Quote by Boris Pilnyak: “History has never been made by happy people.”

The great transformations of human history — revolutions, reforms, artistic movements, scientific breakthroughs — tend to be driven not by those who are comfortable but by those who are suffering, furious, or desperate for something different. Contentment does not generate the energy required to break things and build something new.

Pilnyak was writing in the turbulent early years of the Soviet state, when Russia was still emerging from the devastation of the First World War, the Revolution, and the Civil War. His novel The Naked Year (1922) attempted to capture the sheer chaos and violence of that transformation. He observed at close range how catastrophe drives historical change.

Russian novelist who was one of the most prominent literary figures of the early Soviet period, known for his experimental style and his novel The Naked Year, which depicted the chaos of the Russian Revolution and Civil War. He was arrested during Stalin's purges and shot in 1938.