Russia of Play Macro

KGB- The KGB actively suppressed “ideological subversion” — unorthodox political and religious ideas and the espousing dissidents--- KGB monitored the satellite-state populations for occurrences of “harmful attitudes” and “hostile acts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB#History
Statement: KGB was used for watching and eliminating hostile threats to its goverment. This could also include writers who put their political belif in their writings. Hence why Katurian thought he was being takin in for questioning. They also had the power to do what ever they wanted to. You can see this in the scenes where they beat and abuse him.

Treatment of the Mentally Ill-
In the days of communism, people who were diagnosed as mentally ill were locked up in psychiatric hospitals and denied contact with the outside world.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3026648.stm
Statement: This gives evidence to Tuploski's statement. "We can excuted a spastic any day and we do."

Post WW2 Russia-
After the end of WWII, Stalin succeeded in dominating many states which his armies had liberated from the Nazis. Stalin was driven by one overpowering fear; future attack of his western border. This was not an unfounded fear as there have been numerous attacks and invasions of Russia and the Soviet Union from the West throughout history. His collection of captive Eastern European states served as the barrier or shield he needed and became known as the Iron Curtain. This isolationist behavior and expansion of Communism fostered distrust on the part of the West and brought about the Cold War.
http://www.russianlife.com/article.cfm?Number=633
Statement: Even though the war was over Stalin still was able to install fear and paranogia to his people. Causing them to observe people who might be talking against the goverment. This would also be a reason why Katurian might have thought he was being taken in for questioning.

Power of Police in Totalitarianism Goverment-
The operations of the police in a totalitarian regime are often unpredictable and do not follow any procedures in accordance with the law. Such police violence creates a sense of terror in all citizens and further represses any dissent towards the government.
http://essaysdaddy.com/free-essays-db/philosophy-essays/totalitarianism.html
Statement: This is important to me because it shows how the two officers could do what ever they wanted to Katurian and his brother and not suffer any repercussions.

Propaganda-
The Propaganda appeals to an emotional rather than rational side of its citizens. It explains everything in terms of the goal. It makes the goal appear to be attainable, and often falsifies data in order to make it seem like the economy is growing and that tremendous progress has been made. Through propaganda, a totalitarian government always tries to rationalize its ideas and gives the appearance that it has the best interests of the public in mind.
http://essaysdaddy.com/free-essays-db/philosophy-essays/totalitarianism.html
Statement: This could help show the mind set Katurian had at first about being a good citizen and never wanting to hurt his goverment.

Regin of Stalin-
Stalin ruled by terror for most of his years in office. He didn't allow anybody to say anything about his ideas. Stalin killed all that had helped him rise to power because he thought they would threaten his rules. Stalin was responsible for millions of deaths of Soviet peasants who discarded with his program called "Collective Agriculture"
http://www.essaydepot.com/essayme/103/index.php
Statement:The Reign of Stalin help set up the KGB the use of propraganda and entalled fear in all his country which allowed the whole country to become submissive to all his doings. This could also been seen why Katurain is very meek through the being of the play.

The Great Purge-
Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1936–1953. Also described as a "Soviet holocaust" by several authors in conjunction with Soviet famine of 1932-1953, in which 6-11 million peasants and kulaks were starved to death or executed), it involved the purge of the Communist Party and Government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of unaffiliated persons, characterized by widespread police surveillance, widespread suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and executions. According to the archive data, in 1937–58 the number of death sentences was 681,692 and many more died in GULAG labor camps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
Statement:This would help designers get a kind of feel for the show to make it a very gloom and big brother type set.

Soviet Union during the reign of Stalin-
This period of the Soviet Union was dominated by Joseph Stalin, who sought to reshape Soviet society with aggressive economic planning, in particular a sweeping collectivization of agriculture and development of industrial power. He also constructed a massive bureaucracy, which arguably is responsible for millions of deaths as a result of various purges and collectivization efforts. During his time as leader of the USSR, Stalin made frequent use of his secret police, gulags, and nearly unlimited power to reshape Soviet society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Soviet_Union_(1927%E2%80%931953)
Statment-Gives more incite to character behaviors on how they should be molded.

Russian Economy-
The Russian economy is in disarray, and the standard of living for the average citizen is as low if not lower than the standards during the Communist rule.
http://www.megaessays.com/essay_search/russian_citizen.html
Statement: I would give this to the costume crew so they would know how to design the costumes.

Russian Philosophy-
The main impetus of Russian philosophy has always been towards the future, as its representatives strained to discern the features of the ‘new man’ (the term favoured by the left from the 1860s, with the addition of the adjective ‘Soviet’ after 1917), or the ‘integral personality’, as Slavophiles and neo-idealists preferred to describe the individual who would one day be free from the cognitive and moral defects that had hitherto prevented mankind from realizing its potential. The nature of these flaws and the specifications of the regenerated human being were the subject of bitter disputes between rival movements. Even on the left, models of the ‘new man’ varied widely, from the narrow rationalist who was the ideal of the ‘nihilists’ of the 1860s (see Nihilism, Russian; Russian Materialism: ‘the 1860s’) and subsequently of Lenin and Plekhanov, to Bakunin’s eternal rebel, who would embody the spontaneous spirit of freedom in defiance of all established authorities and orders. At the end of the nineteenth century, in the cultural ferment produced by new movements in philosophy and the arts emanating from the West, radical thinkers began en masse to renounce their predominantly rationalist models of the individual and society (see Russian Religious-Philosophical Renaissance). Nietzsche’s Superman had a pervasive influence on the ensuing ‘revaluation of values’, undertaken with the aim of formulating moral and social ideals that would embrace the manysidedness of human creativity (see Nietzsche: impact on Russian thought). Some radical philosophers (such as Berdiaev and Frank), in the process of moving from Marxism to neo-idealism, sought to reconcile Nietzsche’s aesthetic immoralism with Christian ethics, while the ‘Empiriocriticist’ group of Bolsheviks attempted to inject Russian Marxist philosophy with an element of heroic voluntarism by synthesizing it with Nietzschean self-affirmation and the pragmatism of Ernst Mach (see Russian Empiriocriticism). Nietzschean influences combined with the mechanistic scientism of Soviet Marxism in the Soviet model of the ‘new man’ (whose qualities Lysenko’s genetics suggested could be inherited by successive generations). In the post-Stalin ‘thaw’ some Soviet philosophers, including Il’enkov and Mamardashvili, began a critical rereading of Marx’s texts from an anthropocentric standpoint which emphasized the unpredictable and limitless potential of human consciousness (see Marxist philosophy, Russian and Soviet).
http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/E042#E042P5.29
Statement: I found this to be inciteful on the way Russians carry themselves. I believe an actor can use this for extra research in creating their characters.