--- Robert Wrubel <bobwrubel at yahoo.com> wrote:
> About this time a large ferry-boat began to near
> the
> shore. The mass of people standing in it began to
> wave
> their hands from a distance. They were Cossacks in
> torn, ragged gaberdines. Their disordered garments,
> for many had on nothing but their shirts. . . '
>
> This passage has an eerie resemblance to the
> brilliant opening pages of Juan Goytisolo's Marx
> Family Saga, based on the actual tragic flight of
> Albanians to a capitalist "dreamland" after the fall
> of the USSR.
>
> BobW
I would not be surprised if this was deliberate. It is a famous scene in Russian literature.
It occurs to me that, reading about the histories of peasant revolts and pogroms (which usually accompanied each other), they actually did often start off the way Gogol describes it (including in the actual historical event his book is based on): a traveller comes from away and starts telling about all the iniquities he has witnessed. "You would not believe what I have seen with my own eyes! The Poles are in league with the Catholics and wish to ban Orthodoxy (or, in Russia, the Tsar is a False Tsar who is in league with the Catholics and wish to ban Orthodoxy)! They are bowing to idols! Foreigners are giving false and evil counsel! The Jews are given free rein to use the blood of Christian children in their passover bread! Chaos stalks the land!" Then their would be a rampage against any nearby members of the aristocracy they could find, not to mention a mass slaughter of any Jews or Catholics they could get their hands on. After a while the main army would get called up against them, the rebellion/pogrom would be crushed and its leaders executed publically after being paraded through the streets, and everybody else would slink back to their farms.
My favorite example is a rebellion that took place against Peter the Great. Rumors began to fly that the Tsar was bringing in foreigners (true) and that the aristocrats were bowing to idols (see below). So the peasants and some Tatars burst into towns, slaughtered their populations, and destroyed the "idols." What were the idols? Peter was trying to Europeanize Russia, and as a result the nobility were starting to wear powdered wigs. The "idols" were the wooden heads the wigs wigs werw put on when not in use.
It's black comedy gold!
____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545433