiers; even then they had to account on supplying them and transporting them to Europe; US intervention didn't mean much then.

[Anonymous No.12738978]

>>12732212
Peasants were based. Shut the fuck up city dweller.

[Anonymous No.12738992]

Chekhov isn't depressing, Gogol isn't depressing, Tolstoy isn't.

[Anonymous No.12740215]

Bump

[Anonymous No.12741018]

>>12731742
The soul is different, certainly. I like it. It spits in the face of the bad boy / manic pixie dream girl dynamic that pervades post-80's western sci-fi.

[Anonymous No.12741088]

>>12732212
I think most people throughout history preferred freedom and multi-generational honor to a mulatto grandchild and an ipad that makes shiny things appear on it.

[Anonymous No.12741687]

>>12735489
Van Gogh was also a bit of a weeb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonaiserie_(Van_Gogh)

[Anonymous No.12742217]

>>12731886
quality post, thanks

[Anonymous No.12742859]

>>12741088

[Anonymous No.12742941]

>>12741088
Pushkin was a grandchild mulatto, descended from a black slave that Peter the Great got as a gift.

[Anonymous No.12743820]

>>12731886
So if I'm reading this right, it's basically a general sense of optimism even if things aren't too great and grim? Just gotta carry that weight sort of thing?