message 0177

• Russian Influences (Chernevog/Yvgenie and Union/Alliance Universe)

>From: nancy ott <ott@ansoft.com>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 11:17:03 EDT

> >Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 23:54:42 +0200
> >From: arg@prosun.first.gmd.de (Arnulf Guenther)
> >Subject: cherryhlist
> 
> H'llo!
> 
> In my (hopefully futile) attempts to clean the local book shops of all
> works written by C.J. Cherryh (those I not already possess) I picked
> up _Chernevog_ and _Yvgenie_.  Obviously the plots of these two take
> place in ancient Russia/Ukraina.  Regarding the russian references
> from Cherryh's Union related novels I wonder, if she has special
> relations to the slavic part of (our ;) world.  Does someone have an
> explanation to this?

I'm not sure that there's a direct connection between the Russian
novels ("Rusalka", "Chernevog", "Yvgenie") and the Russian influences
in the Union/Alliance novels -- other than Cherryh's general interest
in the region.  Instead, I suspect that she realized that there was
almost no fantasy based on Russian history or Russian fairy tales, and
decided to use them as the basis for a few novels.

As for the Russian influences in Union, I believe Cherryh originally
set Union up to be an interstellar equivalent of the Soviet Union: the
ideological rival/enemy of Earth, and later Alliance.  Certainly,
there isn't a one-to-one correspondence between Union and the USSR or
Earth and the USA -- this would be a gross over-simplification of
what's really going on in the Union/Alliance novels.  But there are
similarities to the conflict between the United States and the Soviet
Union in these novels, particularly in "Downbelow Station," "40,000 in
Gehenna", "Heavy Time" and "Hellburner".  The Russian names of many
Unioners only add to them.

For instance, there's the long period of time where no open war was
declared but Earth and Union pursued an arms buildup, established
trade barriers, and limited the movement of people between the two
political units -- similar to the cold war.  There's the revulsion
that Alliance and Earth show toward Union's expansionist ideology and
its institutions (like the birth labs), and the way that Alliance and
Earth label Union's centralized educational system as brainwashing --
very similar to the western view of Soviet ideology and institutions.
There's also Union's push to expand their sphere of influence.  Add to
this the mutual lack of understanding and paranoia of all parties,
throw in some politically motivated atrocities -- such as the massacre
during the 2315 draft riots on Sol Station ("Heavy Time"), or Union
stranding a large group of colonists on a planet so Alliance or Earth
won't be able to develop it ("40,000 in Gehenna") -- and you have a
parallel of the superpower struggle here on Earth.  Only with three
major players instead of two.  

--
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