Tangled Loyalties: The Life And Times Of Ilya Ehrenburg

by Joshua Rubenstein

Journalist, novelist, poet - Ilya Ehrenburg (1891-1967) was one of the most important Russian cultural figures of the twentieth century. A political exile from czarist Russia, he spent years in Paris as a bohemian poet and later became Izvestia correspondent in Western Europe. He was one of the few distinguished Soviet writers to survive Stalin. Ehrenburg's 1954 novel, The Thaw lent its name to the critical period following Stalin's death. His memoirs People, Years, Life outraged the Kremlin in the sixties for describing a conspiracy of silence that had prevailed under the dictator. In this groundbreaking biography, Joshua Rubenstein tells the story of one of Russia's most controversial and enigmatic figures.
Ehrenburg was a young Bolshevik who turned anti-Communist, then two decades later became a spokesman for Stalin. He was an assimilated Jew who fought anti-Semitism, and a Russian patriot who was both mistrusted by orthodox Communists and denounced by Hitler as his main enemy. As a Jew, he was said to have betrayed his people; as a writer, his talent; as a man, his conscience.
Yet Ehrenburg retained a measure of personal integrity. He helped other writers, including Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Boris Pasternak. He battled censorship and championed European art in Moscow. His circle of friends included Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera, Ernest Hemingway, Isaac Babel, and Andre Malraux.
In vivid detail, Tangled Loyalties draws extensively on new material from Russian archives, from Ehrenburg's private correspondence, and from interviews with scores of family members and friends. The book uncovers the man behind the controversies, whose personal life was as unconventional as the career he fashioned.

Genres: Russia, Biography

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Joshua Rubenstein is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. He was a staff member of Amnesty International USA from 1975 to 2012. He lives in Brookline, MA.

Reviews

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big fan of the biographer, the author, and this book. I think it’s important to see how a few authors were able to navigate Stalinism and Soviet aesthetics and retain at least some artistic and moral integrity.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A balanced, well-documented study of a controversial Russian Jewish writer of the 20th century.