The children of the Arbat
The Children of Arbat ( Russian Дети Арбата ) is a novel by Anatoly Rybakow and the first volume in a cycle dealing with the history of the Soviet Union . The action takes place between 1933 and 1934 and describes the development of the system of Stalinism . The book has autobiographical traits since Rybakov himself, although a supporter of socialism, was arrested in 1933 and exiled to Siberia for three years .
The first publication of the work in the Soviet Union in 1987 was considered an important step and a symbol of the glasnost policy of the then Soviet party leader Mikhail Gorbachev .
Creation and publication
Rybakov began working on his novel in the late 1950s and submitted the manuscript to a publisher for the first time in 1965. Despite a written confirmation, the work could not initially appear. By 1983 Rybakov revised his manuscript several times - also owing to the censorship in the Soviet Union - and forcibly deleted over a hundred pages. Despite this, and despite two announcements of the publication, the publication of the book was repeatedly prevented. Rybakov turned down offers to publish the novel in western countries.
It was not until 1987 that the novel was published in a special edition of the journal Druzhba Narodow (Friendship of Nations), which reached almost a million copies because of the novel. The following book edition, which appeared in early 1988 with an edition of 500,000 copies, was sold out within two days.
Translations and film adaptations
The novel quickly reached millions in circulation in the Soviet Union and has been translated into many languages. The German translation (by Juri Elperin ) was published in 1988 by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in a first edition of 80,000 copies, a translation in English was also published in 1988 by Dell Publishing.
In 2004, the work was filmed in Russia and broadcast as a 16-part television series on the Perwy kanal station.
content
The main character of the novel is the student and convinced communist Sascha Pankratow, who is expelled from the Komsomol and his university because of a statement and a few caricatures . Since he feels innocent, he actively campaigns for his rehabilitation, but soon has to experience the ineffectiveness of his actions. He is arrested, supposed to sign a guilty pledge and, after refusing, is exiled to Siberia for three years .
Parallel to this story is the description of the life of relatives, friends and fellow students of Sascha Pankratow under the new circumstances of fear and persecution. The rise of a fellow student of Pankratov, Jura Scharok, who, without believing in communism, is becoming more and more successful in the Soviet secret service thanks to his opportunistic abilities, is revealing.
A storyline is woven into the main plot, which essentially consists of Stalin's inner monologues and thus gives an insight into his world of thought. Stalin's reflections on communism, the building of the party, power struggles and purges in the party apparatus characterize him as an unscrupulous and insidious man of power.
The book ends with the assassination of the popular Leningrad party functionary Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, which Stalin used as a pretext for the massive persecution and killing of politically "unreliable" and oppositional people.
Effect and continuations
The publication of the book in the Soviet Union was a symbol of glasnost politics and received a lot of international attention. Дети Арбата was the first Soviet novel that not only dealt with the politics of Stalinism, but also let Stalin himself appear and portrayed the dictator in a way that exposed him.
The Soviet opposition artist Bulat Okudschawa wrote in 1987 about the work: “This is a novel about us. We children of Arbat are both creators and victims of this portrayal of a tragic period in our history. We went to the camps and prisons, we drove others into camps and prisons. "
Rybakov continued the plot of the book and the story of the characters from The Children of Arbat in his works Years of Terror , City of Fear, and Dust and Ashes .
Web links
- Conversation with Anatoly Rybakov after the publication of the novel Der Spiegel , October 19, 1987
- Article for the first German edition of Der Spiegel , October 17, 1988
- Obituary for Rybakov with a review of the novel Berliner Zeitung , December 28, 1998
- Article about Rybakow and his work Neue Zürcher Zeitung , January 9, 2002
- Review on buchtips.de
- Review on lesekost.de
- Review on reller-rezensions.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.chayka.org/oarticle.php?id=134
- ↑ The Children of the Arbat in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Bulat Okudschawa: With sacred hymns into catastrophe . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 1987 ( online - 19 October 1987 ).