Death Match Paragraph

Paragraph 1: This excerpt comes from the story Envy by Yurii Olesha. In this excerpt there is an international game going on between the Germans and the Soviets. The German player, Hetzke, is supposed to be a superstar and can lead a team to victory by himself. On the other hand, the Soviet goalkeeper Volodya, is a team player and relies on his team to help him achieve success. This particular excerpt takes place right before the half. After many unsuccessful, Hetzke finally succeeds in scoring a goal over Volodya, and the crowd is stunned and amazed by the goal. This first part of the story underscores the tensions between capitalism and socialism. Hetzke represents capitalism as he is the only one on his team who goes on to score goals. He

In this journal article, James Riordan writes about what actually happened during the so called “Death Match”. In the folklore telling of the Death Match, it goes that the Soviets were offered an ultimatum during halftime of the soccer match between them and the Germans. If they did not purposefully loose the match, they would be shot to death after the match. In the end, the Soviets won and were shot to death. Furthermore, according to the media telling, the Germans played dirty against the Soviets. However, as Riordan writes in this excerpt, there were many issues with the media telling. He starts by explaining the back story in this paragraph, then going into the actual match itself. In the real match, the Soviets and the Germans had a “tense but fair game”, and there was no ultimatum from the Germans saying that they had to lose or else they would be shot to death. In fact, the only moment of dissent between the Germans and Soviets was when the Soviets did not say “Heil Hitler” but rather they “cried ‘Fizkult – ura-ura-ura!’.” Even though the players did die, according to Riordan, it is because they purposefully baked glass into the bread not because they won the match. Furthermore, he states that two of them managed to escape, but only one was able to survive. Even though the real events are quite far from the media telling there is a strong reason for that. The media wanted to encourage nationalism, and if the story was told like how it really happened no one would be encouraged or feel national ferver. It would just be another story of Soviet power. However, by spinning in the way that they did, they made it a war hero story. By becoming a war hero story, the story would live on for ages, and more people would feel a strong sense of nationalism. Furthermore, it also helped emphasize that athletes were also heroes during the war. Thus, even