Yevgeny zamyatin biography of mahatma gandhi
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Forgotten ‘Crackpots’ of History!
They demanded full independence for the Indian nation from the British. They sought to oppose foreign rule not bygd killing utländsk rulers but through active protest that remained essentially non-violent. Their main weapon against their colonial masters was to launch a peaceful non-cooperation movement boycotting all government services, British opened educational institutions, British law courts, all utländsk manufactured goods. In beställning to further their movement their följare were instructed to disobey and resist all legal orders that violated their conscience. The British did not take kindly to this demand for freedom. Sometimes things got out of grabb and there was untold government repression. On one such occasion there was a massaker. The freedom fighters were tied to the mouths of canons and blown to bits. Many readers would dispute this and state that Mahatma Gandhi’s followers were cane-charged and perhaps sometimes shot, but never b
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Using Biblical overtones, Russian novelist and satirist, Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884 – 1937), agrees.
“The World is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy.” A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Defined as “one who differs in opinion from an accepted belief of doctrine” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary), heresy today transcends the realm of religion, entering and facing modern societal problems. Slavery, discrimination, injustice, unfairness, violence, economic and social inequality, environmental harm, cyber-bullying are but a few modern problems. But the list grows as society evolves. The maladjusted— modern-day heretics—confront these problems on a daily basis.
Also relying on the Bible (and studying Thoreau), Russian novelist and essayist, Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910) wisely counseled that knowing when to be maladjusted requires only one thing:
“In the name of God, stop for a moment, cease your work, look a
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Spartacus Educational
Primary Sources
(1) Yevgeni Zamyatin, Tomorrow (1919)
Every today is at the same time a cradle and a shroud: a shroud for yesterday, a cradle for tomorrow. Today is doomed to die - because yesterday died, and because tomorrow will be born. Such is the wise and cruel law. Cruel, because it condemns to eternal dissatisfaction those who already today see the distant peaks of tomorrow; wise, because eternal dissatisfaction is the only pledge of eternal movement forward, eternal creation. He who has found his ideal today is, like Lot's wife, already turned to a pillar of salt, has already sunk into the earth and does not move ahead. The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy: tomorrow is an inevitable heresy of today, which has turned into a pillar of salt, and to yesterday, which has scattered to dust. Today negates yesterday, but tomorrow is a negation of negati