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Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century
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About Vasily Grossman And The Soviet Century
Product Description The definitive biography of Soviet Jewish dissident writer Vasily Grossman If Vasily Grossman’s 1961 masterpiece, Life and Fate, had been published during his lifetime, it would have reached the world together with Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago and before Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag. But Life and Fate was seized by the KGB. When it emerged posthumously, decades later, it was recognized as the War and Peace of the twentieth century. Always at the epicenter of events, Grossman (1905–1964) was among the first to describe the Holocaust and the Ukrainian famine. His 1944 article “The Hell of Treblinka” became evidence at Nuremberg. Grossman’s powerful anti‑totalitarian works liken the Nazis’ crimes against humanity with those of Stalin. His compassionate prose has the everlasting quality of great art. Because Grossman’s major works appeared after much delay we are only now able to examine them properly. Alexandra Popoff’s authoritative biography illuminates Grossman’s life and legacy. Review "Alexandra Popoff's biography is crisp and comprehensive, deftly interweaving Grossman's personal life with the momentous events he experienced. The portrait she paints in Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century is of a highly intelligent and surprisingly cheerful man, who viewed the world with a kind and quizzical gaze and defended his friends and principles with near-reckless courage. As she writes, it was the worst and most dangerous time to be a humanist, pacifist and internationalist. His core belief that 'there is no end in the world for the sake of which it is permissible to sacrifice human freedom' was a forthright challenge to both Nazism and Stalinism." --Financial Times - "[Popoff] tells Grossman's story with sensitivity and a keen understanding of his world, drawing on little-known archival collections to produce what must be considered the definitive biography."-- The Wall Street Journal - "Alexandra Popoff...clearly spent years in loving dedication of her research, effectively reviving a remarkable life and career." -- National Post - "Soviet expert Alexandra Popoff presents [Grossman's] life with a degree of detail and compassion not yet seen in any English-language publication. Her portrait provides not only the best look yet at this great author's working life but also a stirring study of one man's life-long fight against totalitarian rule." -- The Christian Science Monitor - "The story of 'Life and Fate,' as told in 'Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century' by Alexandra Popoff, a former Soviet journalist, is gripping. Equally revealing is the rest of Grossman's biography: He was a celebrated Soviet writer who turned against the Soviet regime... He was neither an apologist, nor a dissident; like so many Soviet intellectuals, he led an often tormented 'double' life... As told by Popoff, stories behind Grossman's stories...are fascinating." -- New York Times - "An excellent biography of Grossman...that offers no striking psychological portrait of its subject or radical reading of his works. Instead it is what I think of as a Dragnet, or Jack Webb, biography--'Just the facts, Ma-am'--the accretion of which is no small accomplishment about a life lived almost entirely in the murky and heavy censored atmosphere of the Soviet Union."--Joseph Epstein, Commentary "Alexandra Popoff's deeply researched biography ... offers rich insight into Grossman's historical context and sheds new light on his creative evolution."-- Times Literary Supplement - A "superb and timely biography of Grossman."-- New Statesman - "This is a clear, well-structured guide to the world Grossman lived in..." -- The Spectator - "A fine biography.." -- The Times (London) - A "scrupulous but impassioned biography..." -- The Economist - "Alexandra Popoff's account excels in depicting Vasily Grossman's battle with oppressive sensors."-- Irish Times "Alexandra Popoff has produced a magnificent biography of the great Soviet Jewish writer and journalist Vasily Gro
