English
Grade 9
Lesson 35: Review.
1/27/2023
Corrie.S.P.
Write 500 words on this topic. “Describe Kourdakov’s use of contrasts to strengthen his narrative.” Examples: Sunday afternoon’s activities, or the meetings — public and private — where he got his award, or the leaders of the USSR vs. the leaders of the victims. Do you think these contrasts make his narrative more powerful?
In his book, The Persecutor, Sergei Kourdakov uses many contrasts. He will contrast the fun times, with the sad. The pleasure times with the beatings of Believers. The beauty of mountains, with concentration camps.
He and his friends who worked with him would get an assignment from their supervisor, and then they would drink a lot of vodka and get halfway drunk. They would joke and laugh together, fake fight and have a grand time. Then they would drive off to a meeting of Believers, walk silently up to the quiet house where all you could hear was the singing of hymns. There, they would beat the people senseless. The Christians never fought back, but they did try to defend themselves and others.
One time he was ordered to bring back Bibles and spiritual writings and literature so his captain could send the evidence to Moscow to prove there were Christians. He saw an old man who tried to keep his Bible, when the man tried to stop him from taking the bible, he was beaten to a bloody pulp. Another time two young men tried to stop him from beating up an old man and they were rewarded for their efforts by being drug outside and beaten badly for “trying to tell me what to do” as he said.
In his free time, he and his friends liked to go hiking on the mountains and climbing. He was allowed in restricted areas because of his military standing, where civilians were not allowed to go. On one of these pleasure hikes, he and his friends came across 30 or more concentration camps. They were hidden in the mountain valleys. The funny thing was that they were brand new, and empty. There were guards patrolling the area. He also came across empty military camps. When he asked his commanding officer what they were for, he was given the reason that they were there in case of an enemy uprising. Though he knew, they were for Christian Believers.
The leaders of the USSR were highly paid, and had large social standing, but in private, they cursed communism and were drunken lazy slobbering pigs. They slept in their food; they were completely ridiculous. The leaders of the Christian Believers were peaceful, they had an amazing reputation in their work spaces, they were never drunk, the did not fight. When captured they were peaceful and even tried to convert their interrogators.
Kourdakov’s uses of stark contrasts, make this autobiography stand out strongly against other books I have read. You are shaking your head at the utter cruelty of the men who are beating up the Believers, raping the women, and getting themselves drunk , to put it in laymen’s terms, they were losers. Peace, interwoven with brutality. It really makes you feel the words written on the page. You understand the pain of the Christians. And as it goes along, you can see that Sergei Kourdakov’s mind is slowly being changed for the better.
Corrie.S.P.
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