Fellow Travelors - popoutchiki - those that accepted the soviet union, but could not produce works that it demanded. Olesha and Babel fit this. 5 They had other problems that had to do with sexulaity and identity that were not shared by their characters in this period, though much of the confussion they felt in the period is what they felt themselves. 5
The period of War communism last 3 years longer in Russian than it did in Europe after WWi. Before the civil war there was a heady revolution of social mores that tended to promiscuity. War Communism took care of it however. 6
After the war there was another sexual revolution in the period of NEP. 7
Attempts to transform reallife according to a prepackaged plan is somehting the writers of this period did, incuding Platonov. 9
Socialist Struggle against nature as it relates to Chevengur. 16
Comradship in the period and Olesha's Kavelerov's evny of Makarov's ability to blend and build ties. K disowns any need for the group, but feels compelled by it. 31
Comradship was something that came out of being in the trech together with one's fellow man. Once the war was over and War Communism was replaced with NEP many of the men that fought on the front lines and felt that the WC was the best manifestation of the era felt betrayed by the loosening of form and the rejection of what they had experienced. 34
The period of the 1920s was hard for people. They had to work for the future knowing that communism was a long way off and that the old structures were obsolite. There was little but eachother to cling to. 37
Olesha and Platonov on the question of building a society of men without women. they and babel do it best. 39 Each of these worlds that rests on a lack of women and work is doomed to fail. Nature cannot be replaced with culture. 41
The period of NEP in the 20s was highlighted by an androgenousization of the population. Women were engaged in work that once was just for men. It is highlighted by the sheer lack of women as revolutionaries in Chevengur and by the way the doctor treats the NKVD rep that was a woman in Sobachii Serdste. 45
The marriage of Makaraov and his Vera in Envy makes fun of the new forms in the NEP period. They plan to marry years from now. 46
Rosa Luxumberg as the ideal Socialist woman dead and distant. 48
Chevengur and the prostitutes and men traveling together. 50
The literary reaction to the civil war introduced many narratives that dealt with the bonds and the horrors of comradship since the war set comrad against one another. 61
The war's culture of violence was brought back to the civilian world in NEP where rape where introduced was given in a bad light and was also this way in real world too. 68 Reference to men's love in Chevengur's of dead RLux.
Fears of homosexuality in Chevengur and need for women, but only if they are comrades. 69
private property comes into play in Chev only after the women arrive. 70
In Olesha's envy the issues of father and son that had plagued all time before were fixed as father and son were now working for the same future. The father and son alliance is not a blood tie, but one where men choose each other as father and son. 126
Kavelerov has a hard time getting along with the younger generation and has not found a father in the old gerneration. He is outside all of the new structures being forged and fails like Ivan because of this. 126
The revolution disrupts the transition from father to son in Olesha and Platonov. 133
Chevengur's Dvanov's lost father and returns to grave. 133
The soviet ideology stated that the bourgeoise family with the father at the head must be erraticated in the new world. Kavelerov has problems stemming from his lack of father and need to find a new one, yet never wanting to engage in relations that will make him a father. Even with women they must not result in fatherhood. 135-6
Babichev wants to free the family and fathers from blood ties to children and prefers to give birth to kitchens and sausages and take care of adult children that he chooses. 161
Idoltry of the feminine, yet the world is androgenous. 163
He seems to say that Olesha's world in envy is not one based on greed and and he doesn't touch the satirical elements of the story. The story is bases on male comraderie and who is a part of it and who is not. Even when women show up they are used not to pit the men against eachother as in a traditional tale, but they serve to bring the men together. Kovalerov is an exception and Ivan doesn' t get invited to the party either, but they are brought together in their attempts to play at the same games as the others. 172
Love triangles 176-183
Chevengur is haunted by the two things that it tried to live without: desire and femininity. 191
Utopia as satire. 192
He seems to build a fratriarchy with a complete disdain for sexuality in the first part of the decade, then comes back and makes his peace with it in the second and into the future in the 1930s. 193
Kopyonkin strives for both being a knight and for the love of Rlux. it is the exact opposite thing that the chevengurians live for. They have a disdain for love and don't do anything in their communist community. 203
Chevengur is not the "History of one town" that SS wrote. It has irony in Zakhar Pavlovich in the beginning and with the Chevengurians at the end and it is not the same utopian type novel that he wrote earlier in his career, though there are utopian images. The characters are too real and simple to gain the distance between reader and character that you usually get in satire. 226
The characters are too uneducated and foolish to really evaluate what they do. They just took the theory and made it real without asking if they should have made it in the first place.226
Chevingur in 2 pages: 227-228
Kopyonkin's "greed of friendship" for Dvanov is the tie that binds them together - comraderie. 230
When the men live in poverty they have comraderie and seek out each other. When the miscellaneus come and force them to get things and make their lives more stable then they have no need of eachother. 240 It cannot be called greed to not want to live in poverty, but it is interesting that the accumulation of physical things makes them less socialized.
He says that the appropriation of the community by the micellaneus women and the way of life that the men are dragged into is the same counter-revolutionary path that the leaders of NEP have been dragged into with their concessions. 241
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