User:REESFstudentK/sandbox

Text to complete class tutorial.

Responses to the Week 1 Assignment Questions

Question 1: The overview Russian science fiction page had a message at the top requesting the addition of more references.  Sometimes there was inconsistency with what gets referenced.  For example, only one author in the science fiction of the “18th and early 19th centuries” has a specific citation, and none of the rest do.  There were numerous [citation needed] notes on the page on the Strugatskys.  

Question 2: Generally it is all relevant. Occasionally there is awkward grammar which was a little distracting.  For example, tense switching within a single paragraph and a lack of prepositions.  

Question 3: Everything seems neutral.  

Question 4: More modern topics and the book pages tend to have more web pages as sources.  Earlier works tend to cite more books/articles.  

Question 5: Strugatsky article: there is a long section on the Noon universe, and none for other works.  While that is an important area, it seems disproportionately prominent on the page. Also, only Boris is pictured.  

Question 6: All the links I checked were functional.  I did not notice any close plagiarism.  

Question 7: In the “Most notable Soviet writers” section of the overview page, Boris Strugatsky is listed but not his brother Arkady, who wrote with him.  A description of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe cites a tv show being in development with an article from 2010, which is probably out of date now.  Both brothers could be pictured on the Strugatsky page.  On the “Roadside Picnic” page, objects in the novel are referred to with terms from different translations. Also, some of the edits are clearly based on the translation of a censored version of the text.  

Question 8: Overview page: little discussion, last post from 2010.  There is a message at the top requesting addition of more citations.  Strugatskys: There were some terminology discussions, addition of more works, and technical modifications. Roadside Picnic: Largely discussion of appropriate details to include.  

Question 9: Sections in the book articles include: Discussion of Title, Plot, Origins and Censorship, Awards and nominations, Adaptations and cultural influence, Translation and References.  Most sources on book articles were websites with interviews or articles.  

Week 2 Assignment

Assigned topic: Omon Ra.

I intend to add sources beyond the text itself, which is currently the only cited source on the page.  Since I read Russian, if there is any information on the Russian page that is relevant but not present on the English page, then I will add that as well.  A few of the longer sentences could be made more clear.

Chapter 7 of Soviet Space Mythologies: Public Images, Private Memories, and the Making of a Cultural Identity (discusses Omon Ra)

Review of Omon Ra by Andrew Bromfield in World Literature Today, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40151725

Interview with author in New Art Publications from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40426679

Sources from references on the Russian language page for this topic

Week 4 Assignment: Student Peer Review by Ksembly1

I think you have done an excellent job in listing the necessary areas of improvement for the Oman Ra page so far. As you have already noted, I think the page is pretty well written in terms of neutrality, and there are some areas with awkward phrasing. Especially when information is addressed parenthetically (see reference to Oman's naming in overview, for example). And also in the body of Plot Summary, I believe there are some run-on sentences, simply spots where too much information was given at one time (see third paragraph about Lunokhod). I think revising these minor details will help with the 'flow' of the page.

All below is word for word translation from the corresponding Russian wikipedia page

Boris Natanovich Strugatsky (15 April 1933, Leningrad - 19 November 2012, Saint-Petersburg) was a Soviet and Russian author, screenwriter, and translator, who co-wrote with his brother Arkady Strugatsky a few dozen works which are classics of contemporary science fiction.  After Arkady Strugatsky died in 1991, Boris Strugatsky published two separate novels.

Boris Strugatsky was born on 15 April 1933 in Leningrad, where his father Natan Zalmanovich Strugatsky was appointed science officer of the State Russian Museum.  Boris’ mother, Aleksandra Ivanovna Litvinchyova, was a teacher, teaching Russian literature at the same school where Boris studied, and after the war she was awarded the title of “Honored Teacher of the RSFSR” and the Order of the “Badge of Honor.”  During the time of the Great Patriotic War, the Strugatsky family were in the siege of Leningrad, while on account of an illness of Boris in January 1942, Arkady and Natan Zalmanovich Strugatsky were evacuated alone, and his father died from exhaustion on the road to Vologda.  Only in 1943 was his older brother Arkady able to take his mother and brother Boris to the town of Tashla Orenburg (later - Chkalovsk) region.  They returned to Leningrad in 1943.  In 1950 he finished school with a silver medal and was going to enter the physics department of LGU, however, he wasn’t accepted.  Then he submitted documents to the mathematical-mechanical department, which he left in 1955 with a speciality of “astronomy.”  

After finishing university he was accepted to postgraduate studies at the Pulkovo observatory, however, he didn’t defend his dissertation, whose topic turned out to have been already solved in 1942 on the frontier.  Then Boris Strugatsky worked in the accounting station of the Pulkovo observatory engineering-operative area on an accounting-analytical machine.  In 1960 he participated in geodetic and astronomical expedition in the Caucasus in the search for a place for the installation of the Big telescope AN USSR.

From 1964 he was a professional writer, a member of the writers’ union of the USSR.  For a few more years he worked in the Pulkovo observatory as a part time job.  From 1972 he was the head of the Leningrad seminar of young speculative fiction writers (which subsequently became known as the “Boris Strugatsky seminar”).  

In 1974 he got a KGB record as a quality witness in the Mikhail Heifetz affair, who was incriminated by Article 70 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (anti-soviet agitation and propaganda).

He was a founder of the “Bronze Snail” prize.  From 2002 he was the head editor of the magazine “Afternoon, 21st Century.”

He was married to Adelaide Andreevna Karpelyuk (23 October 1931 - 20 December 2013), the daughter of Major-General A. I. Karhelyuk, who he met in his student years of study at LGU.  He had a son named Andrei (born in 1959).

Boris was known as a passionate stamp collector, which found reflection in his work.

After a severe and extended illness (lymphoma), Boris Natanovich Strugatsky died on 19 November 2012 at 79 years old.  In accordance with the will of the writer, his body was cremated and on 5 April 2014 the ashes of Boris Strugatsky and his spouse were scattered above Pulkovo.  

The main body of the literary works of Boris Strugatsky was coauthored with his brother Boris Strugatsky.  The majority of their work was widely considered to have been written in the genre of science fiction.  Boris Strugatsky himself didn’t think that way and preferred to speak about “realistic fantasy,” where the central role concerns humans and their fate, and other planets or technology of the future is not more than decoration.

After the death of Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, in his own determination, continued “to saw the thick beam of literature with a bad saw, but without a partner.”  Under the pseudonym C. Vitistkiy came out the novels “The Search for Purpose, or the 27th Theorem of Ethics” (1994-1995).  And “A Weak World Suddenly” (2003), continuing the study of unforgiving fate and its opportunity to influence the surrounding reality.

Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky (28 August 1925, Batumi - 12 October 1991, Moscow) was a Russian Soviet writer, screenwriter, translator, and co-writer with his brother Boris Strugatsky (1933 - 2012) of a few dozen works which are seen as classics of modern science fiction.

He was born in Batumi, where his father Natan Zalmanovich Strugatsky worked as an editor of the newspaper “Working Adjar.”  His mother Arkadiya Aleksandra Ivanovna Litvichyeva (1902 - 1981) was a teacher, teaching Russian literature in the same school where Arkady studied, and after the war was awarded with the title of “Honored Teacher of the RSFSR” and the order of the “Badge of Honor.”

In the time of the Great Patriotic War the Strugatsky family were in the siege of Leningrad.  In January 1942 Natan Strugatsky and Arkady evacuated on the “road of life” across Lake Ladoga, and his mother and a sick Boris remained in the city.  Their father died in Volodga, in the summer of 1942 Arkady ended up in the town of Tashla, Chkalovsk (formerly Orenburg) region.  He served there as the head of the center for the purchase of dairy products for the people, and in 1943 he entered the Red Army.  Before that he managed to get his mother and brother out of Leningrad.

He graduated from Berdichev infantry academy, then located in Aktobe due to evacuation, after which he was posted in the military institute of foreign languages, which he finished in 1949 with a speciality in “translation from Japanese and English languages.”  Until 1955 Arkady Strugatsky served in the Soviet Army as a translator (at that time there was an investigation for the ? of Tokyo proceedings), taught languages at the officers’ academy in Caen (1950 - 1952), and in 1955 he was to transferred to Khabarovsk as part of OSHAZ (special assignment).  After his dismissal to reserve he worked in Moscow at the Institute of scientific information and as an editor.  

As a professional writer, he was a member of the writers’ union of the USSR from 1964.

He was married twice, the first time to Inna Sergeevna Shershovoi in 1948, the marriage actually fell apart in Kansk; they divorced in 1954.  From his second wife Elena Ilinicha (nee Oshaninoi) he had a daughter Maria. Daughter Natalia from the first marriage of E. I. Oshaninoi to the sinologist D. N. Voskresenskii Strugatsky raised as his own.  Maria became the second wife of Yegor Gaidar.

Arkadii Natanovich Strugatsky died in Moscow on 12 October 1991 after an extended illness (liver cancer).  According to his will he was cremated; on 6 December 1991 his ashes were scattered over the Ryazan highway by helicopter in the presence of six witnesses.

The main part of the literary legacy of Arkady Strugatsky was created with his younger brother Boris as co-author.  Many stories of future works were intended and realized in the writing home “Komarovo”, where the brothers Strugatsky repeatedly visited on creative work trips.   The majority of their joint works were written in the science fiction genre.  In their works they often addressed themes of utopias, dystopias, and problems from the relationship with other civilizations.

Before the war he tried to write fantasy, but all the manuscripts were lost in the blockade.  His first completed work was the story “How Kang Died” (1946, published in 2001).  Arkady Strugatsky’s first published work was the short story “Ash of Bikini” (1956), written with Lev Petrov during their time in the armed, which focused on the tragic events associated with the explosion of the Hydrogen bomb on the Bikini atoll, and remained, in the opinion of Voisteha Kaitoha, “typical for that time, an example of anti imperialist prose.”

Arkady Strugatsky wrote a few works alone under the pseudonym “C. Yaroslavets”: the story “Expedition to the Underworld” (1974, parts 1-2; 1984, part 3), the story “Details from the life of Nikita Vorontsova” (1984) and “Devil Among the People” (1990-1991, published in 1993).  Nikita Vorontsova falls into a time loop and lives through the same day many times, but he doesn’t really change anything by force in the surrounding world.  Kim Voloshin, having survived suffering ? in real life, becomes the powerful “devil among the people”, but is also unable to make this world a little better.  In 2001 were published ten chapters of an unfinished story, “Days of the Kraken” (1963).

There exists the following explanation for the pseudonym “C. Yaroslavets”.  It related the fact that Arkady Strugatsky lived near the “square of three stations” in Moscow, that is, near to Yaroslavskiy station, from which he got “Yaroslavets”; “C.” (an official name doesn’t exist, only the abbreviation) - from “Strugatsky.”

He is the author of the film script for “The Family Affairs of the Gayurovix” (1975).  

Arkady Strugatsky also translated from Japanese a few short stories of Ryunosuke Akutagawa (“Nose” and “In the Water Country”), novels of Kobo Abe, Natsume Soseki, Hiroshi Noma, and a medieval novel in the Gunki style, “Legend of Yoshitsune”.  Together the Strugatskys under the pseudonyms C. Berejkov, C. Bitin, and C. Pobedin translated from English Andre Norton, Hal Clement, and John Wyndham.  

Omon Ra - non plot summary section translation

Omon Ra is the first novel of Victor Pelevin, written in 1991.  It presents a half-parody of educational novels of the soviet era and in genre is close to a thriller.  It is characterized by attention to detail, (from) which in the end emerges (in) one image.

(Summary)  

The idea of the book is found in the intersection with some domestic and foreign cinematic work about exposing the adaptation for flight (“Capricorn One”) or beneath the earth (“Big space travel”) and hiding failure (“First on the Moon”, “Apollo 18”) astronautics, and also the conspiracy theory “lunar conspiracy.”

In 1933 Victor Pelevin’s novel Omon Ra was awarded with two literary prizes, the “Interpresson” and the “Bronze Snail”.  Both prizes were awarded in the category ??.  

The novel was first published (in a magazine version) in the magazine “The Banner” in 1992.  An excerpt from the novel under the name “Moon Buggy” was published in 1991 in the journal “Knowledge is Power” and in first copyright in the collection “Blue Lantern”.  

The Bedbug

“The Bedbug” is a satirical play by Vladimir Mayakovsky, written in the fall of 1928.  The work, whose genre was marked by the author as fairy tale comedy, was supplemented and amended after public readings and discussion.  In the words of Mayakovsky, the basis of the play draws on material which accumulated in the process of work on different editions - in particular, in “Komsomol truth.”  This “bulk of philistine facts” provided a reason for the creation of two characters - Prisypkin and Oleg Bard.  

The play for the first time was published in the magazine “Young Guard” (1929, No 3 and 4).  The premier of the play “The Bedbug” took place at the Meyerhold State Theater on 13 February 1929.  In November 1929, the play was staged at the Leningrad branch of the Bolshoi drama theatre.  

Characters

Ivan Prisypkin (Pierre Skripkin) - former worker, former party member, currently fiance

Zoya Beryozkina - worker

Oleg Bard - landlord

Elzevir Davidovna Renaissance - Fiance of Prisypkin, manicurist, cashier at a hair salon

Rosalie Pavlovna Renaissance - mother of Elzevir, hairdresser

David Osipovich Renaissance - father of Elzevir, hairdresser

Workers, residents

Usher at wedding

Fire Warden, firemen

Professor

Director of the Zoo

Reporter

Chairman of the city council, audience, organizer of festivities, confidence men and women, hunters

Plot

The action begins in the time of NEP.  Ivan Prisypkin seeks a “beautiful life” after the labors and hardships of the civil war.  He even changes his first and last name to the elegant Pierre Skripkin.  On the day of his wedding it turns out that Skripkin is frozen in the basement of the house.   He is defrosted and revived after fifty years.  Around him prevails a new, bright, communist life: no needs and no debilitating work, having defeated illness and natural disasters, people forgot drunkenness, smoking, and swearing.  In this world, Skripkin-Prisypkin finds only one place: an exhibit at the zoo, where those wishing to might familiarize themselves with the vices of a past age.  The only companion of Prisypkin turns out to be a bedbug, accidentally frozen together with him.

Main theme

The Bedbug is an anti-philistine play, in which is joined “grotesque-realistic and fantastic elements”.  Owing to this technique there is a stronger contrast between the acts of Prisypkin and the live concerns of the people of the future.  Mayakovsky even earlier demonstrated his beliefs in “the studio of human resurrection” (for example, in the poem “About this”), however, in The Bedbug he first decides to move humanity fifty years forward, which “passes ? the name of philistine vulgarity”.  This element of parody, when pathos follows a sad taunt above projects, means, in the observation of the literary critic Evgenii Yablokov, that “romantic dreams come to an end.”  

“The fairy tale spectacle at the end of the play, when Prisypkin, accepting his new role, blows up the bedbug, - it is a calculated, open, big blow to philistinism.”

Mayakovsky doesn’t seek to appear a visionary and prophet, knowing in advance the details of live in 1979, therefore he created a picture of a future with some percentage of irony: thus, in it there are artificial trees, on which are laid out dishes with tangerines, apples, and bottles of perfume.  Since the light mockery is not understood by all readers and viewers of The Bedbug, the dualism of the author served as a cause for criticism.

Criticism

In the words of the literary critic Aleksandra Mikhailova, opponents of Mayakovsky a famous technique - “critique not that which the author reflected, but what he didn’t show.”  Thus, the publicist N. Osinski reproached the author for insufficiently broad coverage of the life of the working class at the end of the 1920s; the cultural figure Richard Pikul was unhappy that the image of Prisypkin didn’t develop “at work, in a collective, in public works.”

The literary critic Stefan Mokulski found it necessary to note that the blow to philistinism was done poorly, “the point aimed at was chosen incorrectly”, in the image of the future he presents “an anti-soviet taint.”

The theatre critic David Talnikov, of whom a year earlier Mayakovsky in the poem “? on writers” characterized as a man loving to lecture, called the play “paramount hackwork.”  IN the course of the controversy around The Bedbug, there was expressed the opposite opinion as well.   In the pages of the magazine “Young Guard” (1929, No 2) was published a review, the author of which called the play a stringent caricature, revealing “the baseness of philistinism.”

Literary References

Dmitri Bykov didn’t simply see in the story The Bedbug a reference to the play “Sauna” - he recalled (with a link to Victor Shklovski), that in 1927 Mayakovsky met in a Rostov hospital a poet, who, similar to Zoya Beryozkina, tried to shoot herself.  In her life was her own Skripkin, leading the young woman to attempt suicide.

A year earlier in the pages of “Komsomol Truth” a debate between Mayakovsky and the poet Ivan Molchanov, who wrote poems about people who require compensation for “the fatigue of life,” became the reason for a parody quotation in The Bedbug.  Voiced by Prisypkin is the wish for “to relax by a quiet river” - this is a direct copy of lines from the Molchanov poem “By the Cliff.”  Evgenii Yablokov found many points intersecting between The Bedbug and works by Mikhail Bulgakov.  For example, at some times they the theme of bugs unite: in Mayakovsky there is the defrosted bedbug, in Bulgakov in “The Race” - a cockroach race; this provided a reason for a satirical piece in the “Evening Moscow”, the author of which called both works “completely alien to the modern age.”  There is thematic similarity between The Bedbug and Heart of a Dog: both Sharikov and Prisypkin “felt themselves - although in different ways - victims of science.”  At the same time, the ending of The Bedbug is much more sharp than the end of the story of Bulgakov;  the final speech of the desperate Prisypkin, calling to the citizens to himself in the cage, similar to the phrase from Gogol’s “Auditor.”

The idea of the “red wedding” with a red bride, red guests and a red carriage, designed by Oleg Bard is a parody version on a theme of “The Fatal Eggs”: in the Bulgakov work he not only describes the invention of Professor Persikov as “a red ray,” but he lists the titles of “red newspapers” - “red flame”, “red pepper”, “red evening Moscow” and others.

The light transplant between authors led to Mayakovsky including the name of Bulgakov in a list of “dead words,” which are unknown by future people: “bureaucratism, wealth-seeking, bagels, bohemians, Bulgakov…”

Production

The production of “The Bedbug” at the Meyerhold theater was preceded by a reading.  Mayakovsky read his play in front of the troupe so eloquently, that the director invited Igor Ilinsky (the first performer of the role of Prisypkin) separately to listen to the author.  The repeated reading - already not for the actors, but for the artistic-political council of the theatre - went successfully, the play was recognized as “a significant phenomenon of soviet drama,” called “the soviet ‘Auditor’” and offered a place in the repertoire.  

“This play is sharp, good, strong.  A comedy whose equal I have never seen in the theatre.”  

Work on the play took place over the course of six weeks.  Immediately after the premier, held on 13 February 1929, Mayakovsky left to go abroad.  On the trip he received a telegram, in which the creators of the play requested to replace one of the lines.  According to the reminiscences of his daughter, in the satirical magazine “The Eccentric,” mocking 1928-1930, was printed an article “Battle of Champions”, whose author regarded the anticipated premier of “The Bedbug” as a competition, in which “the technique of stage combat” ought to go down to “the techniques of dramatic text.”

In each of the heroes, in the words of Aleksei Morov, stood out a certain predominant trait.   In the person of Prisypkin the accent was placed on “monumental sycophancy.”  In Rosalie Pavlovna Renaissance, his mother-in-law, to the absurd level brought “NEP enterprise.”  His fiance Elzevir Davidovna was characterized by “phenomenal stupidity.”  In Oleg Bard was emphasized a tendency for brownnosing.  The play was on stage for three years, and in that time the opinion of critics, originally not receiving the play well, changed a little.  Now reviews pointed out “the severity, and relevance, and unusual nature” of “The Bedbug.”  One of the reviews in connection to the change in sentiment of the readers and viewers noticed, that with help of the production “not only Prisypkin, but that whole theater began to freeze.”  Nevertheless, criticism remained.  It related mainly to the second part of the play.  There, people of the future, in the opinion of the critics, seemed in the interpretation of Meyerhold, “too rational, dry beings.”  

In many ways the success was due to the actor Igor Ilinsky. His Prisypkin showed an example of “a colorful stage grotesque”; lines of the character became aphorisms, which regulars of “Moscow Salons” knew from memory.  “Despite the hyperbole of the characteristics of the character in front of the viewers, he appears not only a lout, but a concrete character..”  

WORK FOR ACTUAL EDITS

klop

Characters

• Ivan Prisypkin (Pierre Skripkin) - former worker, former party member, fiancé of Elzevir
• Zoya Beryozkina - worker
• Oleg Bard - landlord
• Elzevir Davidovna Renaissance - Prisypkin's fiancee, manicurist, cashier at hair salon
• Rosalie Pavlovna Renaissance - mother of Elzevir
• David Osipovich Renaissance - father of Elzevir
• Usher at wedding
• Professor
• Director of the Zoo
• Chairman of the City Council
• Fire Warden
• Orator
• Workers, Reporters, Crowd, Hunters, Students, Attendants, Firemen

Plot

The action of the play begins in 1929 in the U.S.S.R. Ivan Prisypkin is a young man in the age of NEP. On the day of his wedding to Elzevir Davidovna Renaissance, Prisypkin is frozen in a basement. After fifty years, he is revived in a world that looks very different. Around him is an ideal communist world, almost a utopia. There is no more poverty and destitution, illness and natural disasters have been defeated, and people have forgotten about drunkenness, smoking, and swearing. Prisypkin does not belong in this future. He becomes an exhibit at the zoo and serves as an example of the vices of a past age to the citizens of the future. The title of the play comes from a bedbug which was frozen at the same time as Prisypkin and becomes his companion.

Production

The production of The Bedbug at the Meyerhold Theatre was preceded by a reading by Mayakovsky. The play was recognized as "a significant phenomenon of Soviet drama," called "the Soviet Auditor" and offered a place in the repertoire. The play remained on stage for three years.