Relations Between Town and Country: "We" in the Context of Russian Modernist History and Literature Anonymous College

Evgeny Zamyatin was born and raised in Lebedyan, a small village located in the Russian countryside, before moving to St. Petersburg, the then Russian capital, in order to study engineering (Charnaya, date unknown). Therefore, Zamyatin had firsthand experience on the similarities and differences between rural and urban life long before writing “We” (1921) Indeed, the divide between the mentalities of rural and urban inhabitants was a very pertinent topic to Soviet authors who were at the time witnessing their country’s intense industrialization; Evgeny Zamyatin’s treatment of the town vs. country divide is prominent in “We” (1921), especially through his use of different colors and D-503’s description of “The Ancients” in different passages. Noteworthy in its own right, the depiction of these contrasting areas also reveals affinities between Zamyatin's work and the texts of his modernist peers.

In the first place, D-503’s resentment towards the outside world is described very early in the novel. For instance, at the very beginning of record 2 (p. 6), D-503 notes that the yellow pollen coming “from beyond the Green Wall, from the wild invisible plains […] somewhat hinders logical thinking”. Hence, the outside world is...