History Literature / Odinochka

* ShootTheDog: The defenders of Van are forced to take drastic measures to outlast the enemy; including sending dogs with lanterns around their necks out of the city at night to be shot at by the Ottomans who think it's a person fleeing the city. This is the fate that befalls "Zangi", a stray dog that Raffi takes a liking to.

Vartan Manukyan is a 29 year old prisoner in a Soviet Gulag in Siberia, who has just been given a death sentence; three nights in solitary confinement in a freezing prison cell. One of some 20 million prisoners who fell victim to UsefulNotes/JosefStalin’s paranoia in the 1930’s. ''Odinochka'' delves into the mind of this single, forgotten prisoner, and unveils the story of a man haunted by memories of his youth, growing up in an orphanage in the Ottoman Empire during UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne, when the Turkish authorities began the process of genocide against their Armenian subjects. Caught in a siege in the city of Van, he and his young friends, foremost among them a little boy named Raffi who became like his little brother, were left with no choice but to participate in the city's defense; taking over menial work such as collecting used bullets to be recast, putting out fires or tending to the wounded as the adult men took to arms. The novel follows their attempt to make sense of the world around them in the harshness of the orphanage before the siege and during the turmoil of the war, and find an emotional escape through the stories they tell.

* ShootTheDog: The defenders of Van are forced to take drastic measures to outlast the enemy; including sending dogs with lanterns around their necks out of the city at night to be shot at by the Ottomans who think it's a person fleeing the city. This is the fate that befalls "Zangi", a stray dog that Raffi takes a liking to.

* OrphansOrdeal: Every one of the orphans have some kind of a tragic backstory, in fact it's mentioned they sometimes make a game of who's is the worst. However, later on once the war reaches closer to home, they start getting orphans who survived their villages being ransacked...

Vartan Manukyan is a 29 year old prisoner in a Soviet Gulag in Siberia, who has just been given a death sentence; three nights in solitary confinement. One of some 20 million prisoners who fell victim to UsefulNotes/JosefStalin’s paranoia in the 1930’s. ''Odinochka'' delves into the mind of this single, forgotten prisoner, and unveils the story of a man haunted by memories of his youth, growing up in an orphanage in the Ottoman Empire during UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne, when the Turkish authorities began the process of genocide against their Armenian subjects. Caught in a siege in the city of Van, he and his young friends, foremost among them a little boy named Raffi who became like his little brother, were left with no choice but to participate in the city's defense; taking over menial work such as collecting used bullets to be recast, putting out fires or tending to the wounded as the adult men took to arms. The novel follows their attempt to make sense of the world around them in the harshness of the orphanage before the siege and during the turmoil of the war, and find an emotional escape through the stories they tell.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Herr Sporri, Dr. Clarence Ussher and his son Neville, and General Vartan were all real people.

Vartan Manukyan is a 29 year old prisoner in a Soviet Gulag in Siberia, who has just been given a death sentence; three nights in solitary confinement. One of some 20 million prisoners who fell victim to UsefulNotes/JosefStalin’s paranoia in the 1930’s. ''Odinochka'' delves into the mind of this single, forgotten prisoner, and unveils the story of a man haunted by memories of his youth, growing up in an orphanage in the Ottoman Empire during UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne, when the Turkish authorities began the process of genocide against their Armenian subjects. Caught in a siege in the city of Van, he and his young friends, foremost among them a little boy named Raffi who became like his little brother, were left with no choice but to participate in its defense. The novel follows their attempt to make sense of the world around them in the harshness of the orphanage before the siege and during the turmoil of the war, and find an emotional escape through the stories they tell.

* [[Spoiler:TheHeroDies: It is left ambiguous, but one can assume that Vartan feeling warm and hallucinating at the end of the novel means hypothermia is finally taking him ]].

* [[Spoiler: TheHeroDies: It is left ambiguous, but one can assume that Vartan feeling warm and hallucinating at the end of the novel means hypothermia is finally taking him]].

* HowWeGotHere: We only find out some of the details on why Vartan is in prison later on in the novel.

''''Odinochka: Armenian Tales from the Gulag'''' is the debut novel of Armenian-American novelist Suren Oganessian.

'''Odinochka: Armenian Tales from the Gulag''' is the debut novel of Armenian-American novelist Suren Oganessian.