In Class Writing - Nov 30, 2010

As I promised, I am posting on the blog the in class writing. A copy will be given to each student in class on Nov  30.   This post  is just  to help those students, who want to work ahead and be better prepared for the writing.

Since we discussed, at great length, the assignment, I will not post the instructions.

The writing to be analysed is the following one.

This is a very famous and probably best known Russian Fairy Tale.  It is both, ageless and timeless, and speaks to the hearts of mostly all who read it.   To understand it better, we might compare/contrast it to one of our fairy tales as  "The Three Bears"  or  "Little Red Riding Hood."  This Russian Fairy Tale has been written about, discussed and analyzed by some of the best known scholars in Academia. Now, it is our turn to anaylze it.  (Quoted exactly...  Punctuation in story by author and/or translator, observed.  Translated by George Kittrell)

Tale of the Military Secret, Boy Malchish Kibalchish and His Firm Word

by  Arkady Gaidar

Long, long ago, when the Big war had just ended and the Red Army was during out the White troops of the cursed buzhuins there lived a boy called Malchish Kibalchish.  He lived in a little house admidst thick orchards and raspberry bushes with his father and elder brother.  And he had no mother.  His father worked, mowing hay, and his brother worked, carting hay.

And Boy Malchish helped, first his father, and then his brother, and when he wasn't helping with the work he played with the other boys and got into mischief.  No bullets were whining, no shells were bursting, no need to fear the burzhuins -- It was a good life.

And then one day--it was coming evening--Boy Malchish Kibalchish went out onto the porch and it seemed to him he heard something booming a long way off, something roaring.  And he told his father, but his father had come home tired, and hardly listened.  "Oh, that's nothing," he said.  "It's just a thunder storm way off in the Black Mountains.  You go to bed new, and don't worry."

Boy Malchish went to bed but he couldn't sleep, no matter how he tried.  He kept listening.  And then suddenly he heard the sound of hoofs outside, and someone knocked at the window.  Boy Malchish looked out, and there was a man on horseback at the window.  The horse was coal black, and the man's sabre was shiny steel and is sheepskin hat was grey and the Star on it was red.

"Hey! Out, everybody, with your guns!"  the horseman shouted.  "The bloody Burzhuin has come down on us from across the Black Mountains.  We're fighting Him, and men on fast horses have galloped off to get help from the Red Army."  And the horseman with the Red Star rode away into the night.

The boy's father snatched his rifle from its nail on the wall, threw his bag over his shoulder and buckled his bandolier.  He said good-bye to his sons and went away to fight.

A day went by, and then another.  Boy Malchish Kibalchish went out onto the porch -- he could see nothing of the Red Army.
Boy Malchish climbed up on the roof, and sat there all day.  But there was nothing to be seen.

One night Boy Malchish heard hoofs again, and knocking at the window.  He looked out.  The same horseman was at the window, only his horse was thin and tired, and his sword was bent and his head was bandaged.  "Get up!" he shouted.  "We've got to have help!"

The elder brother got up and said to the boy: "Good-bye, Malchish -- you'll be alone now.  There's cabbage soup in the pot and bread on the table and water in the spring, and your head on your shoulders.  Live as best you can and don't wait for me."

A day went by, and then another, Boy Malchish was sitting on the roof by the chimney when he saw a horseman come galloping a long way off.

The horsman galloped up to Malchish and leaped from his horse.  Malchish brough him water to drink, and the horseman said:  "The Red Army is hurrying to help us, if we can just hold out till tomorrow night."

At night the man came again.  The same man, and not the same: he had no horse -- his horse was dead; and he had no sabre -- his sabre was broken; and he had no sheepskin hat -- his hat had blown off, and he himself staggered as he stood,  "Hey, get up everybody, and help us out!"

Boy Malchish Kibalchish looked down the street, and the street was empty -- everybody had gone away to fight, and no one was left.

An old grandad came out of a gate dragging a rifle.  He tried to lift the rifle but he was so old he couldn't lift it.  He tried to buckle on a sabre but he was so weak he couldn't buckle it.  And the grandad sat down on the ground, took his head in his hands and wept.

Then Boy Malchish went out into the street and shouted loud for everybody to hear.  "Hey, you boys, are we just to go on playing with wooden swords and skipping the rope? Or are we just going to sit around waiting for the burzhuins to come and take us away to their burzhuin country?"

When the other boys heard this they raised a great shout.  And some ran out the door and some jumped out the window and some climbed over the fence.  They all wanted to go and help in the fighting.

Only the boy called Sneaky wanted to go to the burzhuin country.  But he was cunning, this Sneaky, so he didn't say anything butt pulled up his breeches and ran off with the others, as though he wanted to help.

And the bouys fought all the dark night to the bright dawn.  Only Sneaky did not fight but walked about looking for some way to help the burzhuins.  And behind the hill he saw the boxes where the black bombs and the white shells and the yellow cartridges were hidden.

All this time the Head Burzhuin kept calling his burzhuins and asking them,  'Well, you burzhuins, have you won the victory, yet?"  "No", they would answer.  "We have beaten the fathers and we have beaten the brothers, but Malchish Kibalshish has come to help and we can't beat him for the life of us."

And the burzhuins sat wondering what they could do to defeat Malchish Kibalchish.

Suddenly the burzhuins saw Sneaky come crawling out of the bushes and making straight for them!  "Glad news!"  he shouted to them.  "I did it all myself -- I chopped wood and brought hay and set fire to all the boxes with the black bombs, the white shells and the yellow cartridges."

The burzhuins were very happy and hurried to write down Sneaky's name in their army, and they gave him a whole barrel of jam and a whole basket of cakes, and Sneaky sat cramming himself and gloated.

All of a sudden all of the lighted boxes blew up, and it was like a thousand peals of thunder at once and a thousand flashes of lightning from a single cloud.  "Treason!"  cried Boy Malchish Kibalchish.

Then out of the smoke and fire poured the burzhuin soldiers and they seized Malchish Kibalchish.  And they put Malchish in heavy chains and threw him into a stone tower.

The burzhuins again gathered together and began thinking what to do with their prisoner, Malchish Kibalchish.  And then the Head Burzhuin said:  "We will kill that Boy Malchish, but first we'll make him tell us their Military Secret."

The burzhuins came to the tower and began to torture Malchish Kibalchish, asking him:  "Where does the Red Army gets its strength?  How is it forty Tsars and forty Kings have fought against it, and all of them were beaten?  Has the Red Army a Military Secret?"

But Malchish Kibalchish only laughed them in the ace.  "The Red Army does have a Secret, a powerful Secret," he proudly declared, "and no matter when you attack, you will always be beaten.  And nothing more will I tell you burzhuins."

Then the Head Burzhuin said: "Put this proud Malchish Kibalchish to the most terrible torture there is in the world and make him tell us their Military Secret."

And again the burzhuins came to Boy Malchish.  And he stood pale but proud and he would not tell the burzhuins the Military Secret.  So firm was his word.

Then he sat down on the floor and put his ear to the cold stone and smiled in a way that filled the burzhuins with terror.  They knew Malchish heard their sure destruction coming through secret ways.

The burzhuins went back and told all this to their chief, the Head Burzhuin.  "What a strange country this is where even boys know the Military Secret and will die without telling it."  And he ordered proud Maalchish to be killed, and Malchish died a hero.

But at that moment guns thundered, and bursting shells fared up like lightning and Red Banners swept past like storm clouds.  It was the Red Army attacking.

And the defeated Head Burzhuin fled in fright, loudly cursing the country with its amazing people, with its Red Army that could not be beaten, with its undiscovered Military Secret.

Steamships sail past:  Hail Malchish!
Planes fly over:  Hail Malchish!
Engines thunder past:  Hail Malchish!
Pioneers march past:  Salute Malchish!

The End

Notes:  Photos of the burzhuins look distinctly American
            Photos of the Red Army look distinctly Communist
            REMEMBER --  This is a fairy tale,  a children's story.....

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