“Nurses too became shell-shocked from the dying around them. Or from something as small as a letter. They would carry a severed arm down the hall, or swab at blood that never stopped, as if the wound were a well, and they began to believe in nothing, trusted nothing. They broke the way a manContinue reading “RKS CANADIAN Literature: Shell Shocked Nurses (Michael Ondaatje)”
Category Archives: literature
RKS Literature: Yugoslavia’s Tito: One Day a Hero of the USSR The Next Its Perfidious Enemy
“The class laughed just as unanimously when the geography teacher talked about Yugoslavia. Today Tito is a “sinister and perfidious enemy”; but it was only two weeks ago that we were shown the film: “In the Mountains of Yugoslavia”, in which Marshal Tito was awarded the Order of Victory as our best friend and faithfulContinue reading “RKS Literature: Yugoslavia’s Tito: One Day a Hero of the USSR The Next Its Perfidious Enemy”
RKS Literature: The Necessity of Slave Labour in the USSR and the Future of Socialism (Vladimir Rott)
“The abolition of private property killed people’ s desire to create, to take care of themselves, to seek paths to survival and progress. The most essential part of any country’s gross national product-the contribution of each individual’s enthusiasm-was lost. By sending hundreds of thousands of Soviet people to the labour camps, the state tried toContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Necessity of Slave Labour in the USSR and the Future of Socialism (Vladimir Rott)”
RKS Literature: The Never-Ending Soviet Gulag Sentence (Vladimir Rott)
“Of course this is a very important year 1948. In this year, in the middle of it, I’ll also become a free man. And here, there are two points, listen carefully. Those who are released after their terms inside the USSR can go home on the next train. But here, in the Far East, theContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Never-Ending Soviet Gulag Sentence (Vladimir Rott)”
RKS Literature: Treacherous at the Top with Stalin (Vladimir Rott)
“The men who surrounded Stalin quickly figured out the rules of the chief’s game and started playing up to him in every way they could, sniffing out suitable “enemies” in their own midst and helping destroy them. Under such arrangement, those who witnessed and participated in the “purges” at the top could not stay aliveContinue reading “RKS Literature: Treacherous at the Top with Stalin (Vladimir Rott)”
RKS Literature: The Bolsheviks Desperation to Maintain Power (Vladimir Rott)
“Once they had seized power in Russia, the Bolsheviks began to direct all of their energy and all of the country’s wealth toward a single goal: to stay in power, to keep power in their hands. Hence the instant rise of the Great Terror, the suppression and destruction of not only actual but even potential,Continue reading “RKS Literature: The Bolsheviks Desperation to Maintain Power (Vladimir Rott)”
RKS Literature: Ignorant, Greedy and Brutal Bolsheviks (Vladimir Rott)
Russia-a wealthy country with a highly educated population, a country that had peacefully gotten rid of serfdom and was on a path of rapid, successful industrial development-was handed over to the Bolsheviks without a real struggle. The Russian intelligentsia, the nation’s brain, underestimated the danger and allowed a great country which had been drawn intoContinue reading “RKS Literature: Ignorant, Greedy and Brutal Bolsheviks (Vladimir Rott)”
RKS Literature: Avoidance of Catastrophic Thinking (Yukio Mishima)
“He believed that only a vulgar mentality was willing to acknowledge the possibility of catastrophe. He felt that taking naps was much more beneficial than confronting catastrophe. However precipitous the future might seem, he learned from the game of kemari that the ball must always come down. There was no call for consternation. Grief andContinue reading “RKS Literature: Avoidance of Catastrophic Thinking (Yukio Mishima)”
RKS Literature: Meditation and Returning Back to the Garden (Yukio Mishima)
“Even though he was plunged in meditation from morning to night, he was loath to direct his immense emotional reserves toward a single conclusion. Meditation had a great deal in common with kemari, the traditional sport of the Ayakuras. No matter how high one kicked the ball, it would obviously come back to earth againContinue reading “RKS Literature: Meditation and Returning Back to the Garden (Yukio Mishima)”
RKS Literature: Imagination (Yukio Mishima)
“Those who lack imagination have no choice but to base their conclusions on the reality they see around them. But on the other hand, those who are imaginative have a tendency to build fortified castles they have designed themselves, and to seal off every window in them.” Yukio Mishima, “Spring Snow”, 1968.
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