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• 1 2020-08-26T12:50:27-04:00 Yury Olesha Bio 37 plain 2020-12-10T14:02:53-05:00 Tyler Hicks & Sara Laine

  Yuri Karlovich Olesha (March 3, 1899 - May 10, 1961) was born in Elisavetgrad, Ukraine to a family of Russian officials. In 1902, he and his family relocated to Odessa, Ukraine, where he attended the University of Novorossiya from 1916 to 1918. Over the course of Olesha’s career as an author, he published various poems, satirical prose, plays, short stories, children's works, and novels. The bulk of his most notable work was produced in the period from 1922 to the mid 1930s. During the Second World War, Olesha spent time working in radio in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and translating local books to Russian. Throughout his life, Olesha valued freedom of expression and was at first praised for his social commentary through his literary contributions, but later in his life faced issues with government censorship and consequently slowed down on publishing his work.
   
  In looking at Olesha’s art, which was (for the most part) crafted from the lens of, at the time, a newly emerging Soviet Russia, one can understand much not only about Russia, but also about the role that an artist such as Olesha had, especially in reference to the ever-changing political state. To begin, Olesha, along with several other authors, formed a new artistic movement known as the Green Lamp (Зелёная лампа) literary group. This new literary group focused on commentary on Socialist ideologies of the recently birthed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, otherwise known as the USSR. After finding his footing in the literary scene of Russia (primarily within Odessa), Olesha moved to Moscow in 1922, where he began working for The Whistle, a well-known railway worker’s periodical. Here, under the pseudonym “The Chisel” (Зубило in Russian), he published satirical poetry directly targeting the new life and culture in Soviet Russia. It is after this phase of Olesha’s life whereupon he writes the work that he is best known for, Envy (published in 1927). This novel depicts the strange and satirical relationship between a sausage maker (Andrei Babichev) and a pathetic young man (Nikolai Kavalerov), more precisely the relationship between the socialism associated with Soviet Russia and the individualism of pre-Soviet Russia, respectively assigned to both Babichev and Kavalerov.
   
  After these works, Olesha still released important works, such as Three Fat Men (written 1924, published 1928) and "The Cherry Pit" (1929), once again touching on the basis of the new cultural approach to life that the USSR presented to its people. Olesha was very well-known for his cunningly satirical writing, which is what made him popular at the time. However, as time passed and Olesha’s work became more read throughout the world, he was eventually even more well-respected by literary critics and scholars alike for his approach to writing literature from a central thematic point of view. Practically speaking, all of Olesha’s work is structured around one predominant topic, the idea of old versus new ideas of culture specifically in relation to Soviet and non-Soviet culture. Growing up in a world heavily structured around individualism and classical beliefs, Olesha was faced with rapidly changing cultural ideals as a result of the formation of the USSR. In order to cope with this shift, he wrote numerous texts from a satirical standpoint of an inability to fit into the new Soviet society. 
  
  Another way of looking at this style of writing, particularly looking at that of Envy, is that Olesha wrote in order to demonstrate the imperfect nature of humanity, and that neither the new means of living in the USSR nor the old means of living in classic Russia were perfect, just as neither Babichev nor Kavalerov are attractive figures within the novel. Within the context of Envy, there is also no shortage of symbols employed by Olesha. The most striking of which are his repeated allusions to flowers (such as lilies, roses), Kavalerov’s comparisons of Babichev’s body to different animals (female antelopes, elephants) and the reference to an inanimate object, Babichev’s machine, by a female name Ophelia. The effect of this was a greater dialogue between the future of the USSR at the time, between man and machine.
   
  It was here, after releasing several pieces of literature commenting on current USSR ideals, that Olesha’s work began drawing negative attention. Russian readers that originally enjoyed Envy and other pieces by Olesha were merely disillusioned by the ideas put forth by the author; as time passed, the Soviet public began to push back against Olesha and his writing. Witnessing the single largest change of Russian society and culture, Olesha was fascinated by the psychological aspect of the contrast between old Russian mentalities and new USSR-based ideals, which formed the primary basis for his work. Many Soviet officials began to take offense to his works, even going as far as to openly criticize the writer and encourage others to not read Olesha in the first place. Due to such intense criticism (one could even call this politically rooted criticism censorship), Olesha stopped publishing his work; however, he did continue to write memoirs and stage adaptations of his earlier works. After his death on May 10, 1960, Olesha’s work began popping up throughout global literary groups.
  
  Yury Olesha lived a life that can only be described as chaotic and full of conflict. He was an influential man within the broader Russian literary picture, which is exemplified even more by the time in which he was actively writing, particularly at a pivotal time for Russia.
  
  Bibliography
  
  Kisel, Maria. “Literacy and Literary Mastery in Early Soviet Russia: The Case of Yuri Olesha's 
  ‘Envy.’” Ulbandus Review, vol. 11, 2008, pp. 23–45. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25748181. Accessed 22 Sept. 2020. 
  
  Magill, Frank Northen. "Yury Olesha - Biography" Great Authors of World Literature, Critical Edition, eNotes.com, Inc., http://www.enotes.com/topics/yury-olesha#biography-biography-1.1997. Accessed 5 Oct, 2020.
  
  "Yury Karlovich Olesha." Encyclopaedia Britannica, 6 May 2020, 
  www.britannica.com/biography/Yury-Karlovich-Olesha. Accessed 21 Sept. 2020.
  
  “Yury Olesha.” Yury Olesha - New World Encyclopedia, 
  www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Yury_Olesha.

• 1 2020-10-29T12:09:26-04:00 The Wielding of Tools in Yury Olesha’s “Human Material” 19 A short analysis essay on the purposes of physical and nonphysical tools in the short story "Human Material" by Yury Olesha. plain 2020-12-10T14:04:13-05:00 Ariel Overdorff
  
  Engineering — in and beyond its traditional sense — is primarily a tool for shaping oneself and the world in Yury Olesha’s “Human Material” (1928). This idea is present in the two main frameworks of the story, first in Dosya’s childhood where he was heavily influenced and even controlled by his capitalist father and broader society, and later in Dosya’s adult life where he throws himself into then-modern Soviet ideals. It is re-enforced by the parallel between engineering as a tool for shaping society and the literal tool of a compass, which Dosya interacts with as a child.
  
  In Dosya’s childhood, his life path is charted by his father, and his father’s ideals are imposed on him. Notably, he is expected to become an engineer. The directives are imposed due to his father’s unhappiness with his own life and supposedly to lead Dosya to happiness, but his father’s idea of his happiness would involve being “rich, independent, and [occupying] a position in society” (Olesha 47). Therefore, we know that Dosya’s father’s intended use for the tool of engineering is to accrue wealth and prestige, rather than other possible uses such as bettering the world or for Dosya’s enjoyment and fulfillment. For his part, Dosya is very passive, seemingly doing his best to fulfill his father’s goals despite never seeming enthusiastic about them: He reports that “in that part of the brain where in a future engineer is concentrated an inclination for drawing, [he] had a blind spot” (49) yet he continues to try, for example successfully “[conquering] one of the obstacles” on the path set for him by attaining the rank of first in his class (48).
  
  At the end of the story, Dosya is an adult, and presumably speaking from the approximate present day at the time of writing — that is, 1928. Dosya has become an author, but describes his profession alternately as an “engineer of human material” (50). This means that in much the same way engineers establish physical systems, he wishes to shape the thoughts and opinions of people and to inspire them to action. Now, he is enthusiastic in his beliefs, willing to risk sounding “high-flown” (50), if it means he can help develop and bring about the new world of Soviet Russia and the ideals he believes in. Writing, or engineering human material, is his tool to do so.
  
  Traditional engineering still exists in Soviet Russia, but Dosya expresses no contempt for the non-landlord, non-imposing engineers around him (50); it is not the concept or field of engineering which is bad, from Dosya’s perspective, but only the way the tool of engineering was being used by adults in his childhood — towards things like wealth and status, which are not in accordance with his values as an adult. Dosya still lacks an aptitude for engineering (50), but presumably supports those engineers who work to further improve Soviet society.
  
  In addition to Dosya’s writing, he is seemingly applying his engineering of human material to himself internally. He works to change himself by “grab[bing] by the throat that part of [him]” which may sympathize with or agree with his past ideals, crushing his individualistic ideas, and “annihilat[ing] the petty feelings in [him]” (50). All of these are very destructive ideas, but it is a productive destruction to allow Dosya to move forward and develop himself into the person he wants to be. This internal examination and destruction of the values and tendencies of his father and his past self is another way that Dosya has become an active influence over his own life. Furthermore, in doing so, he is refuting the past, which is a step towards the Soviet society that Dosya desires.
  
  We also see an example of the uses of a literal tool, which parallel the uses of engineering as a tool in society. The child Dosya receives drafting instruments, including a compass for his birthday, again despite a lack of interest or aptitude for engineering. When he attempts to use it, it “unexpectedly opens up and jabs [his] hand” (49), causing him to bleed and leaving the compass “looking with its terrible point straight into [his] eyes” (50). Dosya attempts to use the compass — a literal tool — but he does not know how, and hurts himself immediately upon picking it up. After that, he finds the sharp end pointing towards his eyes, and thinks about maiming himself with it before considering a second attempt at using it for its intended purpose. The parallel between the tools is that, when used in the wrong way, damage can be done — like the adult Dosya would say that engineering for the purposes of accruing wealth does damage to society and the proletariat, the child Dosya uses his compass incorrectly and sustains physical damage as a result.
  
  Before Dosya makes a second attempt at using the compass, he thinks, “I should immediately run both my eyes into them” (50), where “them” refers to the points of the compass. If this is a thought of the child Dosya, it may represent another bad usage of a tool, paralleling the use of engineering for wealth and status. And, as with engineering, the compass itself isn’t meant to be inherently bad; the focus of this portion of the piece is again on the tool’s possible uses.
  
  However, it should be noted that it is the adult Dosya telling the entire story, though much of both sections of the story are written in first-person present, so it is difficult to tell which comments may be recalled thoughts of Dosya as a child versus retrospective commentary of Dosya from the “present day.” If the line is commentary from the adult Dosya, it may instead indicate that he believes death to be better than complying with the pre-Soviet system — that is, continuing along the path set by his father. If this is the case, the maiming would be a third possible use of the tool of the compass to a morally grey end. The maiming, like the destruction of Dosya’s old inclinations upon reaching adulthood, would be an act rooted in self-destruction. However, it is not constructive in the way that Dosya believes his internal development to be. As such, even destruction itself can be used as tool to achieve good or bad ends.  
  
  Yury Olesha’s “Human Material” presents a variety of tools — specifically engineering, writing, a compass, and destruction, so we may generalize to think that tools include all concepts able to be wielded by a person to affect their world — and makes it clear that these tools are neutral (neither good nor evil) until being used by someone. As such, a key message of the piece is that tools must be wielded by competent users who are mindful of and in support of the ends they are working towards.
  
  Bibliography
  Olesha, Yury Karlovich. "Human Material." In Complete Short Stories & Three Fat Men. Translated by Aimee Anderson. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1979. 47–50.