Zamyatin, Babel and the Individual in the Russian Revolution and Civil War
This is a first year paper that discusses Zamyatin's "The Cave" and Babel's "My First Goose" with a focus on the different views of what became of the individual in a struggling new Communist Russia. For Zamyatin, the neglect of the individual, in favor of an ideology was reprehensible; Babel tended to see the lunacy of what was attempted, a certain timeless Russian quality of poor government, and how individuals could fit themselves into the new order, if willing to join its brutality.