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