Change and Adaptation Theme Analysis

Though A Gentleman in Moscow focuses on the Count’s thirty-two-year confinement in a Moscow hotel, Towles also explores the social and political landscape outside the hotel, detailing the drastic shifts occurring in Russian society from 1922 to 1954, due mostly to the rise of the Communist Bolshevik Party. Towles examines these large shifts by exploring their effects on individuals within his narrative, as each character tries to adjust to the changing political landscape. On an individual level, characters who are able to adapt to the new political sensibilities enjoy success, while characters who remain moored in old ways are either sent to Siberia or vanish from the narrative. As radical as these governmental changes are for Russia as a whole, Towles uses the historical context to demonstrate how it is necessary for individuals to adapt to a rapidly changing society in order to survive.

The Count is the most prominent example of an individual who at first falters under communism, but eventually finds success within the new Russian society by adapting to its norms. At the opening of the novel, the Count is a member of the Russian nobility and had never worked a day in his life. During the first few years of the Count’s house arrest, he notes how the Bolsheviks “would not rest until every last vestige of his Russia had been uprooted, shattered, or erased.” He is particularly dismayed when all of the wine labels on the bottles in the hotel’s cellar are removed in order to equalize the wines, because he had prided himself on knowing exactly which kind of wine should be paired with a meal. He takes this as a sign that he no longer has a place in the current culture and attempts to jump off the hotel’s roof. The Count’s action quite literally demonstrates that he feels unable to live in a society whose values are so drastically different from his own. Fortunately, the Count is prevented from committing suicide by a chance encounter with the hotel handyman, Abram, on the roof. After this key juncture, the Count then throws off his title and takes a job in the hotel’s restaurant as headwaiter. Even though he still does not fully subscribe to communism, by adapting to the new class structure the Count feels that he can continue to live.

Anna Urbanova, an actress who becomes romantically involved with the Count, is a second example of a character who is able to adapt to Russia’s changing attitudes. Like the Count, Anna also begins the novel in the lap of luxury, until critics begin to note that her movies often celebrate individuals and involve princes and princesses, harkening back to aristocratic eras whose values no longer hold up in communist Russia. Her films quickly fall out of favor, and Anna then loses all of her wealth along with most of her possessions. Rather than giving up her career, however, Anna reinvents herself. She takes a small part in a film as an unnamed factory worker who delivers an impassioned speech about the necessities of pushing on in the face of harsh conditions. Anna therefore crafts her persona in order to keep up with the changing times and maintain her career. After that initial opportunity, Anna regains fame by taking on roles that celebrate workers. By taking on acting roles that showcase Bolshevik ideals, then, Anna is able to rejuvenate her career.

The adaptability of both the Count and Anna is contrasted with the experiences of Mikhail Fyodorovich (Mishka), an old poet friend of the Count’s, and Nina, a young girl in the hotel who grows up to be a part of the Soviet agricultural planning committee. At first, Mishka sympathizes with the Bolsheviks, but gradually, he realizes the pitfalls of the new regime. When Mishka is asked to edit the playwright Anton Chekhov’s collected letters, he is disturbed when the senior editor asks him to censor a paragraph in which Chekhov remarks about the quality of the bread in Berlin, because the editor believes praising German bread is too anti-Russian. Mishka then storms into his chief editor’s office and rants about the lines he has been forced to edit. As a result of his outburst, he is taken to the authorities for questioning and is soon exiled from Russian society to Siberia. Thus, his inability to adapt to the society forces him out of it completely.

Nina’s journey is similar to Mishka’s. When she returns to the hotel as a seventeen-year-old, she is helping the Soviets with the collectivization of farms. But the narrator notes how her faith in the party will eventually be tested by seeing millions of peasants starving in Ukraine. When Nina returns a final time to the hotel eight years later, she tells the Count that her husband has been arrested and sent to Siberia (it is implied as a result of breaking ties with the Bolsheviks). She leaves her daughter Sofia with the Count while she attempts to track down her husband, but the Count never hears from her again. Like Mishka, Nina finds the new Russian society at odds with her own morals, and she ultimately disappears from it altogether.

Societies are always changing, but the dramatic and fast-paced nature of change in Russia during this period is particularly jarring for many of the novel’s characters. The arcs that Towles has given his characters demonstrate how devastating it can be when one feels out of place in a culture, but Towles offers only two solutions: one must change, or one must get out.