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Chapter 5
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Sofia Petrovna, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Uncertainty and Disbelief
Patriotism and Fanaticism
Pride, Status, and Moral Superiority
Loyalty, Political Allegiance, and Truth
Summary
Analysis
The trade union throws a New Year’s party for the children of the employees at the publishing house, and Sofia is tasked with organizing it. She and Natasha work together to find good gifts for all of the children, disagreeing only when Sofia tries to buy the director’s daughter a bigger doll than the ones the other children will receive—something Natasha insists is unfair. They end up buying the girl a small trumpet instead. When they decorate the office for the party, they replace the standard portrait of Stalin with one of him sitting with a child in his lap.
Sofia’s impulse to buy the director’s daughter the biggest doll is a good indication that she doesn’t care all that much about communism from an ideological standpoint. After all, communism is a system in which people shouldn’t be treated with favoritism. Just because the director’s daughter comes from a successful, influential family doesn’t mean she deserves a better toy than the other children. More than anything, then, Sofia simply wants to impress the director, apparently caring more about looking good than about demonstrating good communist ideals.
Themes
At the party, Sofia is pleased to see how much the director’s daughter likes her trumpet. She also enjoys watching the director himself talk kindly to the young girl, which makes Sofia fantasize about Kolya’s future children. She can’t wait to have grandchildren and thinks about how Kolya might name a boy Vladlen or a girl Ninel. Just as Sofia’s about to go home, an accountant approaches her and informs her that almost all of the doctors in the city have been arrested. He tells her this because her husband, Fyodor Ivanovich, was a doctor when he was still alive. One of the people arrested, it turns out, was Doctor Kiparisov—one of Fyodor’s close colleagues.
This sudden arrest of multiple doctors in Leningrad shatters the false sense of peace and harmony that Sofia—and seemingly everyone close to her—has relaxed into. Suddenly, Sofia is plunged into chaotic confusion, as she tries to understand why an upstanding member of society like Doctor Kiparisov would be arrested. On an unrelated note, it’s worth mentioning that the names “Vladlen” and “Ninel” were popular in the Soviet Union during the 1930s because they paid homage to the revolutionary politician Vladimir Lenin—“Vladlen” combines his first and last names, and “Ninel” is “Lenin” spelled backwards.
Themes
Sofia is astounded. There were many arrests two years ago after Sergei Kirov was assassinated, as Stalin made multiple arrests. But those arrests made sense to Sofia, since the people taken off the streets were “oppositionists,” “old regime people,” and wealthy bourgeois people. At the time, Kolya had explained to his mother that the Communist Party had to rid the cities of suspicious people for the safety of the Soviet Union. Now, though, Sofia can think of no reason for somebody like Doctor Kiparisov to be arrested. Before she can think much about the arrests, the director congratulates her on Kolya’s accomplishment at the factory—he read about it in the paper. His comment fills Sofia with delight, and she leaves the party thinking about what a fine man the director is.
Sergei Kirov was a Soviet politician whose assassination threw Joseph Stalin and the Communist Party into turmoil, as investigations supposedly revealed that there were people in the government working to undermine the Communist cause. Sofia and Kolya seem to have made their peace with the idea that it was necessary for the government to make sweeping arrests in the aftermath of Kirov’s assassination. Now, though, it’s not quite as clear to Sofia why, exactly, all of the doctors in Leningrad need to be rounded up by secret police. But she doesn’t dwell on the matter very long, since it doesn’t directly impact her. Instead, she lets her mind drift after the director praises Kolya, demonstrating that it’s possible to completely overlook the first signs of government repression.
Themes
