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1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution
An exciting new collection of responses to the Revolution, by some of Russia's greatest writers of the twentieth century
'This is the last of you, old world - soon we'll smash you to bits.'
The passionate voices of radicals, dreamers, workers, aristocrats, satirists and romantics fill these electrifying poems and prose pieces, written between 1917 and 1919 in the full tumult of the Russian Revolution.
From apocalyptic visions to heartfelt calls for freedom, from depictions of bloody carnage to an acerbic portrait of Lenin, the writings brought together here are by turns fervent, absurd, disorienting and tragic.
Some writers - Bulgakov, Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Akhmatova - are well-known, others all but forgotten; many would not survive what was to come. All speak to us a century later, re-creating the whirlwind of euphoria and terror, hopes and betrayals of that exhilarating, brutal time.
Boris Dralyuk is an award-winning translator and the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. He holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from UCLA, where he taught Russian literature for a number of years. He is a co-editor of the Penguin Book of Russian Poetry, and has translated Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry/em> and Odessa Stories, both of which are published by Pushkin Press.
241 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
October 31, 2016
A timely and, for me, revelatory collection of poems and short stories from revolutionary Russia, including contributions from famous names (Mandelstam, Pasternak, Bulgakov, Akhmatova) as well as from many more fascinating and obscure writers like Vasily Rozanov, Alexander Grin, or Mikhail Prishvin. All these contributors are contextualised well by editor Boris Dralyuk's excellent chapter introductions; it will be a dull reader indeed who doesn't get through his potted biographies without feeling a strong need to pursue some of their subjects further.
He limits this anthology to works written before 1920, which is quite a severe limitation given that current events rarely intrude into literature until some years after the fact. (A comparable anthology of War on Terror literature published within three years of 9/11 would, for instance, exclude DeLillo's Falling Man, Pynchon's Bleeding Edge, Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, McEwan's Saturday and Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.) So what we have here is less a considered literary verdict and more a jumble of immediate, often visceral, reactions.
The poetry for me worked less well than the prose, though perhaps it's just harder to translate. Even here there is plenty to enjoy, though – I particularly liked the measured serenity of the Osip Mandelstam poem which begins:
Most of the extracts either adopt a tone of near-apocalyptic tragedy over the events of 1917 or, by contrast, get swept up in feverish excitement at the possibilities. A few have the poise to look at things with more narrative distance – most notably the examples from Teffi, who has now gone to the top of my reading list. One is a satire about a near-future where citizens must present themselves to be executed; trying to get to the guillotine on time, the protagonists haggle with their taxi-driver and complain about queue-jumpers. It is full-on Pythonesque, and very funny. The second piece is a sort of political sketch from among the crowds, where we get an amazing first-hand look at some of the slogans being shouted by activists on street corners:
The settings presented in the collection range from the streets of Moscow and Petrograd to what Alexey Remizov rather beautifully describes as the ‘wild mountains and […] boundless Gogolian steppes’ of rural Russia; some even take place in fantasy worlds. Though, as I said, there are some writers here who find the whole thing undeniably exciting, it has to be said that most of them are at best sceptical about the Bolshevik takeover, and many are horrified by it.
But for or against, almost everyone profiled here seems to have agreed that what was happening was supremely Russian. Perhaps that's why so many of the poems and stories seem to focus on some essential idea of Russia – a Russia that for some of them was struggling to be born, and for others was gone forever. The prospects that the new regime held for literature are illustrated well by considering how many of Dralyuk's biographical summaries end rather early, with a sentence about Stalinist cultural purges.
He limits this anthology to works written before 1920, which is quite a severe limitation given that current events rarely intrude into literature until some years after the fact. (A comparable anthology of War on Terror literature published within three years of 9/11 would, for instance, exclude DeLillo's Falling Man, Pynchon's Bleeding Edge, Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, McEwan's Saturday and Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.) So what we have here is less a considered literary verdict and more a jumble of immediate, often visceral, reactions.
The poetry for me worked less well than the prose, though perhaps it's just harder to translate. Even here there is plenty to enjoy, though – I particularly liked the measured serenity of the Osip Mandelstam poem which begins:
In public and behind closed doors we slowly
lose our minds,
and then the brutal winter offers us
clean, cold Rhine wine.
Most of the extracts either adopt a tone of near-apocalyptic tragedy over the events of 1917 or, by contrast, get swept up in feverish excitement at the possibilities. A few have the poise to look at things with more narrative distance – most notably the examples from Teffi, who has now gone to the top of my reading list. One is a satire about a near-future where citizens must present themselves to be executed; trying to get to the guillotine on time, the protagonists haggle with their taxi-driver and complain about queue-jumpers. It is full-on Pythonesque, and very funny. The second piece is a sort of political sketch from among the crowds, where we get an amazing first-hand look at some of the slogans being shouted by activists on street corners:
‘We don't need Anne Exations! To hell with her! They're not going to bring in that woman again. Down with Anne Exations, to hell with her!’
They're not going to bring in that woman again.
The soldier honestly thought that Anne Exations was some woman who was going to be brought in.
The settings presented in the collection range from the streets of Moscow and Petrograd to what Alexey Remizov rather beautifully describes as the ‘wild mountains and […] boundless Gogolian steppes’ of rural Russia; some even take place in fantasy worlds. Though, as I said, there are some writers here who find the whole thing undeniably exciting, it has to be said that most of them are at best sceptical about the Bolshevik takeover, and many are horrified by it.
But for or against, almost everyone profiled here seems to have agreed that what was happening was supremely Russian. Perhaps that's why so many of the poems and stories seem to focus on some essential idea of Russia – a Russia that for some of them was struggling to be born, and for others was gone forever. The prospects that the new regime held for literature are illustrated well by considering how many of Dralyuk's biographical summaries end rather early, with a sentence about Stalinist cultural purges.
But when the alien candle burns down (and it too will burn down in accordance with the laws of history), we shall gather up from the candlestick the remains of the old Russian wax. And we'll make a new thin candle, a two-copek affair. But we'll hold it in our hands, even if it's old and decrepit. And let this be the dying candle that the sick man holds in his hands. And we shall hold it and we shall die.
(Vasily Rozanov, Apocalypse of Our Time)
March 25, 2017
Having spent the last decade writing a novel set during the Russian Revolution, I was thrilled to come across this brand-new anthology of poetry and prose not just about those events, but written while they were still taking place. There are times in life when historical change is so great that people can barely take a breath, let alone get perspective or bearing on their moment in history.
The late twenties were full of marvelous books about the Revolution and the Civil War, such as Babel’s Red Cavalry and Bulgakov’s White Guard, novels and poetry written from both the émigré and the Soviet perspective. But this book fills a unique place on the bookshelf because it helps us understand how it feels to be in the midst of such overwhelming change, without any idea how it will all settle out. It’s a lot like being in a rollover car accident as everything you’ve tossed onto the floor begins to rain down your head. The immediacy of these poems and short fictions is what grabs you, the way people tried to understand what was happening as the events were occurring. It speaks a lot to our own time of unbelieveably rapid political shifts, and how one might find something to say about this experience. 2017 is the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution and the echoes to the present day are everywhere.
The book's poems and fictions are grouped in fascinating and surprising ways. Certain writers one would never think of in the same breath—like the cosmopolitan, openly homosexual Mikhail Kuzmin and the precocious bad-boy peasant poet Sergei Yesenin, yet their poems both embrace the revolution and are invigorated by it, though Kuzmin perfectly exemplifies the confusion of such rapid change:
It seems a century has passed, or just one week!
What week? A single day!
Its editor, Boris Dralyuk, wonderfully contextualizes each group of two or three writers, bringing the reader into a literary scene marked by circles like families into which these works were born.
In general, the poems in this volume are more well-known than the fiction. Poets can respond very quickly to changes in events, where fiction writers often take years to ‘digest’ events. Many of these poets were already in their maturity at the time of the Revolution in what’s known as the Silver Age of Russian literature (Pushkin’s being the Golden).
Here are the fiery, iconoclastic Tsvetaeva, the decadent, rancorous Zinaida Gippius, and the clarity of deeply cultured Mandelstam. There’s a beautiful translation of his famous “Let’s praise O brothers, liberty’s dim light...”
the great and somber year!
A forest of thick snares is plunged
into the boiling waters of the night.
You are ascending into god-forsaken years,
O people—sun and judge.
....
We have bound swallows
into warring legions—now
we cannot see the sun...
Here’s the grave, brave dignity of Anna Akhmatova, in a stunning new translation of one of her most famous poems--“When the nation, suicidal...”--a poem about the temptation to emigrate:
“I heard a voice. It called to me.
“come here,” it spoke consolingly,
“and leave your senseless, sinful land,
abandon Russia for all time.
I’ll scrub your hands free of the blood,
I’ll take away your bitter shame,
I’ll soothe the pain of loss
and insults with a brand new name.”
But cool and calm, I stopped my ears,
refused to hear it,
not letting that unworthy speech
defile my grieving spirit.”
There are also worker-poets like Gerasimov, including his beautiful poem, “Iron Flowers”:
“I forged my iron flowers/
beneath a workshop’s smoky dome—"
Most impressive, there are two brand new full-length translations of the great Silver Age poet Aleksander Blok’s monumental long-poems The Twelve and The Scythians. The Twelve, about twelve Red Guardsmen making their tour of Revolutionary Petrograd (St. Petersburg) streets during a blizzard, uses the language of the street and the Revolution in a brand new way, and it seems less obscure in this translation than it usually does. And the lesser-known poem, The Scythians, about Russia’s historical role to be a buffer between Europe and the invading Mongols, is Blok going out in a blaze of glory.
For me, the jewel of the poetry section, and probably the book as a whole, is a single translation--Pasternak’s “Spring Rain.” Pasternak as a nature poet was every bit the equal of rambunctious Yesenin, yet more than that golden hooligan, Pasternak was a deep, cultured, subtle thinker to rival Mandelstam, with an enormous heart all his own.
Although Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago, his great novel about the Revolution, published in the 1960’s in the West, shows much of his poetic ability, and his descriptions of nature are always glorious, I often find his poetry difficult. This translation of “Spring Rain” helped me get my mind around Pasternak the poet and how he writes. He’s like a garden laid out by a master, so that the whole isn’t visible from any one point, you have to walk down its paths, and let it unfold for you slowly, until you can take in the whole.
“It grinned to the bird-cherry, sobbed and soaked
the gloss of carriages, the flutter of pines
Under the bulging moon, fiddlers in single file
make their way to the theater. Citizens, form lines!
Puddles on stone. Like a throat full of tears,
deep in the heart of a rose’s furnace
damp diamonds burn, and on them, on clouds,
on eyelids, the wet lash of happiness...
The second half of 1917 is devoted to prose work. It would be a few years before the great novels and collections about the Revolution would began to emerge. Yet Boris Dralyuk has found wonderful examples of stories and other prose from the period, such as the ascerbic humorist Teffi, who makes her appearance with two pieces. One “A few Words about Lenin,” certainly will sound familiar:
“...actually, if Lenin were to talk about a meeting at which he, Zinoviev, Kamenev and five horses were present, he would say, ‘There were eight of us.’”
In a short story “The Guillotine,” Teffi presents an absurdist little tale about how the bourgeoisie makes way for its own destruction. It begins as a friend of the family drops in at dinnertime and is invited to stay:
“No, I can’t. I’m in a hurry. I only popped in to say goodbye. I’m due to be guillotined tomorrow.”
“But Vera darling!” we exclaimed. “What a wonderful coincidence. We’re all scheduled for tomorrow!”
“Spend the night at my place,” I said. “We can all go together...”
“Sasha and Yasha” by Kuprin is a classic, its heroes a pilot and his little sister’s pet stuffed monkey which becomes his totem. “The Drum” by Kataev, which follows a boy in cadet school who joins the school orchestra so he can visit his girlfriend an extra hour a week, shows the sudden changes in the boys' lives as the revolution breaks out. There’s a sobering small essay by Bulgakov, who fought on the White side in the South, and a furious little piece by Zoshchenko, who later became a well-known humorist, bemoaning the worship of the strong--very resonant for our times. Stories by Zamiatin, Alexander Grin, and Prishvin, were other favorites in the collection.
It is a gripping and emotionally challenging experience to read these Russian writers struggling with and reacting to the turmoil of their times exactly one hundred years ago, and to see many of the same issues which are coming back to haunt us in different clothing.
The late twenties were full of marvelous books about the Revolution and the Civil War, such as Babel’s Red Cavalry and Bulgakov’s White Guard, novels and poetry written from both the émigré and the Soviet perspective. But this book fills a unique place on the bookshelf because it helps us understand how it feels to be in the midst of such overwhelming change, without any idea how it will all settle out. It’s a lot like being in a rollover car accident as everything you’ve tossed onto the floor begins to rain down your head. The immediacy of these poems and short fictions is what grabs you, the way people tried to understand what was happening as the events were occurring. It speaks a lot to our own time of unbelieveably rapid political shifts, and how one might find something to say about this experience. 2017 is the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution and the echoes to the present day are everywhere.
The book's poems and fictions are grouped in fascinating and surprising ways. Certain writers one would never think of in the same breath—like the cosmopolitan, openly homosexual Mikhail Kuzmin and the precocious bad-boy peasant poet Sergei Yesenin, yet their poems both embrace the revolution and are invigorated by it, though Kuzmin perfectly exemplifies the confusion of such rapid change:
It seems a century has passed, or just one week!
What week? A single day!
Its editor, Boris Dralyuk, wonderfully contextualizes each group of two or three writers, bringing the reader into a literary scene marked by circles like families into which these works were born.
In general, the poems in this volume are more well-known than the fiction. Poets can respond very quickly to changes in events, where fiction writers often take years to ‘digest’ events. Many of these poets were already in their maturity at the time of the Revolution in what’s known as the Silver Age of Russian literature (Pushkin’s being the Golden).
Here are the fiery, iconoclastic Tsvetaeva, the decadent, rancorous Zinaida Gippius, and the clarity of deeply cultured Mandelstam. There’s a beautiful translation of his famous “Let’s praise O brothers, liberty’s dim light...”
the great and somber year!
A forest of thick snares is plunged
into the boiling waters of the night.
You are ascending into god-forsaken years,
O people—sun and judge.
....
We have bound swallows
into warring legions—now
we cannot see the sun...
Here’s the grave, brave dignity of Anna Akhmatova, in a stunning new translation of one of her most famous poems--“When the nation, suicidal...”--a poem about the temptation to emigrate:
“I heard a voice. It called to me.
“come here,” it spoke consolingly,
“and leave your senseless, sinful land,
abandon Russia for all time.
I’ll scrub your hands free of the blood,
I’ll take away your bitter shame,
I’ll soothe the pain of loss
and insults with a brand new name.”
But cool and calm, I stopped my ears,
refused to hear it,
not letting that unworthy speech
defile my grieving spirit.”
There are also worker-poets like Gerasimov, including his beautiful poem, “Iron Flowers”:
“I forged my iron flowers/
beneath a workshop’s smoky dome—"
Most impressive, there are two brand new full-length translations of the great Silver Age poet Aleksander Blok’s monumental long-poems The Twelve and The Scythians. The Twelve, about twelve Red Guardsmen making their tour of Revolutionary Petrograd (St. Petersburg) streets during a blizzard, uses the language of the street and the Revolution in a brand new way, and it seems less obscure in this translation than it usually does. And the lesser-known poem, The Scythians, about Russia’s historical role to be a buffer between Europe and the invading Mongols, is Blok going out in a blaze of glory.
For me, the jewel of the poetry section, and probably the book as a whole, is a single translation--Pasternak’s “Spring Rain.” Pasternak as a nature poet was every bit the equal of rambunctious Yesenin, yet more than that golden hooligan, Pasternak was a deep, cultured, subtle thinker to rival Mandelstam, with an enormous heart all his own.
Although Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago, his great novel about the Revolution, published in the 1960’s in the West, shows much of his poetic ability, and his descriptions of nature are always glorious, I often find his poetry difficult. This translation of “Spring Rain” helped me get my mind around Pasternak the poet and how he writes. He’s like a garden laid out by a master, so that the whole isn’t visible from any one point, you have to walk down its paths, and let it unfold for you slowly, until you can take in the whole.
“It grinned to the bird-cherry, sobbed and soaked
the gloss of carriages, the flutter of pines
Under the bulging moon, fiddlers in single file
make their way to the theater. Citizens, form lines!
Puddles on stone. Like a throat full of tears,
deep in the heart of a rose’s furnace
damp diamonds burn, and on them, on clouds,
on eyelids, the wet lash of happiness...
The second half of 1917 is devoted to prose work. It would be a few years before the great novels and collections about the Revolution would began to emerge. Yet Boris Dralyuk has found wonderful examples of stories and other prose from the period, such as the ascerbic humorist Teffi, who makes her appearance with two pieces. One “A few Words about Lenin,” certainly will sound familiar:
“...actually, if Lenin were to talk about a meeting at which he, Zinoviev, Kamenev and five horses were present, he would say, ‘There were eight of us.’”
In a short story “The Guillotine,” Teffi presents an absurdist little tale about how the bourgeoisie makes way for its own destruction. It begins as a friend of the family drops in at dinnertime and is invited to stay:
“No, I can’t. I’m in a hurry. I only popped in to say goodbye. I’m due to be guillotined tomorrow.”
“But Vera darling!” we exclaimed. “What a wonderful coincidence. We’re all scheduled for tomorrow!”
“Spend the night at my place,” I said. “We can all go together...”
“Sasha and Yasha” by Kuprin is a classic, its heroes a pilot and his little sister’s pet stuffed monkey which becomes his totem. “The Drum” by Kataev, which follows a boy in cadet school who joins the school orchestra so he can visit his girlfriend an extra hour a week, shows the sudden changes in the boys' lives as the revolution breaks out. There’s a sobering small essay by Bulgakov, who fought on the White side in the South, and a furious little piece by Zoshchenko, who later became a well-known humorist, bemoaning the worship of the strong--very resonant for our times. Stories by Zamiatin, Alexander Grin, and Prishvin, were other favorites in the collection.
It is a gripping and emotionally challenging experience to read these Russian writers struggling with and reacting to the turmoil of their times exactly one hundred years ago, and to see many of the same issues which are coming back to haunt us in different clothing.
October 30, 2016
4,5 stars.
I'm a bit like Bob Dylan at the moment. Speechless.
A wonderful collection of excellent prose.
I'm not a regular non-fiction & anthologies reader. But I enormously enjoyed this collection.
I saw some names that mean a lot to me, and I became curious. Russian Soviet classic in English? Why not? The end result: I stayed AWAKE the half of the night. I was hooked, I was amazed, I was proud to be able also to read ALL of these authors in the original language. But I have to admit that I didn't know many names, and I googled and as a result -I learned a lot.
And OMG how UP TO DATE these stories are!..
Boris Dralyuk made a great job. The important historical facts that give insights into this turbulent and fateful period of time, that filled the places between the stories and poems, and brilliantly chosen literary fragments...WOW.
I'm a bit like Bob Dylan at the moment. Speechless.
A wonderful collection of excellent prose.
I'm not a regular non-fiction & anthologies reader. But I enormously enjoyed this collection.
I saw some names that mean a lot to me, and I became curious. Russian Soviet classic in English? Why not? The end result: I stayed AWAKE the half of the night. I was hooked, I was amazed, I was proud to be able also to read ALL of these authors in the original language. But I have to admit that I didn't know many names, and I googled and as a result -I learned a lot.
And OMG how UP TO DATE these stories are!..
Boris Dralyuk made a great job. The important historical facts that give insights into this turbulent and fateful period of time, that filled the places between the stories and poems, and brilliantly chosen literary fragments...WOW.
January 12, 2017
POETRY
Marina Tsvetaeva
Zinaida Gippius
Osip Mandelstam
Anna Akhmatova
Boris Pasternak
Mikhail Kuzmin
Sergey Esenin
Mikhail Gerasimov
Vladimir Kirillov
Aleksey Kraysky
Andrey Bely
Alexander Blok
Titsian Tabidze
Pavlo Tychyna
Vladimir Mayakovsky
PROSE
Alexander Kuprin
Valentin Kataev
Aleksandr Serafimovich
Dovid Bergelson
Teffi
Vasily Rozanov
Aleksey Remizov
Yefim Zozulya
Yevgeny Zamyatin
Aleksandr Grin
Mikhail Prishvin
Mikhail Zoshchenko
Mikhail Bulgakov
Marina Tsvetaeva
Zinaida Gippius
Osip Mandelstam
Anna Akhmatova
Boris Pasternak
Mikhail Kuzmin
Sergey Esenin
Mikhail Gerasimov
Vladimir Kirillov
Aleksey Kraysky
Andrey Bely
Alexander Blok
Titsian Tabidze
Pavlo Tychyna
Vladimir Mayakovsky
PROSE
Alexander Kuprin
Valentin Kataev
Aleksandr Serafimovich
Dovid Bergelson
Teffi
Vasily Rozanov
Aleksey Remizov
Yefim Zozulya
Yevgeny Zamyatin
Aleksandr Grin
Mikhail Prishvin
Mikhail Zoshchenko
Mikhail Bulgakov
February 6, 2017
I received my DRC for this collection courtesy of Net Galley and Pushkin Press. I thank them for the opportunity to read and review; this compilation of poetry and prose will be for sale on December 13, 2016. What a crying shame it’s so negative.
There are a few of us left out here—dinosaurs, to be sure—that regard the initial two or three years of the Russian Revolution as an inspirational time, a time when the working class and the Russian peasantry cast off their shackles, ran the brutal, entitled royal family and their minions out of power and eventually to a richly deserved death, and took control of their lives and their nation. When I saw this collection, I believed that this perspective would be represented here somewhere.
Instead, we read poetry about the Tsar’s wine. Oh, no! They destroyed all that expensive wine! Give me a break. Millions of peasants freed from bondage, and all we hear about is the wine casks, and some sorrowful reflections that lament the defeat of the Mensheviks—the party that tried to halt the progress of the revolution and create a bourgeois democratic state. All those sorrowful White Russians weeping into their vodka.
Do I have a bias? Of course I do, but unlike our editor here, I admit mine. The introduction to this thing, which is overlong and somewhat duplicitous, tells us that rather than relate the various political positions that were held during this cataclysmic time, we should instead look at feelings, at experiences. But everyone’s feelings during this tremendous upheaval, a time when the news footage at the time of the revolution shows throngs of joyful Russian workers screaming with enthusiasm, is apparently either sorrowful—aw geez, the poor royals—or conflicted. Not one person is glad it happened.
Poetry and prose are, at their root, political, and in rewriting history, Dralyuk demonstrates this. This collection is revisionist dross.
One other comment I’d make is that when editors decide to republish historic writing, they are often deluded as to how much of their own prose readers are looking for. For every piece, for every author, there is way too much introductory narrative. I really just want to read the work itself, not so much Dralyuk’s discussion of them. Had I enjoyed most of the poetry and prose, I would have upgraded this review to three stars and stated that it is hard to find the original work amidst the rambling discussion. Generally, the poem is short, the introduction is long; lather, rinse, repeat. The same is true of the prose.
So to those lonely Marxists out there hoping for literature, for poetry that’s in English and available readily in the US, I have to say, put that plastic away, because this isn’t that.
There are a few of us left out here—dinosaurs, to be sure—that regard the initial two or three years of the Russian Revolution as an inspirational time, a time when the working class and the Russian peasantry cast off their shackles, ran the brutal, entitled royal family and their minions out of power and eventually to a richly deserved death, and took control of their lives and their nation. When I saw this collection, I believed that this perspective would be represented here somewhere.
Instead, we read poetry about the Tsar’s wine. Oh, no! They destroyed all that expensive wine! Give me a break. Millions of peasants freed from bondage, and all we hear about is the wine casks, and some sorrowful reflections that lament the defeat of the Mensheviks—the party that tried to halt the progress of the revolution and create a bourgeois democratic state. All those sorrowful White Russians weeping into their vodka.
Do I have a bias? Of course I do, but unlike our editor here, I admit mine. The introduction to this thing, which is overlong and somewhat duplicitous, tells us that rather than relate the various political positions that were held during this cataclysmic time, we should instead look at feelings, at experiences. But everyone’s feelings during this tremendous upheaval, a time when the news footage at the time of the revolution shows throngs of joyful Russian workers screaming with enthusiasm, is apparently either sorrowful—aw geez, the poor royals—or conflicted. Not one person is glad it happened.
Poetry and prose are, at their root, political, and in rewriting history, Dralyuk demonstrates this. This collection is revisionist dross.
One other comment I’d make is that when editors decide to republish historic writing, they are often deluded as to how much of their own prose readers are looking for. For every piece, for every author, there is way too much introductory narrative. I really just want to read the work itself, not so much Dralyuk’s discussion of them. Had I enjoyed most of the poetry and prose, I would have upgraded this review to three stars and stated that it is hard to find the original work amidst the rambling discussion. Generally, the poem is short, the introduction is long; lather, rinse, repeat. The same is true of the prose.
So to those lonely Marxists out there hoping for literature, for poetry that’s in English and available readily in the US, I have to say, put that plastic away, because this isn’t that.
March 28, 2017
ARC review
4.5 ... tantalising in a good way. I loved this anthology of writings from the time of the Russian Revolution and the two years after: the immediacy of reactions, and seeing the variety of opinion and genre that was around at the time. I took a while to get around to this ARC, and as a result feel there is not much to add in terms of description to Warwick's excellent review of it from October last year: simply that I am overwhelmingly positive about the decision to include only works from in the thick of it, 1917-19, which gives it a fantastic rawness that makes it compelling in general, and perhaps especially so at a time of political upheaval which was likely barely envisaged at the time the project was started.
I was delighted that pulpier writings were in the anthology, not only the Silver Age greats one would expect like Bulgakov, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva et al. These pageturners were all in the form of adventure stories likely to appeal to boys - those who argue that genre romance does not get its critical due to the same extent as stories for a male market would not be pleased, but adventure seems inherently more likely to include current political events at a level of detail relevant to a collection like this one.
Also adding to the readability is having lively short essays / introductions to each set of two or three authors; the switch between fiction and non, and always having context in front, rather than hidden in footnotes. This would be an excellent commuting read.
[not finished - awaiting further quotes & notes to be added
4.5 ... tantalising in a good way. I loved this anthology of writings from the time of the Russian Revolution and the two years after: the immediacy of reactions, and seeing the variety of opinion and genre that was around at the time. I took a while to get around to this ARC, and as a result feel there is not much to add in terms of description to Warwick's excellent review of it from October last year: simply that I am overwhelmingly positive about the decision to include only works from in the thick of it, 1917-19, which gives it a fantastic rawness that makes it compelling in general, and perhaps especially so at a time of political upheaval which was likely barely envisaged at the time the project was started.
I was delighted that pulpier writings were in the anthology, not only the Silver Age greats one would expect like Bulgakov, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva et al. These pageturners were all in the form of adventure stories likely to appeal to boys - those who argue that genre romance does not get its critical due to the same extent as stories for a male market would not be pleased, but adventure seems inherently more likely to include current political events at a level of detail relevant to a collection like this one.
Also adding to the readability is having lively short essays / introductions to each set of two or three authors; the switch between fiction and non, and always having context in front, rather than hidden in footnotes. This would be an excellent commuting read.
[not finished - awaiting further quotes & notes to be added
December 11, 2016
In college I took a class in Russian Literature of the Silver Age. This is the period of the late 19th/early 20th century when Russian literature reached impressive creative heights. It was such an enlightening course, and introduced me to many of the names that come up in this collection: Tsvetaeva, Mayakovsky, Gippius, Blok, Bely, Gumilev, and of course, Akhmatova – all the regulars, once you’re familiar with the period. It also inspired in me a deep love for any writing coming out of this era, so much so that my heart really does skip a beat when I read or see anything connected to it, like with this title. I hope this collection might bring that passion for this literary sphere to other readers. It’s an excellent sampling of selected works of all of the luminaries I mentioned and many others, both household names even in the English-speaking literary world (Pasternak, Bulgakov) and the lesser known but influential.
The editor, Boris Dralyuk, acts as a curator and separates the pieces thematically, singling out common themes that relate to the works of this period and tie to the historical events the authors found themselves living through. Each section begins with some academic background providing context for what was going on and about the authors themselves – their specific kind of work, connection to the revolution and its events, perception of their work. This makes the collection very accessible even to anyone who has zero background or previous knowledge of the era or this type of literature.
I was interested in reading it for the poetry, to see some different translations of pieces I already knew and hopefully come across some new ones, but the prose was excellent as well. The Remizov and Bulgakov pieces are completely excellent. In addition to much of that particularly Russian sense of dark gallows humor paired with the ridiculous, I noticed the theme, over and over, of Russia as a distinct personality and the authors in mourning for what has been suffered and endured with hopes for healing and a return to normalcy in the future. There’s a strong, often uneasy sense of foreboding in every selection here, knowing as we do what was still to come. But this collection is so evocative of the time, the fear and uncertainty and the kind of anticipatory electricity in the air before a storm.
I would’ve liked a little more emphasis on poetry – sometimes after reading the introductory section buildup I was disappointed when there were only a few poems in the section. But it’s also because I’m in love with poetry of this era and always want to read more and different translations. And I think there are some poems that are even a bit more evocative of the times, the tension, and the atmosphere than what’s included here. I would’ve liked to have seen more. But overall, a great collection for both the newly curious and familiar readers in time for the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.
I received an advance copy courtesy of the publisher for review.
The editor, Boris Dralyuk, acts as a curator and separates the pieces thematically, singling out common themes that relate to the works of this period and tie to the historical events the authors found themselves living through. Each section begins with some academic background providing context for what was going on and about the authors themselves – their specific kind of work, connection to the revolution and its events, perception of their work. This makes the collection very accessible even to anyone who has zero background or previous knowledge of the era or this type of literature.
I was interested in reading it for the poetry, to see some different translations of pieces I already knew and hopefully come across some new ones, but the prose was excellent as well. The Remizov and Bulgakov pieces are completely excellent. In addition to much of that particularly Russian sense of dark gallows humor paired with the ridiculous, I noticed the theme, over and over, of Russia as a distinct personality and the authors in mourning for what has been suffered and endured with hopes for healing and a return to normalcy in the future. There’s a strong, often uneasy sense of foreboding in every selection here, knowing as we do what was still to come. But this collection is so evocative of the time, the fear and uncertainty and the kind of anticipatory electricity in the air before a storm.
I would’ve liked a little more emphasis on poetry – sometimes after reading the introductory section buildup I was disappointed when there were only a few poems in the section. But it’s also because I’m in love with poetry of this era and always want to read more and different translations. And I think there are some poems that are even a bit more evocative of the times, the tension, and the atmosphere than what’s included here. I would’ve liked to have seen more. But overall, a great collection for both the newly curious and familiar readers in time for the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.
I received an advance copy courtesy of the publisher for review.
October 21, 2016
'1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution' by Various Authors, edited by Boris Dralyuk
3.5 stars/ 7 out of 10
I have read several books already about the Russian Revolution, and was interested in reading this volume in order to expand my knowledge of this era.
The first third of the book is poetry. The poems are arranged into six sections; each has an introduction regarding the poets in that section, placing them in context (not only covering the period of the poems, but also relating to the rest of their lives). I found these introductions very clear and very interesting.
Whilst some of the poets, such as Akhmatova and Mandelstam, were known to me, many of them were new to me. I was pleased to have this opportunity to read samples of so many poets' work. However I don't feel the urge to read anything further by any of these 'new' poets. My favourite poem of them all was 'The Twelve' by Alexander Blok.
The second part of the book is prose works, again with explanatory introductions to each section. (Although the title of the book suggests that these works are all fiction, several of them are not.) This part was much more interesting than I expected. It ranged from the acerbic nature of 'The Guillotine' by Teffi, to the drama of Zamyatin's 'The Dragon'.
I found this volume interesting and informative.
Thank you to Pushkin Press and to NetGalley for an ARC.
December 21, 2024
This is a marvellous anthology of poetry and prose which were created in 1917 in the immediate aftermath of the February but previous to the October revolutions. It is a marvellous unmediated writing/responses of Russians from all walks of life to the events of that tumultuous year. They are voices we in the West who don't read Russian almost never hear. That Mr. Dralyuk provides an introduction to each piece and its author makes it priceless in terms of context. When I was much, much younger I read everything I could on the revolutionary period (this was long before the demise of the Soviet Union) and I would have loved to have had access to this volume then.
I don't see any point in the listing of all those authors in this anthology nor providing summaries of individual pieces, there are some very fine mainstream and GR reviews which will give you all the detail you need. Let me assure you this is a must read for anyone interested in Russian literature or in Russian history of the revolutionary period.
I don't see any point in the listing of all those authors in this anthology nor providing summaries of individual pieces, there are some very fine mainstream and GR reviews which will give you all the detail you need. Let me assure you this is a must read for anyone interested in Russian literature or in Russian history of the revolutionary period.
March 31, 2017
Reviewed here: https://mayareadsbooks.wordpress.com/...
Boris Dralyuk (bdraluk on WordPress) has put together an amazing anthology of contemporaneous writing from the 1917 Russian Revolution and its immediate aftermath. It opens with the suspicious Marina Tsvetaeva’s post-February poem “You stepped from a stately cathedral”–the “you” is Freedom itself, and Tsvetaeva’s not sure she’s all she’s cracked up to be–and ends with Mikhail Bulgakov’s angry, despairing, yet overly optimistic Civil War-era essay “Future Prospects” (he predicts the British will aid the Whites and the Whites will win, but that it will take a long time to restore the standard of living and catch up with the recovering Western Europe). In between are poems and short stories and essays from all over the political spectrum. The quality of the poetry is generally higher than that of the prose (Bulgakov’s article is kind of a mess, and I wonder if it would have been included if not for his later work), but the prose introduces us a variety of lesser-known-in-the-West writers and gives voice to the defeated–as Dralyuk points out, the literature of the Red side really came into its own in the 20’s, outside the scope of this anthology (thus, no Babel, a writer Dralyuk has translated extensively elsewhere).
In the poetry section, the undoubted standout is Peter France and Jon Stallworthy’s translation “Spring Rain,” a beautiful poem from the hard-to-translate Boris Pasternak. It’s a lyric about the rain and the crowd going to the theater, but it’s also about the feelings evoked by the February Revolution, feelings of amazement, pride, and beauty. Stallworthy and France really unfolded the genius of Pasternak’s poetry for me, and even if I have a few quibbles here and there, I am in awe of their ability to make the translation a great poem in English in its own right. Their version of the poem ends:
“Not the night, not the rain, not the chorus
shouting “Hurrah, Kerensky!” but now
the blinding emergence into the forum
from catacombs thought to have no way out.
Not roses, not mouths, not the roar
of crowds, but here, in the forum, is felt
the surf of Europe’s wavering night
proud of itself on our asphalt.”
Alexander Blok is represented here by “The Twelve” and “The Scythians”, the latter in a rhyming translation by Alex Miller. Though it depends on the opposition of East and West which normally drives me crazy, and though its language is dated in places–the term “slit-eyed” recurs–it’s a powerful piece, a plea for peace and a threat all in one, calling on war-torn Europe to “hear the summons of the barbarian lyre” which is simultaneously “the ritual feast and fire/of peace and brotherhood!”
“You have forgotten there’s a love on Earth
that burns like fire, and like all fire, destroys…
…We love raw flesh, its colour and its stench.
We love to taste it in our hungry maws.
Are we to blame, then, if your ribs should crunch,
fragile between our massive, gentle paws?”
The prose section is, as I said, more mixed. Privshin’s “The Blue Banner”, mentioned in the Wuthering Expectations review of the anthology and translated by Lisa Hayden of Lizok's Bookshelf, was definitely a discovery. Though I was initially frustrated with its folksiness and slice-of-life style, it soon shaped up into an interesting allegory as the hapless main character travels to revolutionary Petrograd, winds up jailed by the Bolsheviks on transparently false charges of “marauding”, hears of a plan to recruit “godly” thugs to save Russia, and later becomes a marauder in truth (albeit that his gang consists of his delusional self and one drunk guy). The author was a nature writer and he represents the city itself as a deadly place full of traps both physical and moral.
I also enjoyed the humorous stories of Teffi–I couldn’t help but do so, even when the humor was really not my sort of thing. “The Guillotine” was translated by Rose France, and satirizes the middle class, obsessed with trivialities and minor inconveniences but seemingly indifferent to their own doom. At the end, the guillotine victims, distressed by the lack of orderly queuing, think about forming a union–“Why should it only be other people who enjoy the perks of being guillotine operators?” It’s a dark commentary on human nature, but very funny. “A Few Words About Lenin” was also translated by Rose France, and it’s a very cutting portrait of a party and a politician who are unscrupulous and also incompetent–failing to anticipate events or spot agents provocateurs, unable to deal with situations not described by Marx and Engels. She also goes after their taking advantage of their supporters’ illiteracy, describing a soldier who, hearing the slogan “Down with annexations!” believes it refers to a woman named Anne Exations. I have no doubt that something like this anecdote must have happened (unlike the joke about soldiers in 1825 thinking that the Constitution they were demanding was the wife of Constantine) but, much like that joke, it’s not actually funny when you think about it. Anyway, my personal gripe about political and actual illiteracy not being funny aside, Teffi’s wit and powers of observation are wonderful.
Yefim Zozulya’s “The Story of Ak and Humanity” is a great satire on dictators, their arbitrariness, sentimentality, illogic, and ultimate insignificance (“But the people, among whom there were some good men, some of indifferent quality and some very poor human material–they continue to live to this day as if Ak had never existed and there had never been any perplexing problem about the Right to Life.”). The name “Council of Public Welfare” in the story is clearly a mix between the Soviets, or more literally Councils, of 1917 and the Committee of Public Welfare from the French Revolution. The translation was done by Emma Goldman’s partner, the anarchist Alexander Berkman.
In “The Dragon”, Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of We, which I recently reviewed here, showcases his imaginative powers but doesn’t really tell a complete story–there’s something ultimately unsatisfying about his sketch of a city beset by dragons of the void, who speak in the Bolsheviks’ slangy, casually violent idiom. This piece is translated by Mirra Ginsburg.
Mikhail Zoshchenko’s “A Wonderful Audacity”, translated by Rose France, is built around a simple idea–the country wanted a “strong” government, and in the Bolshevik dictatorship, it got it. Be careful what you wish for. Punchy one and two sentence paragraphs and simple yet vivid rhetoric make his point.
“They were weak; and you cried, “Stronger!”
And now your wish is granted. Kiss the whip that is raised above you.
It’s cruel, you say? Yes, but, on the other hand, it is powerful?
There is a lot of blood, you say?
Perhaps there is. Perhaps there is.
But then again, not so much that we shall drown in it….”
Boris Dralyuk (bdraluk on WordPress) has put together an amazing anthology of contemporaneous writing from the 1917 Russian Revolution and its immediate aftermath. It opens with the suspicious Marina Tsvetaeva’s post-February poem “You stepped from a stately cathedral”–the “you” is Freedom itself, and Tsvetaeva’s not sure she’s all she’s cracked up to be–and ends with Mikhail Bulgakov’s angry, despairing, yet overly optimistic Civil War-era essay “Future Prospects” (he predicts the British will aid the Whites and the Whites will win, but that it will take a long time to restore the standard of living and catch up with the recovering Western Europe). In between are poems and short stories and essays from all over the political spectrum. The quality of the poetry is generally higher than that of the prose (Bulgakov’s article is kind of a mess, and I wonder if it would have been included if not for his later work), but the prose introduces us a variety of lesser-known-in-the-West writers and gives voice to the defeated–as Dralyuk points out, the literature of the Red side really came into its own in the 20’s, outside the scope of this anthology (thus, no Babel, a writer Dralyuk has translated extensively elsewhere).
In the poetry section, the undoubted standout is Peter France and Jon Stallworthy’s translation “Spring Rain,” a beautiful poem from the hard-to-translate Boris Pasternak. It’s a lyric about the rain and the crowd going to the theater, but it’s also about the feelings evoked by the February Revolution, feelings of amazement, pride, and beauty. Stallworthy and France really unfolded the genius of Pasternak’s poetry for me, and even if I have a few quibbles here and there, I am in awe of their ability to make the translation a great poem in English in its own right. Their version of the poem ends:
“Not the night, not the rain, not the chorus
shouting “Hurrah, Kerensky!” but now
the blinding emergence into the forum
from catacombs thought to have no way out.
Not roses, not mouths, not the roar
of crowds, but here, in the forum, is felt
the surf of Europe’s wavering night
proud of itself on our asphalt.”
Alexander Blok is represented here by “The Twelve” and “The Scythians”, the latter in a rhyming translation by Alex Miller. Though it depends on the opposition of East and West which normally drives me crazy, and though its language is dated in places–the term “slit-eyed” recurs–it’s a powerful piece, a plea for peace and a threat all in one, calling on war-torn Europe to “hear the summons of the barbarian lyre” which is simultaneously “the ritual feast and fire/of peace and brotherhood!”
“You have forgotten there’s a love on Earth
that burns like fire, and like all fire, destroys…
…We love raw flesh, its colour and its stench.
We love to taste it in our hungry maws.
Are we to blame, then, if your ribs should crunch,
fragile between our massive, gentle paws?”
The prose section is, as I said, more mixed. Privshin’s “The Blue Banner”, mentioned in the Wuthering Expectations review of the anthology and translated by Lisa Hayden of Lizok's Bookshelf, was definitely a discovery. Though I was initially frustrated with its folksiness and slice-of-life style, it soon shaped up into an interesting allegory as the hapless main character travels to revolutionary Petrograd, winds up jailed by the Bolsheviks on transparently false charges of “marauding”, hears of a plan to recruit “godly” thugs to save Russia, and later becomes a marauder in truth (albeit that his gang consists of his delusional self and one drunk guy). The author was a nature writer and he represents the city itself as a deadly place full of traps both physical and moral.
I also enjoyed the humorous stories of Teffi–I couldn’t help but do so, even when the humor was really not my sort of thing. “The Guillotine” was translated by Rose France, and satirizes the middle class, obsessed with trivialities and minor inconveniences but seemingly indifferent to their own doom. At the end, the guillotine victims, distressed by the lack of orderly queuing, think about forming a union–“Why should it only be other people who enjoy the perks of being guillotine operators?” It’s a dark commentary on human nature, but very funny. “A Few Words About Lenin” was also translated by Rose France, and it’s a very cutting portrait of a party and a politician who are unscrupulous and also incompetent–failing to anticipate events or spot agents provocateurs, unable to deal with situations not described by Marx and Engels. She also goes after their taking advantage of their supporters’ illiteracy, describing a soldier who, hearing the slogan “Down with annexations!” believes it refers to a woman named Anne Exations. I have no doubt that something like this anecdote must have happened (unlike the joke about soldiers in 1825 thinking that the Constitution they were demanding was the wife of Constantine) but, much like that joke, it’s not actually funny when you think about it. Anyway, my personal gripe about political and actual illiteracy not being funny aside, Teffi’s wit and powers of observation are wonderful.
Yefim Zozulya’s “The Story of Ak and Humanity” is a great satire on dictators, their arbitrariness, sentimentality, illogic, and ultimate insignificance (“But the people, among whom there were some good men, some of indifferent quality and some very poor human material–they continue to live to this day as if Ak had never existed and there had never been any perplexing problem about the Right to Life.”). The name “Council of Public Welfare” in the story is clearly a mix between the Soviets, or more literally Councils, of 1917 and the Committee of Public Welfare from the French Revolution. The translation was done by Emma Goldman’s partner, the anarchist Alexander Berkman.
In “The Dragon”, Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of We, which I recently reviewed here, showcases his imaginative powers but doesn’t really tell a complete story–there’s something ultimately unsatisfying about his sketch of a city beset by dragons of the void, who speak in the Bolsheviks’ slangy, casually violent idiom. This piece is translated by Mirra Ginsburg.
Mikhail Zoshchenko’s “A Wonderful Audacity”, translated by Rose France, is built around a simple idea–the country wanted a “strong” government, and in the Bolshevik dictatorship, it got it. Be careful what you wish for. Punchy one and two sentence paragraphs and simple yet vivid rhetoric make his point.
“They were weak; and you cried, “Stronger!”
And now your wish is granted. Kiss the whip that is raised above you.
It’s cruel, you say? Yes, but, on the other hand, it is powerful?
There is a lot of blood, you say?
Perhaps there is. Perhaps there is.
But then again, not so much that we shall drown in it….”
October 7, 2021
An interesting collection of poetry and short stories that gives a contemporary glimpse of the Russian Revolution. This book’s aim of exploring the psychology of Russians during the years of the revolution through literature is quite unique, at least to my knowledge, since every work in here was written during the Revolution. The introductions by the editor for each of the works are particularly interesting, serving as short biographies of the poets and writers so as to give you a sense of who they were at the time of the revolution and how they faired. It does have imperfections, the poetry suffers from being translated and not every work in here is of equal quality, but it certainly accomplishes what it sets out to do. Also, some of the works in here are particularly excellent and would warrant 5 stars if reviewed by themselves; here I want to mention in particular Mikhail Gerasimov’s powerful “Iron Flowers” and Teffi’s hilarious dark comedy “The Guillotine”. Therefore, if you are a fan of Russian literature or interested in Russian history, you are certain to enjoy this book.
December 4, 2016
Exactly what it says it is – a collection of poetry and prose written by leading Russian authors at the time of the 1917 revolution. Comprehensive and varied, well-translated, and certainly a treat for Russian literature enthusiasts, it’s also an accessible and enjoyable anthology for those less well acquainted with the writers featured.
October 19, 2025
The premise of this compilation — poems and stories from the years immediately surrounding the Russian revolution — means that this isn't a book focused on celebrating the Bolshevik cause. Instead, it's a diverse compilation, containing works inspired by the turmoil of the day: hope for the future, fear of change, a swirl of political ideologies and opinions on the ongoing struggle. Comprised mostly of works by authors basically unknown in the US today, it was a great window into what writers of the day — on all sides of the conflict — were feeling as the Bolsheviks took power.
October 8, 2020
1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution edited by Borris Dralyuk is a collection of Russian writing from the start of the revolution. Dralyuk is the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is a literary translator and holds a Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from UCLA, where he taught Russian literature for a number of years. He has also taught at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.
Through the 1930s to the fall of the Soviet Union, many writers both inside and exiled from the Soviet Union wrote about the system. Solzhenitsyn's We Never Make Mistakes, Ayn Rand's We the Living, Katayev's Time, Forward, and Babel's Red Cavalry all tell of the Soviet state after it had been established. There is plenty of literature both pro and anti-Soviet written after the state had been created. Dralyuk, however, chooses stories and poetry from 1917 and the Russian Civil War.
Many people do not realize that there were years of civil war between the abdication of Nicholas II and the establishment of the Soviet Union. There is little doubt that the people of Russia wanted change. Flair ups of revolt were a regular part of late Czarist Russia -- Alexander II's Assassination, 1905 Revolution, resistance to WWI. The people wanted change. They demanded change, but the change they found was not what most wanted. Russia was a country where the majority of the population was uneducated. When the Bolsheviks took power in 1917 38% of the male population was literate and only 12.5% of the female population was literate. Russia was a very backward country at the time and the thought of revolution from below seems very improbable.
The poetry and prose reflect this. One writer tells of a street revolutionary yelling to the crowd not to allow “Ann Exations” back into the country. The writer, Teffi, explains the speaker believed annexation was a woman. Likewise, an old woman prays for the 'reactionary hydra" who might raise its head again. The descriptions of the "Wine Riots" show the level of the common person in Russia. It might seem unbelievable but then too almost 1,400 people died in a stampede for free beer at the coronation of Nicholas II. What many expect is hyperbole was reality in Russia. When hyperbole is used it seems to be something from one's wildest imagination. Teffi also writes a story called "Guillotine", dedicated to Trotsky, tells of Russians facing the guillotine in typical Russian fashion, complaining while standing in line and fighting their way to the front.
Not everyone was against the revolution. Mikhail Gerasimov shows the hope of revolution -- "Fed by the dream of Communism I stoked the furnace with new power, intoxicated by its rhythm, I forged iron flowers." Mayakovsky writes of the glories of the revolution. Another writes that among the peasants and soldiers the conversion from Orthodox Christianity to socialism and atheism was as easy as splashing fresh water on themselves in a bath house -- a new baptism and new faith easily accepted.
Russia is a country that one writer called “Cain’s land” rather than the favored Abel’s land. Dralyuk captures this aspect of Russia by putting together a collection literature encompassing both sides of the Russian Civil War and the chaos that ensued. It is easy to look back at history and write about it. Here writers and poets wrote something akin to live reporting the civil war. Many times we look back at history and wonder, “What were they thinking?” Dralyuk actually shows us what the people were thinking. Perhaps one of the most famous writers to grow out of the period describes the chaos that became Russia. “And so, while over there in the West resounds with the clatter of the machines of creation, our country resounds end to end with the clattering of machine guns.” ~ Mikhail Bulgakov
Through the 1930s to the fall of the Soviet Union, many writers both inside and exiled from the Soviet Union wrote about the system. Solzhenitsyn's We Never Make Mistakes, Ayn Rand's We the Living, Katayev's Time, Forward, and Babel's Red Cavalry all tell of the Soviet state after it had been established. There is plenty of literature both pro and anti-Soviet written after the state had been created. Dralyuk, however, chooses stories and poetry from 1917 and the Russian Civil War.
Many people do not realize that there were years of civil war between the abdication of Nicholas II and the establishment of the Soviet Union. There is little doubt that the people of Russia wanted change. Flair ups of revolt were a regular part of late Czarist Russia -- Alexander II's Assassination, 1905 Revolution, resistance to WWI. The people wanted change. They demanded change, but the change they found was not what most wanted. Russia was a country where the majority of the population was uneducated. When the Bolsheviks took power in 1917 38% of the male population was literate and only 12.5% of the female population was literate. Russia was a very backward country at the time and the thought of revolution from below seems very improbable.
The poetry and prose reflect this. One writer tells of a street revolutionary yelling to the crowd not to allow “Ann Exations” back into the country. The writer, Teffi, explains the speaker believed annexation was a woman. Likewise, an old woman prays for the 'reactionary hydra" who might raise its head again. The descriptions of the "Wine Riots" show the level of the common person in Russia. It might seem unbelievable but then too almost 1,400 people died in a stampede for free beer at the coronation of Nicholas II. What many expect is hyperbole was reality in Russia. When hyperbole is used it seems to be something from one's wildest imagination. Teffi also writes a story called "Guillotine", dedicated to Trotsky, tells of Russians facing the guillotine in typical Russian fashion, complaining while standing in line and fighting their way to the front.
Not everyone was against the revolution. Mikhail Gerasimov shows the hope of revolution -- "Fed by the dream of Communism I stoked the furnace with new power, intoxicated by its rhythm, I forged iron flowers." Mayakovsky writes of the glories of the revolution. Another writes that among the peasants and soldiers the conversion from Orthodox Christianity to socialism and atheism was as easy as splashing fresh water on themselves in a bath house -- a new baptism and new faith easily accepted.
Russia is a country that one writer called “Cain’s land” rather than the favored Abel’s land. Dralyuk captures this aspect of Russia by putting together a collection literature encompassing both sides of the Russian Civil War and the chaos that ensued. It is easy to look back at history and write about it. Here writers and poets wrote something akin to live reporting the civil war. Many times we look back at history and wonder, “What were they thinking?” Dralyuk actually shows us what the people were thinking. Perhaps one of the most famous writers to grow out of the period describes the chaos that became Russia. “And so, while over there in the West resounds with the clatter of the machines of creation, our country resounds end to end with the clattering of machine guns.” ~ Mikhail Bulgakov
December 23, 2017
This book approaches a particularly interesting time in Russian history in a new-to-me way: by compiling poetry and prose (fiction and non-fiction) from the first two years of the Revolution. It's a well compiled selection that covers a very broad range of reactions, and humanises the events of the time in a way that purely historical accounts can't. Also gave me a lot of authors to add to my wishlist....
February 12, 2021
A powerful collection -- especially so because editor Boris Dralyuk includes writings from the moment of the Russian Revolution. Although some of the works are uneven, there is an urgency to all of the poetry and prose that conveys what it is like to be writing on the cusp of history. Many of the readers (and some of the writers) would have changed their views over the century, that is what makes this collection all the more valuable.
February 6, 2017
I won this as a Goodreads Giveaway, so firstly thank you!
I have found this to be a most interesting read. Prior to opening this book I had no knowledge of the Russian Revolutions of 1917. To learn about these events through the poetry and prose that has been gathered and wonderfully introduced, and explained by Boris Dralyuk was both engaging and informative.
I have found this to be a most interesting read. Prior to opening this book I had no knowledge of the Russian Revolutions of 1917. To learn about these events through the poetry and prose that has been gathered and wonderfully introduced, and explained by Boris Dralyuk was both engaging and informative.
January 12, 2018
More than an "anniversary" book (100 years on). All the pieces were written about the 1917 revolution, mainly by people who were there. A great selection in which each piece is given a full and useful editorial introduction, making this much more than a mere compendium. Well produced in every way by Pushkin.
April 19, 2023
disappointing bc the topic is very cool and lots of great works in here! But the author introductions which make up 30% of the book (and it’s such a tiny book) just… make me really doubt the selection process politically lol (anti-Bolshevik— understandable but come on). Lots of the poetry didn’t really stir me— Book’s the Twelve and Mayakovsky’s Our March were great exceptions!—though Im already a fan of many of the poets included, so I wonder if it must have been really hard to translate. The choice to only include stuff up to 1917, and have so few works to each serve as the “emblem” of something was, understandable for how short this was, but left me wanting more.
September 9, 2023
Boris Dralyuk’s selected poems and prose from Soviet authors between 1917 and late-1919 divulge the zeitgeist of a county fatigued with war and on the precipice of social upheaval. These works, while sharing an eclectic mix of sentiments in the preceding stages of the Russian Revolution, convey a shared desire to shed the trappings of an old order and to start anew. Their ink is saturated with pangs of revolutionary enthusiasm, zealous anarchy, drunken revelry, workshop toil, and disenchanted progress. They reveal both a nation in swift transition and a populace clamoring for a clean renewal.
September 29, 2025
my issue isn't so much with the collection provided, given the self-imposed restrictions, but with the self-imposed restrictions themselves. obviously there would be a limit to the amount of pro-Tsarist literature post 1920 but there is a scarcity of revolutionary material provided. my feeling on finishing the text is that perhaps texts written in close proximity to an event is more likely to lean towards reactionary, with time being needed to glean more thoughtful/insightful analysis
the guillotine and the story of ak and humanity in particular read, to me at least, as bourgeois slop
one for the pro-Tsarist crowd, which I'm not sure is many people in 2025
the guillotine and the story of ak and humanity in particular read, to me at least, as bourgeois slop
one for the pro-Tsarist crowd, which I'm not sure is many people in 2025
August 25, 2017
Nice try. And I mean it. It has a strong theme. But the story is not that strong. In fact, the collection is quite scholastic.
August 1, 2017
Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This collection of poems and short stories combines literature from the start of the Russian Revolution around 1917 to the Russian Civil War. It features of broad spectrum of authors and opinions, some of them stood wholeheartedly behind the revolution, others only did at first and realized later it was not what they wanted and others again hated what was happening.
The first third of the book consists out of poetry. Before each poems we get a good introduction to the poets’ life and the current political situation in Russia. This definitely added a lot of depth and helped me understand this time period quite a bit better.
The second part of the book consists out of prose and each short story had an explanatory introduction prefacing it. Some of the stories were fictional, others were not. I quite enjoyed reading them, it gave me a very vivid picture of the historical situation in Russia. It sometimes like reading a live report of the civil war and it was an interesting insight in people’s lives.
As I sadly don’t really know anything about the Russian Revolution this collection definitely made me interested in reading more about that time period. It however made it sometimes hard for me to really understand what was going on exactly and I kind of want to read up historical facts about that time period and re-read this anthology. Perhaps I will enjoy it more.
This collection of poems and short stories combines literature from the start of the Russian Revolution around 1917 to the Russian Civil War. It features of broad spectrum of authors and opinions, some of them stood wholeheartedly behind the revolution, others only did at first and realized later it was not what they wanted and others again hated what was happening.
The first third of the book consists out of poetry. Before each poems we get a good introduction to the poets’ life and the current political situation in Russia. This definitely added a lot of depth and helped me understand this time period quite a bit better.
The second part of the book consists out of prose and each short story had an explanatory introduction prefacing it. Some of the stories were fictional, others were not. I quite enjoyed reading them, it gave me a very vivid picture of the historical situation in Russia. It sometimes like reading a live report of the civil war and it was an interesting insight in people’s lives.
As I sadly don’t really know anything about the Russian Revolution this collection definitely made me interested in reading more about that time period. It however made it sometimes hard for me to really understand what was going on exactly and I kind of want to read up historical facts about that time period and re-read this anthology. Perhaps I will enjoy it more.
February 6, 2017
Collection of poetry and short stories relating to the Russian Revolution. I enjoyed the stories more than the poems. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the various characters and political movements of the time, so I would only recommend this book to those who already have a basic knowledge of Russian history.
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