Начало конца

by Mark Aldanov, Марк Алданов

Роман "Начало конца" рассказывает о трагических событиях в Западной Европе и России 1937 г. и гражданской войне в Испании. Впервые в художественной литературе Алданов подвел итог кровавым событиям 1937 года, заговорил о духовном родстве фашизма и коммунизма. Проклятые вопросы 30-х годов, связь ленинских идей и сталинских злодеяний, бессилие и сила демократии - эти вопросы одни из важнейших в романе. Устами одного из своих героев Алданов определил, что русские революционеры утвердили в сознании нравственность ненависти; в основе мизантропических построений теоретиков Третьего рейха русский писатель увидел сходное оправдание ненависти, только ненависти арийцев к неарийцам. Книга издается к 125-летию писателя.

Genres: Russia, Fiction

636 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Mark Aleksandrovich Aldanov was a Russian writer and critic,known for his historical novels.

Mark Landau (Aldanov) was born in Kiev in the family of a rich Jewish industrialist. He graduated the physical-mathematical and law departments of Kiev University. He published serious research papers in chemistry. In 1919 he emigrated to France. During 1922-1924 he lived in Berlin and during 1941-1946, in the United States.

Ivan Bunin, the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, nominated Aldanov for Nobel Prize a total of six times - in 1938, 1939, 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1950.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The train is racing through Germany… It carries the members of the Soviet embassy staff to their destination… The old revolutionary is looking at the platform… Soon there will be war…

The pleased, self-satisfied, dull expressions on the stormtroopers healthy, energetic young faces suddenly filled him with such intense hatred and disgust that his heart skipped a beat. But inwardly he had to admit that the other young people, who marched around Moscow, had the same general appearance and even wore the same expressions – only these looked a trifle stronger, healthier, and neater. The platform, the uniforms, the swastikas, the white jacket of the boy who sold coffee, the waxed paper around the sandwiches – everything here shone with a cleanliness as peculiar as the appearance of German coins. The detachment disappeared into a subway at the end of the platform. “I suppose I should hope that the constructive influence of our propaganda will bring these misled young men into the communist camp,” he thought, resuming his seat. But it was so much simpler to hope that they would all be dead.

The Fifth Seal is a panoramic depiction of Europe on the threshold of the war… Limning his colourful characters Mark Aldanov is unstinting in sarcasm… The ambassador, his wife, a young girl – his translator, Red Army commander, an old celebrated French writer, his secretary – whose ideal is Raskolnikov of Crime and Punishment, the famous lawyer and some others…
There is a whole gamut of situations… Talks… Memories… Musings… The old revolutionary, Lenin’s comrade in arms contemplates the present and the past…

“No matter how you look at it, the error in our combination was due to the fact that our theory was built on faith in man, on faith in his dignity and in the possibility and necessity for his moral improvement. In practice, however, everything had to be based on the assumption that man is stupid and foul, and because of that – temporarily, only temporarily of course! – he had to be made even more stupid and foul for the sake of the ideal and of ultimate success. Lenin had developed this line of thought, but he had concealed it from us until the time came to carry out some of his decisions.”

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held…” Revelation 6:9
And the butcherly feast of slaying is drawing near.

[Jesse Hanson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fifth Seal is a book I ran across where it was being used a prop in the furniture store where I work. I was attracted to it from the first pages, because the author was Russian and the period was shortly after Dostoevsky's rise to international fame, and when the Communist Party had just risen into its day politically and Hitler had come to power in Germany.
Much of the novel is concerned with an entourage of Russians in the service of the Socialist Party. As the story opens they are traveling by train to Germany with Kangarov, the new Russian ambassador to that country. Among the entourage is Wislicenus, the aging spy, Tamarin, the aging General, and Nadia, the pretty young secretary of the ambassador. All these elderly characters are smitten with Nadia on level or another.
After a certain amount of time in Germany, the same characters turn up in various places on the European continent, coming and going out of each others lives. A good portion of their time is spent in France, which allows for another group of characters to emerge, namely the aging Vermadois, a famous French writer, Alvera, Vermandois' secretary, a young anarchist who commits a senseless murder while also committing a lot of senseless commentary on Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov, Cerisier, the aging attorney who becomes Alvera's defense attorney, and the aging Countess de Bellancombre and her aging husband.
I have to say that Aldanov's writing, including characterization and dialogue are superb, equal really to any of the masters. His observance of human characteristics, thought processes, and foibles is uncanny. But therein lies the problem. This is book of 482 pages of intelligent low key satire. No heroes or heroines. Written with the style and sophistication of a great classic novel, but with the apparent intention of a crass expose' of humanity, like a sophisticated and very low profile marathon of Seinfeld episodes.
An interesting, entertaining diversion, by a great writer, but not a great novel. It's too busy poking fun at great novels and novelists along with everyone else.

[Elizabeth Gibbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book stretched my brain. It was translated into English and there were many paragraphs that were left in French and German. (I think it was originally written in Russian.) There was a huge political undercurrent that baffled me and so there was a lot that I just didn't understand. The ending was bizarre. It seemed like it stopped in the middle of a scene with no explanation. I still don't know why it was called "The Fifth Seal". I loved this book because it was genuinely different than anything I've ever read and it holds a lot of mystery even now since it was based in part on the times when it was written (1940s).

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished THE FIFTH SEAL (1939) by Mark Aldanov (1889-1957). The title of the novel alludes to Revelation 6:9-10, “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God…And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, dost though not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” The story describes the lives of Russian diplomats in France during the Spanish Civil War. Though Aldanov despised the Bolsheviks, he portrays his characters impartially, subject to the same fears, foibles, disillusions, and sympathies as their French hosts. Even the most ardent revolutionary, the mysterious enforcer Wislicenus, admits “We have led [the younger generation] back on the path of medieval gangsterism, and now the only kind of leaders they recognize are gangster leaders” (p. 111). This backdrop of implied terror strikes fear into a lecherous ambassador Kangarov, an honorable old-school general Tamarin, and even Wislicenus. Among the key French characters is a has-been novelist Vermandois whose fading literary reputation anticipates Aldanov’s, who was nominated for the Nobel prize multiple times. In the final chapters Aldanov satirizes the Communist censors by contrasting Vermandois with a young, naïve Russian secretary Nadia, whose mediocre short story gets published in Moscow because it advances Bolshevik ideology. Vermandois, however, is appalled by Kangarov’s attempt to bribe him to write Communist propaganda, prompting the aging author’s expletive, “Merde!”

In my readings of Russian literature, I have often wondered how to compare émigré or exiled authors such as Aldanov to those who stayed or returned to Russia. He answers that question in his foreword: “Following the tradition of letters, I am concerned only with artistic truth. There cannot be two Russian literatures—one Soviet and the other exile. Both spring from the same sources, both were created by the same great masters, and they constitute one integral whole.”

[Nota Bene: The translator did not feel the need to the French passages into English.]