Description: Church of Katherine’s palace in Tsarskoye Selo
Artist: Victor Potoskuev
This photograph first took me because of its elaborate design and opulence. It is an image of wealth and royalty, everything from the ornate crosses to the gilded golden roofs to the carved roof rails to the elaborate carvings above every window. This is the very symbol of what the Bolshevik Revolution was fighting against. In Chapter 6, when Yury reads that the Soviet power has taken over, this is what people would have thought about. They would have been familiar with the unnecessary opulence and luxury of the Czar and the ruling elite. It would not have been a difficult choice to choose to overturn a power like this in the hopes of bringing about equality for the lower classes.
The message of the Bolsheviks and of the revolution may have been most spurred on by images of royal luxury such as this, but it soon spread to engulf anyone considered to be in the upper class. Yury and Tonya encounter this as they move to Varykino to find unused land and establish themselves. They must go to the Mikulitsin’s to find out about available land, and as they are being questioned, the Mikulitsin’s discover the relation of Tonya to the Krueger’s, wealthy, landowners who used to live in the town. Upon discovering this information, they exclaim, “How can you even bring yourself to admit such a thing at a time like this?”
The targets of the revolution have become so drastic, that Mikulitsin feels in danger simply by helping Yury and Lara. He feels trapped between the proverbial ‘rock and hard place.’ His son is a Bolshevik, so he can get in trouble with any opposition to the revolution, and then on the other hand, he could get in serious trouble with the Bolsheviks for helping someone with relation to the upper class. He even goes so far as to worry about facing a firing squad on account of the Zhivagos.
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