Tweet
VASILY GROSSMAN'S FATE: FROM STALINGRAD AND ARMENIA TO THE WEST
Russia Beyond the Headlines
Sept 24 2014
September 24, 2014 Georgy Manaev, RBTH The translation of Vasily
Grossman's An Armenian Sketchbook, by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler,
was included in the shortlist for this year's Read Russia Prize. A
memoir written during a trip to Armenia in the early 1960s, the
book is an unusually personal perspective on his journey through the
country, offering reflections on its people and landscapes as well
as nationalism and illness.
An Armenian Sketchbook, an account of a trip Vasily Grossman made
to Armenia in the early 1960s, translated by Robert Chandler and
Elizabeth Chandler, was made one of the nominees for this year's Read
Russia Prize, which is awarded for the best translations of Russian
literature into foreign languages.
The most recent translation of Vasily Grossman's works by the pair,
An Armenian Sketchbook (New York Review Books Classics, 2013) is
a short memoir written in early 1962 that was not published during
Grossman's lifetime, and which translator Robert Chandler believes
offers a rare glimpse into the writer's inner world.
'An Armenian Sketchbook' by Vasily Grossman, NYRB Classics, Maclehose,
2013 "There is not a lot of reliable information about Grossman's
life," says Chandler, who explains that this account of the two months
Grossman spent in Armenia in late 1961 is of particular interest
since it is his only autobiographical work.
"From it we get a clear sense of Grossman's sense of humor, of his
reluctance to take himself too seriously, and of his constant curiosity
about other people," says Chandler of An Armenian Sketchbook, which
also features "vivid evocations" of the country's barren landscape,
"lucid, witty discussions of nationalism," a description of a village
wedding, and what Chandler describes as "several unforgettable pages
about a night when Grossman thought he was dying."
Honesty banned
Russian writer Vasily Grossman (1905 - 1964) was little-known to
British audiences until 2011, when a BBC drama serial based on
Grossman's epic novel of Stalingrad, Life and Fate (1959), aired
on Radio 4. After that, the novel, first translated to English by
Robert Chandler in 1985, became a huge success in the UK, topping
Amazon's bestseller list at one point. Military historian Antony
Beevor has named Life and Fate, whose manuscript was confiscated by
Soviet authorities in February 1961, the best Russian novel of the
20th century.
One of possible reasons reason for the ban on the book's publication
was the unprecedented honesty and courage of the author, who wrote
about the Second World War not in the polished, patriotic style of many
accounts, but instead poured out all the truth about the hardships and
bitterness of life at war. In 1941, Grossman, already 36 at the time,
worked as a war correspondent, dispatching articles straight from the
front about the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, and Berlin. His
novel People are Immortal was among the first and still the best
first-hand accounts of the historical feat of the Soviet people.
Grossman's 'Life and Fate' manuscript has left the secret archives
"Vasily Grossman was a man of unusual courage, both physically and
morally," Robert Chandler said to RBTH. "He spent longer than any other
Soviet journalist in the thick of the fighting on the right bank of
the Volga, in the ruins being fought over building by building and
even room by room. And then, within months of the Soviet victory at
Stalingrad, he was writing some of the first articles and stories
published in any language about the Shoah. His mother - to whom he
later dedicated Life and Fate - was one of the 12,000 Jews shot by
the Nazis in a massacre outside the town of Berdichev."
In Mandelstam's footsteps
However, after the war, Grossman had to heavily edit his novel about
the Siege of Stalingrad, For a Just Cause - it was heavily criticized
in the Soviet press. Life and Fate was to become the sequel for this
novel, but in 1961, the manuscript was confiscated from the author by
the KGB - because of the anti-Stalinist message of the novel. Life
and Fate, smuggled to Europe by Grossman's friends after his death,
was first published in Switzerland in 1980. In the USSR, it was
released only in 1988, during perestroika.
After Life and Fate was banned, Soviet publishers stopped printing
all of Grossman's books. In search of any kind of income, Grossman
managed to get a commission to translate an Armenian novel and went to
Armenia - just like another Russian writer, Osip Mandelstam had done
30 years earlier, also in a quest to escape the wrath of the Soviet
authorities. The Armenian trip, during which Grossman created the
series of non-fiction sketches and stories that later became the work
that the Chandlers have given the title An Armenian Sketchbook, turned
out to be one of his last works - he died of cancer in Moscow in 1964.
The Armenian works were published in the USSR only posthumously,
in 1967.
http://rbth.com/literature/2014/09/24/vasily_grossmans_fate_from_stalingrad_and_armenia_ to_the_west_40055.html
Russia Beyond the Headlines
Sept 24 2014
September 24, 2014 Georgy Manaev, RBTH The translation of Vasily
Grossman's An Armenian Sketchbook, by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler,
was included in the shortlist for this year's Read Russia Prize. A
memoir written during a trip to Armenia in the early 1960s, the
book is an unusually personal perspective on his journey through the
country, offering reflections on its people and landscapes as well
as nationalism and illness.
An Armenian Sketchbook, an account of a trip Vasily Grossman made
to Armenia in the early 1960s, translated by Robert Chandler and
Elizabeth Chandler, was made one of the nominees for this year's Read
Russia Prize, which is awarded for the best translations of Russian
literature into foreign languages.
The most recent translation of Vasily Grossman's works by the pair,
An Armenian Sketchbook (New York Review Books Classics, 2013) is
a short memoir written in early 1962 that was not published during
Grossman's lifetime, and which translator Robert Chandler believes
offers a rare glimpse into the writer's inner world.
'An Armenian Sketchbook' by Vasily Grossman, NYRB Classics, Maclehose,
2013 "There is not a lot of reliable information about Grossman's
life," says Chandler, who explains that this account of the two months
Grossman spent in Armenia in late 1961 is of particular interest
since it is his only autobiographical work.
"From it we get a clear sense of Grossman's sense of humor, of his
reluctance to take himself too seriously, and of his constant curiosity
about other people," says Chandler of An Armenian Sketchbook, which
also features "vivid evocations" of the country's barren landscape,
"lucid, witty discussions of nationalism," a description of a village
wedding, and what Chandler describes as "several unforgettable pages
about a night when Grossman thought he was dying."
Honesty banned
Russian writer Vasily Grossman (1905 - 1964) was little-known to
British audiences until 2011, when a BBC drama serial based on
Grossman's epic novel of Stalingrad, Life and Fate (1959), aired
on Radio 4. After that, the novel, first translated to English by
Robert Chandler in 1985, became a huge success in the UK, topping
Amazon's bestseller list at one point. Military historian Antony
Beevor has named Life and Fate, whose manuscript was confiscated by
Soviet authorities in February 1961, the best Russian novel of the
20th century.
One of possible reasons reason for the ban on the book's publication
was the unprecedented honesty and courage of the author, who wrote
about the Second World War not in the polished, patriotic style of many
accounts, but instead poured out all the truth about the hardships and
bitterness of life at war. In 1941, Grossman, already 36 at the time,
worked as a war correspondent, dispatching articles straight from the
front about the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, and Berlin. His
novel People are Immortal was among the first and still the best
first-hand accounts of the historical feat of the Soviet people.
Grossman's 'Life and Fate' manuscript has left the secret archives
"Vasily Grossman was a man of unusual courage, both physically and
morally," Robert Chandler said to RBTH. "He spent longer than any other
Soviet journalist in the thick of the fighting on the right bank of
the Volga, in the ruins being fought over building by building and
even room by room. And then, within months of the Soviet victory at
Stalingrad, he was writing some of the first articles and stories
published in any language about the Shoah. His mother - to whom he
later dedicated Life and Fate - was one of the 12,000 Jews shot by
the Nazis in a massacre outside the town of Berdichev."
In Mandelstam's footsteps
However, after the war, Grossman had to heavily edit his novel about
the Siege of Stalingrad, For a Just Cause - it was heavily criticized
in the Soviet press. Life and Fate was to become the sequel for this
novel, but in 1961, the manuscript was confiscated from the author by
the KGB - because of the anti-Stalinist message of the novel. Life
and Fate, smuggled to Europe by Grossman's friends after his death,
was first published in Switzerland in 1980. In the USSR, it was
released only in 1988, during perestroika.
After Life and Fate was banned, Soviet publishers stopped printing
all of Grossman's books. In search of any kind of income, Grossman
managed to get a commission to translate an Armenian novel and went to
Armenia - just like another Russian writer, Osip Mandelstam had done
30 years earlier, also in a quest to escape the wrath of the Soviet
authorities. The Armenian trip, during which Grossman created the
series of non-fiction sketches and stories that later became the work
that the Chandlers have given the title An Armenian Sketchbook, turned
out to be one of his last works - he died of cancer in Moscow in 1964.
The Armenian works were published in the USSR only posthumously,
in 1967.
http://rbth.com/literature/2014/09/24/vasily_grossmans_fate_from_stalingrad_and_armenia_ to_the_west_40055.html