Breaking Stalin's Nose Foreignness and the Other Quotes

How does this slur compare to others that you might be familiar with that relate to ethnicity? In what ways is it different? Do we really see different ethnicities in Yelchin's novel?

This pretty much tells us all we might need to know about how Jewish people were viewed in Sasha's world. Borka is the "only" Jewish kid in Sasha's class, and Jewishness is immediately linked with being a criminal. Oof.

So, Four-Eyes is an "other" on two different levels. He's Jewish, which already makes him an outcast and suspect. And as if that's not enough, the kids go and make something silly like wearing glasses a mark of otherness. This isn't quite as trivial as it looks, though. Notice how Sasha tells us that any person who is "not a worker or a peasant and reads a lot" is called Four-Eyes? Well, some communist dictators in the past actually made wearing glasses an offense punishable by death (because it was linked with being an "intellectual").

Nina Petrovna uses this cruel taunt to emphasize Four-Eyes's outsider status, and also to encourage feelings of being part of the "in" crowd among the rest of the students. Anyone who does not laugh at Four-Eyes would likely have been suspect (just like Sasha was when he refused to throw snowballs at Borka).

Now this is interesting logic on Four-Eyes's part (he is, after all, supposed to be super smart, you know), and gives us a big hint as to the mysterious fate of Sasha's mom. Check out how as soon as Sasha tells Four-Eyes that his mom was American (an outsider with a capital O), Four-Eyes immediately assumes she has been "arrested and shot." Big Foreshadowing Alert here: the Senior Lieutenant of State Security later tells Sasha that his dad turned in his wife (Sasha's mom) for being a traitor. So, instead of dying in a hospital from being sick (as his dad tells him), Sasha's mom was more than likely executed.

This is one of the central lessons of the book—and basically the default operating system of Sasha's society: survive at all cost and let others take the blame. Sasha knows that Four-Eyes did not break the nose off of the statue, but he lets him take the flack, anyway. There's also some nice irony buried here. Even though Vovka is being sarcastic, he's actually right on. Most of the people in the book are raised on "the Pioneer spirit," and yet everyone seems willing to sell out their own family if necessary to save their own skin.

Scratching out photographs—it's not just for when your Aunt Tilda wants to get rid of her ex-husband's ugly mug in family albums. It also has a darker use. Blacking out the faces in the group photographs here is a way to symbolically erase all foreign and suspect influences from the rest of the group. It parallels the way that people are physically erased from the group (by being imprisoned or executed).

Can you say, "Guilt by association?" Because both of these boys are foreign (Four-Eyes is Jewish) or "other" (Vovka is the son of a criminal), they then must be working together on heinous projects, right? Seems logical… in no way whatsoever.

It's all about the scapegoating here. The principal here would have been perfectly happy to get rid of "that Jew" to keep the authorities from breathing down his neck for a while—whether or not Four-Eyes has actually done anything wrong (and we know he did not).

What do you think life is like in this orphanage? Do you think it's really more than just a sort of training ground for Lubyanka prison?