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The Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov
The Count’s best friend, whom he met at school and who keeps him company at the hotel. Even though they come from different class backgrounds (Mishka is not noble), they became fast friends when the Count rushed to Mishka’s aid in a schoolyard fight. Mishka is a poet, and at first he appears to be excited by the revolution and the Bolsheviks’ ascension to power because of what it might mean for the progression of poetry. However, over the course of the novel, he sees the negative effects that censorship has on the arts. When Mishka is asked to censor a volume of Chekhov’s letters he is editing, he has an outburst and rails against the Party. He is then arrested and sent to Siberia to work in a labor camp for a few years, but he returns to Moscow in secret in order to complete a new project. Gradually the oppression of the new society takes its toll on Mishka, and towards the end of the novel his lover, Katerina, informs the Count that Mishka has died. The Count also reveals after his death that Mishka had in fact written the poem for which the Count was imprisoned. They had agreed to publish it under the Count’s name because they knew that the Count’s punishment would be less harsh than Mishka’s, demonstrating the deep love and sacrifice that the Count maintained for his friend. Ultimately, Mishka is an example of a character who is unable to adapt to the changes in society around him, unlike the Count.
Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich (Mishka) Quotes in A Gentleman in Moscow
The A Gentleman in Moscow quotes below are all either spoken by Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich (Mishka) or refer to Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich (Mishka) . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 3, Antics, Antitheses, an Accident
Quotes
Our churches, known the world over for their idiosyncratic beauty, for their brightly colored spires and improbable cupolas, we raze one by one. We topple the statues of old heroes and strip their names from the streets, as if they had been figments of our imagination. Our poets we either silence, or wait patiently for them to silence themselves.
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“Who would have imagined,” he said, “when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia.”
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In 1916, Russia was a barbarian state. It was the most illiterate nation in Europe, with the majority of its population living in modified serfdom: tilling the fields with wooden plows, beating their wives by candlelight, collapsing on their benches drunk with vodka, and then waking at dawn to humble themselves before their icons. That is, living exactly as their forefathers had lived five hundred years before. Is it not possible that our reverence for all the statues and cathedrals and ancient institutions was precisely what was holding us back?
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Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich (Mishka) Quotes in A Gentleman in Moscow
The A Gentleman in Moscow quotes below are all either spoken by Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich (Mishka) or refer to Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich (Mishka) . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 3, Antics, Antitheses, an Accident
Quotes
Our churches, known the world over for their idiosyncratic beauty, for their brightly colored spires and improbable cupolas, we raze one by one. We topple the statues of old heroes and strip their names from the streets, as if they had been figments of our imagination. Our poets we either silence, or wait patiently for them to silence themselves.
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Explanation and Analysis:
“Who would have imagined,” he said, “when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
In 1916, Russia was a barbarian state. It was the most illiterate nation in Europe, with the majority of its population living in modified serfdom: tilling the fields with wooden plows, beating their wives by candlelight, collapsing on their benches drunk with vodka, and then waking at dawn to humble themselves before their icons. That is, living exactly as their forefathers had lived five hundred years before. Is it not possible that our reverence for all the statues and cathedrals and ancient institutions was precisely what was holding us back?
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