Dr. Zhivago Photography

Artist Statement

Not Every Thing is as it Appears
By: Isa Branas, Alana Espineli, Angela Hurtado, Robert Polan, and Amanda Snyder
Photography

The scene in our photo takes place in 1917, Russia. During this time, propaganda promoting the Russian Revolution was in heavy circulation as months of hunger and depression took hold of the country. Initially, citizens tried to be civilized when demonstrating to the government that they wanted change, but war was eventually decided as necessary for progress to occur.
Our photograph is based on Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, mainly the love story between Laura and the two men she falls in love with, Pasha and Dr. Zhivago. One central character in the photo is the girl in purple, who is connected to both the man outside and the man inside. The couple outside represents the lower class and how they were left in the cold while the rich were inside. The girl in purple is torn between the man who is handing her the gun and the man looking from the outside in, whom she both loves. We chose dark colored clothing to show that it was a time of darkness and war. The single candle in the middle symbolized the flame between the girl inside and the man outside. The gun represents war and that peace was no longer possible.
As a group, we decided to reverse the roles of Laura and Dr. Zhivago in our portrait. Laura goes from “rags to riches” while Dr. Zhivago loses his wealth. We also wanted our photo to be black and white to show age and felt that the coloring would express the people’s feelings more. Our group was afraid that we couldn’t get the proper expressions shown through the photo. We decided that the emotion of love had to be clearly shown through the two main characters, but they also needed to show additional feelings as well.


No todo es lo que Parece
Por: Isa Branas, Alana Espineli, Angela Hurtado, Robert Polan, and Amanda Snyder
Fotografía
La escena en nuestra foto sucede en 1917, en Rusia. Durante ese tiempo, la propaganda que promovía la Revolución Rusa no podía circular por los meses de hambre y la depresión que tenía el país. Inicialmente, los ciudadanos tratando de ser civilizados le demuestran al gobierno que quieren un cambio, pero la guerra fue decidida finalmente por la necesidad del progreso.
Nuestra fotografía es basada en Doctor Zhivago por Boris Pasternak, principalmente la historia de amor entre Laura y los dos hombres de los que ella se enamora, Pashá y Dr. Zhivago. Un carácter principal en la foto es la chica en púrpura, que está conectada al hombre de fuera y el hombre de adentro. La pareja que está afuera representa la clase más baja y cómo ellos fueron dejados en el frío mientras los ricos estaban adentro. La chica en púrpura está perdida entre el hombre que la entrega la pistola y el hombre que mira hacia ella, quienes son sus dos amores. Escogimos ropa oscura para mostrar que fue un tiempo de la oscuridad y la guerra. La vela en el centro simbolizó la llama entre la chica de adentro y el hombre de afuera. El fusil representa la guerra y esa paz que ya no exsistia.

Russian Hypocrisy Essay

Isabel Branas

Guerrero

Humanities

27 March 2009

Hopelessly Hopeful

I feel week, the cold runs through my veins and the pain is such that I cannot name it. My throat is empty and I cannot remember the last time I ate something. My family suffers and I suffer from knowing there’s nothing I can do for them. The government is the only one that can do something but they refuse to make a change. I have assisted peaceful marches and seen innocent children and woman die before my eyes. The government will regret this. This is how most of the people in Russian felt during the reign of the tsar Nicholas II. In Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago he explores the hypocrisy of the Russian Revolution. The people of Russia were tired of the abuse of the government to the point where they were they wanted to end with autocracy and instead have communism. They wanted more rights and things to be more fair. They wanted shelter and clothing for the cold in particular. They also wanted to be healthy and have food to eat and feed their families. All they wanted was a better life and the government was not able to do that for them. So in the end the communists were no better than the tsar.

One of the things that happened under the reign of the tsar was World War I. WWI was devastating and created conflicts for all countries involved but ended up being the worst for Russia but the war began positively for Russia. Unfortunately, the country lost over four million men in the first year alone. (Sherrow, 102) This led to the people being very unhappy. Neither the soldiers nor the people had a place to live or clothes to keep warm during the cold winter. As shown in the quote “By the second winter of the war the boots had worn out, but the line still held. Their great coats fell to pieces on their backs. Their rations were irregular”(Lean). The government was exploiting the soldiers to fight a war when they were not even giving them clothes to keep them warm or food to keep them alive. Meanwhile the tsar and his family were living really comfortably without trouble. They were warm and had lots of food to eat. It was hypocritical of the leader of the government to ask the soldiers to fight a war for the country he was ruling without supplying adequate means of living when he himself was living a life of luxury.

People in Russia were not living as they wanted so they revolted for change but things did not go as planned. When the communist government took over they started to take away from the rich because they wanted equality and believed the rich had too much and were not appreciative of it. “On Tamskaya Avenue the pigs were eating and drinking and dancing.” (David Leal) In this quote Pasha is talking to Lara after the people in his peaceful march had been massacred. The peaceful march Pasha refers to the rich as the pigs because they are living a life of luxury while innocent are being killed and they don’t care enough to anything about it. They were jealous of the rich people and were determined to get everything they needed. The war went on and things started to change from autocracy to communism. When Tsarim was the government in power things were not going so well. According to Victoria Sherrow in her book Life during the Russian revolution “Peasants were worked so hard to survive and had little time for revolutionary activities.” Also “The new government also brought dissension, famine, and repressive laws backed by broad police power. When it was over they again lived in a totalitarian system.” The government started to take things away from the rich but the poor people were not getting a better life either. They thought a revolution would change everything for the better but it did not. It is hypocritical that the government was taking things away from the rich in order to serve the poor and make things fair. When what they were really doing was keeping those things and making both classes equally poor.

As Dr. Zhivago comes home communism starts to kick in and he comes to find that there are many families living in his house. As Comrade Kaprugina the chairman of the Residents committee tells him “It is not for you to welcome us Comrade, now you will have to live like the rest of us, Doctor. Re- allocation of living space Comrade Doctor. Fifty meters per families of less than five people.” (David Leal) In this quote the chairman is letting Doctor Zhivago know that his house does not belong to him anymore. The government had now taken away every ones properties since the distribution among the people of different social classes was unfair. We can see this when the chairman says “There was living space for thirteen families in this one house.”(David Lean) The rich had all this space to themselves when the poor had nowhere to live in and now they take all away from the rich and create two equally poor social classes in need for food.

A dialogue that takes place between Alexander, Tonya and Yuri while they are eating dinner shows how desperate the people were for food even if they had been rich before. In the film Alexander said to his son in law Yuri “She’s been saving that salami for three months.” Surprised Yuri asks Tonya “Have you darling?” Solemnly Tonya responds “I got it for a clock.” (Leal) People’s lives were put in danger by having no food, being so cold that they were close to death. Even getting sick of bad nourishment and low defenses and the government did not do anything to change that. The people were starting to wonder if they would even make it out of this nightmare alive. The following quote is also an example of how people were struggling to survive “Oh what I don’t understand is how we are going to stay alive this winter.” (Leal) said Alexander. He was scared that he and his family would not make it through the winter because they barely had any food and little by little the government was taking away what little property and belongings they had left. By stealing or taking away what people had the government was being hypocritical because they were going against their own rules. The new government that had promised equality, bread, and land for all was committing a crime by stealing.

They not only wanted, but needed health and food to survive. According to the book of Lenin during the Russian Revolution, disorganization in the government led to terrible food shortages and breakdowns of all kinds of essential services thought Russia (Edwards 101) People were starving and children were losing weight. In the beginning of the revolution people made peaceful marches for the government to make a change but the only thing they did was kill them. Pasha goes to visit Lara and tells her “There will not be any more peaceful demonstrations, there were woman and children, Lara, and they rode them down starving woman asking for bread.” (Leal) Males were on the streets doing peaceful marches and when the woman and children came along because they were so hungry, the government had no compassion they killed woman and children as if they were ordinary men. One of the complaints against Tsarism was its brutal treatment of dissenters, but the Bolsheviks did the same thing once in power, they shoot anyone who did not agree with them. It was hypocritical of Lenin and Bolsheviks to assassinate the tsar Nicholas II, his wife, his son and his four daughters on July 1918 when his family also included woman and children.

Another thing people wanted to gain through the revolution was money and jobs. At one point in the novel Dr. Zhivago asks “Why is the stove out?” Alexander responds to him “She lets it out as you leave and lights it before you come home” then Tonya calmly answers to both of them “We have no fuel”. (David Leal) They started creating anxiety among the people and Dr. Zhivago has to go and steal wood to be able to have fuel and survive. “The wood we cut is stolen and it is no excuse that we steal from the state or that the property once belongs to Krueger.” (Leal) What he is saying is that there is no excuse for stealing, but he is also implying that once that wood also belonged to them so it did not belong to the government anyhow.

The government was hiding important issues from the people. The New government was deceitful to keep itself in power. “When the Bolshevik party did not receive a majority of votes Lenin simply did away with the constituent assembly, just as the Tsar had done with the Duma in 1906 and 1907.” (Edwards 103) The government had been dishonest and now the new government was dishonest as well. The people in the government were taking control of Russia even if they didn’t have the experience or the authority. It is hypocritical that the person who wants to rule Russia and tell the Russians what should be done is not even Russian himself. “He did not have a drop of Russian blood in him.”(5).COMMENTARY “This was a force that was willing to ignore human suffering in pursuit of its goals” (107). The government was willing to hurt and kill all the people necessary to have control of Russia. Lenin wanted to take place of the Tsar because he was honest and believed he would be better for Russia. The hypocritical part in this statement is that he was dishonest as well as the Tsar in 1907.

The new government was dishonest with the public for fear of losing favor and power. People were in danger of being sick or most of them where already sick and the government tried to hide and deny this from them. When Dr. Zhivago goes back home and they send him to the hospital the chairman lies to him and all the other people there Dr. Zhivago asks the chairman “Yes, I believe there is typhus?” and the Chairman falsely answers him “You’ve been listening to rumors, Comrade. There is no typhus in our city.” Dr. Zhivago is fooled and simply replies to her “Oh that’s good news.” (Pasternak 198) People were getting sick in the city of Russia because of the dirty streets the war had left, the cold, and the starvation but the government was trying not to confront this problem so they denied it. The worst part is not that the government lied to the people; it’s that the people were actually fooled by the government. They were afraid to openly disagree because people who disagreed or questioned the government were killed or “sent away”. As time goes by the people realize the government is lying to them. When Dr. Zhivago goes home and they are taking away his personal belongings Dr. Zhivago asks the chairman “What are you doing with my things?” the Chairman replies “They are being stored” then in a strong voice Dr. Zhivago answers her “No, they are being stolen.” Because he has finally realized that the government is being dishonest and is just trying to take everything away from them.

The Russian Revolution is very hypocritical the government tells the soldiers “They are coming for your wives, your homes, and your country.” (David Leal) When that’s exactly what they were doing. While soldiers are at war they are taking advantage and taking things away from the wives, they are taking away their houses and personal belongings. The hypocritical people of the Revolution wanted a better life and then after they have peaceful marches and many innocent children are woman are killed they are mad at the government for killing woman and children. After being the victims they people show hypocrisy when in 1918 they kill the Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family. “Fearing the tsar would be around; the party decided it was best to eliminate Nicholas, as well as his wife and children.” (Edwards 107) Doing as the government did. But ending with autocracy and the tsar family to avoid this type of government again was not as good as expected or not good at all.

The new government of Lenin was treating the people like the Tsar had been treating them. “This new agency was at least as ruthless as the tsar´s secret police had been. And it served the same function. It took as prisoners those people who disagreed politically with the Bolsheviks, threatening to execute them if any Bolsheviks came to harm.” (Edwards 103) The new government did not care if they were killing or hurting innocent people. “By the 1920´s, between seven million and nine million children had been orphaned or abandoned because their parent had died or could no longer take care of them. (Edwards 103) Can you imagine not only not being able to feed your child and watching him suffer but not even being able to look after him or imagine losing your life and leaving your children alone in the hands of this new government?

In the end the Tsar was defeated along with autocracy, but this was not victory. Lenin came along with communism and made things even worse for Russia. The war and the revolution brought terrible things. It made Russia and its people suffer while they hoped for change and oh they got change. They lost their houses, their personal belonging, things with sentimental values, and even family. The hypocritical revolution promised things that did not happen the way they were suppose to or did not happen at all but in the end that is what the people wanted workers in a workers state.

Bibliography

Dr. Zhivago. David Leal. Turner Entraitenment an Time Warner Company, 2001

Edwards Judith. Lenin and the Russian Revolution. Berkeley Height, New Jersey. Enslow

Publishers. Inc 2001

Sherrow Victoria. Life during the Russian Revolution. San Diego, California, Lucent books,

1998

Whitting Jim. The Russian Revolution 1917. United States. Mitchell Lane Publishers. Inc, 2008