Analysis Of Olesha's 'Envy'

The differing ideologies between the Soviet Union and other western countries also led to a difference in playing styles of the same sport, which can be noticed in the text “Envy” by Olesha. In one scene of the story, there is a soccer match going on between the German team and the Russian team. In this scene, particular focus is put on two players, Hetzke of the German team and Makarov of the Russian team. Hetzke’s style of play is very disruptive to his teammates, and represents the idea of capitalism; Makarov’s style of play, on the other hand, was more in unison with his teammates. These ideas reflected the Soviet Union ideals themselves. Makarov represented the new man that the Soviet Union was trying to push. He put the team ahead of
WWII caused mass destruction across Europe and involved the full fledged efforts of many countries. These countries could no longer enjoy their sports, they had to contribute all their efforts to the war. As a result, many believe that sports growth slowed significantly during this time. However Riordan argues that the war was essential reinforcing the Soviet ideals of physical culture in his chapter titled “World War II, 1941-1945: the supreme test of physical training” from the book “Sport in Society”. According to him, the war “reinforced belief in a military bias in physical training and sport”(“Sport in Society” Riordan 159). The hardiest who partook in these programs contributed the most to the war, and the Soviets would reinforce this by bolstering the army programs and governmental programs to support the sport. Furthermore, they continued to implement their physical culture program as a result from their military success. Furthermore, the war led to development of war stories involving sports, which also increased nationalism across the country. Once such match was the Death Match. The death match told in movies and books involves a Kiev club beating a German club in a soccer match and being shot to death for doing so. However, this story is not entirely true according to Riordan. In a journal article “The Match of Death: Kiev, 9 August 1942”,Riordan writes that the Soviet-German match was a fair game that did not end with the players being killed. Rather these players were killed for giving German soldiers bread with ground glass baked into them. However, the story is told like the version in the film because it is more emboldening. It fed into the “mood of patriotic fervour following the great war triumph” that