The Trial Begins: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Trial Begins: Analysis of Major Characters" explores the complex dynamics and moral dilemmas faced by individuals during a tumultuous period under Soviet rule, particularly highlighting the experience of Jewish citizens during Stalin's purges. Central to the narrative is Vladimir Petrovich Globov, a public prosecutor who is a staunch follower of Stalin, grappling with personal conflicts when his family's secrets intertwine with his professional duties, particularly involving his wife Marina, who engages in an affair while neglecting their son Seryozha's plight. Marina embodies an obsession with beauty and social status while remaining emotionally detached, even in the face of her stepson's unjust arrest.
Yury Karlinsky, a public defense attorney, represents the struggle against a biased legal system, rationalizing his own failures and ultimately betraying Seryozha, despite his intellect and aspirations for justice. Seryozha, the adolescent son, questions the ethics of the prevailing political ideals, which leads to severe consequences for him, showcasing the harsh realities of dissent. The cast also includes Dr. S. Y. Rabinovich, a Jewish doctor whose fate reflects the systemic oppression faced by his community, and Ekaterina Petrovna, Seryozha's grandmother, whose revolutionary past contrasts sharply with the apathy of her family. The narrative unfolds through the eyes of a writer whose own struggles with censorship and loyalty to the regime highlight the broader themes of personal sacrifice and the quest for justice amidst oppression. The tragic fate of characters like Katya further emphasizes the dire consequences of standing up against an authoritarian regime.
The Trial Begins: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Andrei Sinyavsky
First published: Sad idzie, 1959 (English translation, 1960)
Genre: Novella
Locale: Moscow
Plot: Political
Time: Late 1952 until the death of Joseph Stalin in March, 1953; epilogue in 1956
Vladimir Petrovich Globov (vlah-DIH-mihr peh-TROHvihch GLOH-bov), a public prosecutor during Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin's last round of purges. These purges were aimed at Jewish citizens, who were referred to as “rootless cosmopolitans” and “enemies of the people.” A man with a “large spreading trunk” and “hands as heavy as oars,” Globov is an unquestioning follower of the Master's (Stalin's) will. He discovers that Dr. S. Y. Rabinovich, a Jewish physician he has prosecuted for alleged activities against the Soviet state, had performed an abortion for Marina, Globov's wife, who is having an affair with Yury Karlinsky, a public defense attorney. Globov is severely bothered by this deprivation of his embryonic “daughter,” yet he does not protest when his adolescent son, Seryozha, is arrested and sentenced to Siberia for an innocent involvement in political idealism.
Marina, the second wife of Prosecutor Globov. She is an “ideally constructed” woman who spends much of her time trying various cosmetics to stop time's inexorable erosion of her beauty. She seeks the attention of her husband's colleagues as a means of assuring herself of her powers of attraction. In a moment of spite, she announces to him that she has had an abortion. Without any real passion, she submits to Karlinsky's seduction. The arrest of her stepson, Seryozha, does not concern her, although she does later send a box of candy to him in Siberia.
Yury Karlinsky (kahr-LIHN-skee), a public defense attorney whose brilliance is frustrated by the Soviet state's prose-cutorial bias. He rationalizes his continual failure by philosophizing that “one man's justice is another man's injustice.” To show himself that his words can have an appreciable impact, he sets about to seduce Marina, the prosecutor's wife. At the moment of his success, he is unable to perform. It is Karlinsky who interprets Seryozha's immature notes about a communist utopia to be antistate “Trotskyism” and denounces the youth to the authorities.
Seryozha (sehr-YOH-zhah), the teenage son of Prosecutor Globov. In his classes, he questions whether “the end justifies the means” and disquiets his father with discussions of “just and unjust wars.” He confides his doubts about the wisdom of the prevailing political system to his grandmother, Ekaterina Petrovna, and to his admiring schoolmate, Katya, who shows his notes outlining “a new world, communist and radiant,” to Karlinsky. To his father's embarrassment, he is arrested and sentenced to prison in Siberia.
Dr. S. Y. Rabinovich (rah-BIH-noh-vihch), a Soviet gynecologist of Jewish extraction who is sentenced to Siberia for being a “rootless cosmopolitan.” The fact that he had performed an abortion on his prosecutor's wife probably explains his continued confinement in Siberia after the “rehabilitation” of others in his plight. In the epilogue, his mind deteriorates, and he rambles on about “God, history, and ends and means.”
Ekaterina Petrovna (yeh-kah-teh-REE-nah peh-TROHVnah), the mother of Prosecutor Globov's first wife and the grandmother of Seryozha. She is a Communist of the old school who is proud of her revolutionary activity. Globov indulges her daily visits to his office and calls her “mother,” but he is frightened by her insistence that he intervene in Seryozha's unjustified arrest and tells her not to visit him again.
Katya, a young girl and a schoolmate of Seryozha. She shares Seryozha's dream of a new and just communist society, naïvely reporting the matter to Karlinsky. After Seryozha's arrest, she writes a note to Karlinsky protesting his denunciation of Seryozha. She is trampled to death by the crowd surging to view the body of the Master, lying in state after his death.
The narrator, a Soviet writer whose room is searched by two police agents, who subsequently discover torn-up drafts of this novel in his sewage. He was instructed to write the text that eventually incriminates him by a supernatural vision of Stalin, who requires him to “celebrate” the Master's “beloved and faithful servant,” Prosecutor Globov. He is arrested for failing to depict Globov and the others “in the fullness of their many-sided working lives” and sentenced to Siberia, where, as he relates in the epilogue, he encounters Seryozha and Dr. Rabinovich.