Book Review: Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya History Essay

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Book Review: Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya
Introduction
The great or purge of the 1930’s was a period of untold suffering among the Soviet citizens under the rule of Stalin that was characteristic of fear, deception, ignorance, naivety, and mistrust in the society as whole. The populist belief in the state’s nationalistic belief of self-preservation from an unseen enemy found its way to the hearts of innocent citizens who ended up being victims of the state’s manipulations to preserve its sovereign rule. Both the ardent supporters and antagonists of the regime fell victims to the random use of state organs such as the judicial system and the secret police in facilitating the use of violence to curb any form of dissent against Stalinist rule. Lydia Chukovskaya’s, Sofia Petrovna, is an accurate depiction of the regime’s use of terror and deception to manipulate or rather coerce its citizens into submission to the unjust rule. The use of state organs to breed suspicion and fear in the citizens was successful in breeding mistrust in the society and thus making it easier for the regime to exercise its power. Lydia Chukovskaya’s novel, Sofia Petrovna, published in 1988 reveals the extent of the regime’s damage to the society’s moral conception of what is right or wrong, true or false, and what course of action to take or avoid. Chukovskya is a victim of the purge herself as she lost her husband following his execution upon his arrest in 1937. The author employs various stylistic devices to create an understanding and further elaborate on the escalation of the purge, and its subsequent adverse effects on the society using her lead character Sofia Petrovana and other characters representing normal citizens across the social divide.
The novel builds around the life of a widowed woman, Sofia Petrovna, who seeks to reinvent herself following the loss of her husband by taking a course in typing and finding a job in one of the publishing firms in Leningrad (Chukovskaya, p.1). She proves to be highly industrious at her new job, which she finds quite enjoyable and exciting, despite having to wake early in the cold soviet mornings to head for work. She climbs up the ladder to become a senior typist in charge of all her colleagues in the typing department. The Leningrad publishing house is pro-Stalinist regime and thus serve to spread the government propaganda in support of the class wars as well as the deceptive protectionist ideologies. She shares the populist beliefs of the government and condemns any form of dissent against the Soviet government. Sofia Petrovna is also a loving mother to a highly intelligent son Kolya whose political affiliation to the Stalinist rule exceeds his mother’s by far and wide. Kolya even goes to the extend of joining the Komsomol, an organization that supports the Stalinist regime (Chukovskaya, p.12). The love for her son is evident in her constant worry and concern for his wellbeing while away in Sverdlovsk with his friend Alik Finklestein for engineering works as student representatives from Uralmash. In their numerous communication through letters she wishes he would tell him more about his well-being instead of his fixation on the regime’s protectionist ideologies. However, Kolya’s fixation on enhancing the populist regime pays off through his innovation in developing a new technique for manufacturing cogwheel cutters and thus earning him a publication in the Pravda. Both Koyla and his mother share strong beliefs in the Stalinist regime, as they justify the random arrest of innocent individuals as being the right course of action for the protection of the regime against its enemies.
The effects of the purge catches up with Sofia Petrovna during a new year’s eve party arranged by the Mestkom for the employees of the publishing firm and their children (Chukovskaya, p.29). The arrest of Kolya’s godfather and her late husband’s colleageu Doctor Kiparisov further shakes up her world but recovers from the shock saying, “Nothing can happen to an honest man in our country,” when she tries to comfort Mrs. Kiparisova (Chukovskaya, p.37). The arrest of Gerasimov, a supervisor at the publishing house, for being an associate of the Moscow Gerasimov and under the pretext of undermining the regime’s progress comes as a shock to Sofia Petrovna as she cautions her son to be more cautious of traitors(Chukovskaya, p.25). Her son Koyla soon becomes the latest victim of the random arrests and Sofia Petrovna ends up in a state of confusion as tries to hold on to the belief that her son is a supporter of the regime while also giving the latter the benefit of doubt. She holds on to the belief that her son is innocent and that his arrest is only a misunderstanding, which if rectified through the proof of the son’s loyalty to the regime can lead to his release. She gets no relevant information from the government concerning her son and thus starts wondering whether her son had become a subteur, hence betraying Koyla.
Lydia Chukovskaya uses a simple plot that is easier to follow and understand to port...