Such a Simple Thing, and Other Soviet Stories

by Vadim Kozhevnikov, Irakly Andronikov, Sergei P. Antonov

Compilation of short stories written by Russian writers, primarily during the soviet era.

434 pages

Published January 1, 1960

About the author

Vadim Mikhailovich Kozhevnikov (Russian: Вадим Михайлович Кожевников) Soviet writer. His daughter Nadezhda Kozhevnikova is also a writer.

Vadim Kozevnikov was born to a Russian family in the Siberian town of Narym, Tomsk Governorate (present-day Kolpashevsky District, Tomsk Oblast), where his revolutionary-minded father, a physician, had been sent as an internal exile by the authorities of the Russian Empire.

Kozhevnikov studied literature and ethnology at Moscow State University, graduating in 1933. Kozhevnikov worked as a war correspondent for Pravda from 1941 to 1945, joining the Communist Party of the Soviet Union halfway into the German-Soviet War in 1943. He was elected secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1949.

Kozhevnikov was officially recognized as a Hero of Socialist Labor for his contributions to Soviet literature and was elected to one term as a politician to the Soviet Union's Supreme Soviet. He was awarded the USSR State Prize following the publication of two of his novels in 1971.

Reviews

[Gonçalo Ferreira · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Desde a ruidosa cidade de Moscovo até à costa do Mar Negro, desde o Árctico até à região de florestas de Mestchiora, estes são apenas alguns dos lugares onde se desenrola a acção destas narrativas."
(Contracapa)

"Como acontece sempre que se reúnem num livro obras de muitos autores, o leitor vê-se obrigado a sintonizar a onda de cada um deles, e a captar as suas «chamadas»: só neste caso será profunda e frutífera a compenetração com ele."
Antonina Kudriachova (Prefácio)

Índice:
Prefácio
Boris Lavreniov - "Uma Coisa Bem Simples" (1924)
Máximo Gorki - "O Primeiro Amor" (1923)
Alexéi Tolstói - "A Víbora" (1928)
Alexandr Malíchkine - "O Comboio do Sul" (1925)
Iúri Guérman - "Passeios pelo Pátio "
Vera Ínber - "Maia"
Konstantine Paustóvski - "Um Cabaz de Pinhas de Abeto" (1953)
Andréi Platónov - "No Mundo Formoso e Pérfido (Maquinista Máltsev)"(1941)
Iván Ménchikov - "A Rapariga do Rio Siurrembói-Iagá"
Vadim Kojévnikov - "Março e Abril"
Mikhaíl Chólokhov - "O Destino de um Homem" (1956)
Daniil Gránine - "A Segunda Variante" (1949)
Andréi Merkúlov - "Em Voo"
Iúri Kazakov -"Arcturus, um Cão de Caça" (1958)
Serguéi Antónov - "As Pedrinhas Multicores" (1960)
Valéri Óssipov - "Uma Carta por Acabar" (1973)
Iúri Naguíbine - "O Recém Casado"

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stumbled across this book searching for public domain texts to read on my olpc xo-1 as an e-reader.
http://archive.org/details/suchsimple...
The stories are mostly excellent, in spite of the awkward references to "The Great Patriotic War" (which you probably call World War II) and the mythologizing of the Russian heroes of that war.
There are a lot of unknown authors who seem particularly sympathetic to the ruling powers of the USSR, and those vary in quality much more than the better-known authors, who range from antagonistic to indifferent to the Kremlin.

The only real turd is Irakli Andronikov's "The Portrait."
I can handle the fantastical tales of devotion to The Revolution and all that, but "The Portrait" is a "literary research" story.
According to the anonymous editor, " . . . the quest for facts and documents of literary history carries us away in much the same manner as Jack London's good old tales of the quest for gold."
So, we have a short story that is entirely about stumbling across a photograph of a suspected portrait of Mikhail Lermontov (a very important, famous Russian poet from the 1800s) by accident in a private library, and then traveling all over the Soviet Union, trying to locate the original painting, then confirming the identity of the sitter. It's really repetitive and boring.
I liked the title story, Gorky's "First Love," Kozhevnikov's "The Captain," and Sergei Antonov's "Rain."
I did not like either of the two stories by Paustovsky.