Breaking Stalin's Nose

Breaking Stalin’s Nose

Written by Eugene Yelchin

Narrated by Mark Turetsky

 

Bibliography:

Yelchin, Eugene. Breaking Stalin's Nose. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2011.

Audible Audio Edition:  Yelchin, Eugene, and Mark Turetsky. Breaking Stalin’s Nose Audio Edition. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 2012.

Summary and Critical Analysis:

Sasha Zaichik is growing up in Soviet-Era Moscow while Josef Stalin is the leader of the Soviet Union.  He and his father share the largest space in a communal building that also houses several other families.  Sasha’s father is a member of the Soviet Secret Police and is feared by his neighbors.  This fear is misinterpreted by Sasha as respect.  Sasha is true believer in Communism and the book opens with him writing a letter to Stalin, telling of his admiration for the tyrant, and his desire to be Young Pioneer, the youth arm of the Communist party.  Sasha’s naiveté regarding his country and his father’s place in the hierarchy of the party is due to his age and his lack of knowledge about other countries and places.  But his world is turned upside down when his father is arrested, his aunt won’t take him in for fear of being arrested, and he accidently breaks the nose of statue of Stalin at his school. 

Bordering on satire, the things that happen in this book are not good things, and yet, not until the very end is Sasha’s faith in Communism and his country shaken.  He believes his father’s arrest to be an obvious mistake that Stalin will surely remedy when he finds out.  Sasha is a very relatable protagonist, a young boy who loves his country and believes in the things he’s been taught.  He believes in Communism because he has been taught to believe in Communism and knows no other way of life.  Children will be able to relate to this.  It’s interesting to note that in recent “Mock Elections” in schools across the country, the way that children voted mirrored the way their parents voted in the actual election in nearly every area of the country.  This is the place from which Sasha derives his beliefs, from his father, the man he respects most in the world.

Moscow, which is vividly described in the book, is to Sasha the ideal city, run and built by Communism.  Yelchin’s description of the giant statue of Stalin that Sasha can see from the window of his apartment is chilling to a reader today, yet would seem regal and majestic to a child at the time.  Also quite accurate is his description of the communal apartment where he and his father live.  They have the largest apartment because his father is a member of the Secret Police, which brings to mind the saying that, in Communism, everyone is equal, some are just more equal than others.  Similarly, the scenes located in Sasha’s schools are an excellent example of indoctrination instead of education that was the norm in Soviet era Russia.

The themes in the book are specific to the time and place and yet remain relevant today.  Unquestioned patriotism or nationalism is shown to be a very dangerous thing in Sasha’s world just as it is at any time, even in our own time.  There is a universal theme here about the absurdity of a system that operates in secret yet claims to be of and for the people, and where even the most dedicated to the cause, such as Sasha’s teacher, can become victims of the systems they serve.  Also held up for contempt is the tyranny of the majority both in his school and in the nation.

The book is fiction, and we meet no actual people from the Soviet era though the specter of Stalin looms large over the story.  The time, place, and setting are all true to the situation that existed during this time as noted in the author’s after note, where he describes his own experiences in Soviet Russia.

Special Note:

This book is the first book that I have “read” by listening to the unabridged audio book.  I enjoyed the experience and the particulars of the story are still bright in my mind.  Mark Turetsky’s narration is quite good, if a bit calm for the nature of the situations described.  Voices are differentiated, but only slightly.  This is an audio book, but not a dramatic recreation of the book so the narration was appropriate.

I am left a bit uneasy about the situation.  Perhaps that’s because I’m so used to referring back to pages in the book to find quotations to emphasize points made in a review, something which I found almost impossible to do with this audio book.  And though I know the story, and I’ve heard the book read aloud, I still don’t feel as if I’ve actually read the book.

 

Review Excerpts:

Kirkus Reviews:  It’s the readiness of the group to create outsiders—bad ones, “unreliables,” “wreckers”—by instilling fear in everyone that chills. Not many books for such a young audience address the Stalinist era, when, between 1923 and 1953, leaving a legacy of fear for future generations. Joseph Stalin’s State Security was responsible for exiling, executing or imprisoning 20 million people. Sasha is 10 years old and is devoted to Stalin, even writing adoring letters to Comrade Stalin expressing his eagerness at becoming a Young Pioneer. But his mother has died mysteriously, his father has been imprisoned and Sasha finds he has important moral choices to make. Yelchin’s graphite illustrations are an effective complement to his prose, which unfurls in Sasha’s steady, first-person voice, and together they tell an important tale.

A story just as relevant in our world, “where innocent people face persecution and death for making a choice about what they believe to be right,” as that of Yelchin’s childhood.  August 1, 2012.

 

goodreads review:  Sasha Zaichik has known the laws of the Soviet Young Pioneers since the age of six:
The Young Pioneer is devoted to Comrade Stalin, the Communist Party, and Communism.

A Young Pioneer is a reliable comrade and always acts according to conscience.
A Young Pioneer has a right to criticize shortcomings.
But now that it is finally time to join the Young Pioneers, the day Sasha has awaited for so long, everything seems to go awry. He breaks a classmate's glasses with a snowball. He accidentally damages a bust of Stalin in the school hallway. And worst of all, his father, the best Communist he knows, was arrested just last night.

This moving story of a ten-year-old boy's world shattering is masterful in its simplicity, powerful in its message, and heartbreaking in its plausibility.  

 Connections:

Have students study the way that Soviet Citizens lived in communal living arrangement such as the one where Sasha and his father lived.

Discuss the “tyranny of the majority” and what that term means and how democracies can prevent it.

Have students study Moscow using Google Maps so that they can see some of the places in the book such as The Kremlin.

Have students write a report on Josef Stalin and his reign of terror.