Stalingrad

Book Cover
Average Rating
Series
Publisher
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Publication Date
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Language
English

Description

Now in English for the first time, the prequel to Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, the War and Peace of the twentieth Century. In April 1942, Hitler and Mussolini meet in Salzburg where they agree on a renewed assault on the Soviet Union. Launched in the summer, the campaign soon picks up speed, as the routed Red Army is driven back to the industrial center of Stalingrad on the banks of the Volga. In the rubble of the bombed-out city, Soviet forces dig in for a last stand.  The story told in Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad unfolds across the length and breadth of Russia and Europe, and its characters include mothers and daughters, husbands and brothers, generals, nurses, political activists, steelworkers, and peasants, along with Hitler and other historical figures. At the heart of the novel is the Shaposhnikov family. Even as the Germans advance, the matriarch, Alexandra Vladimirovna, refuses to leave Stalingrad. Far from the front, her eldest daughter, Ludmila, is unhappily married to the Jewish physicist Viktor Shtrum. Viktor’s research may be of crucial military importance, but he is distracted by thoughts of his mother in the Ukraine, lost behind German lines.  In Stalingrad, published here for the first time in English translation, and in its celebrated sequel, Life and Fate, Grossman writes with extraordinary power and deep compassion about the disasters of war and the ruthlessness of totalitarianism, without, however, losing sight of the little things that are the daily currency of human existence or of humanity’s inextinguishable, saving attachment to nature and life. Grossman’s two-volume masterpiece can now be seen as one of the supreme accomplishments of twentieth-century literature, tender and fearless, intimate and epic.

More Details

Contributors
ISBN
9781681373270
9798350848076
9781681373287

Discover More

Also in this Series

  • Stalingrad (Life and fate novels Volume 1) Cover
  • Life and fate (Life and fate novels Volume 2) Cover

Author Notes

Loading Author Notes...

Similar Series From Novelist

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for series you might like if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
These series have the appeal factors bleak and spare, and they have the subjects "state-sponsored terrorism," "communism," and "soviet union history."
These series have the subjects "world war ii," "state-sponsored terrorism," and "communism."
These series have the subjects "families," "communism," and "soviet union history."
These series have the appeal factors leisurely paced, and they have the subjects "soviet union history" and "loss."
These series have the subjects "state-sponsored terrorism," "totalitarianism," and "communism."
These series have the subjects "soviet union history" and "russian history."
These series have the subjects "families," "state-sponsored terrorism," and "communism."
These series have the appeal factors cinematic, and they have the subjects "world war ii" and "families."
These series have the appeal factors cinematic, and they have the subjects "state-sponsored terrorism," "totalitarianism," and "communism."

Similar Titles From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for titles you might like if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
These books have the appeal factors intricately plotted, and they have the genre "translations -- german to english"; and the subjects "families," "communism," and "soviet union history."
These books have the appeal factors moving, thoughtful, and multiple perspectives, and they have the theme "life during wartime"; the subject "world war ii"; and characters that are "complex characters."
These books have the appeal factors multiple perspectives, and they have the subjects "stalingrad, battle of, 1942-1943," "totalitarianism," and "communism."
These books have the genre "translations -- german to english"; and the subjects "totalitarianism," "communism," and "soviet union history."
These books have the appeal factors multiple perspectives and first person narratives, and they have the subjects "communism" and "soviet union history."
These books have the appeal factors intricately plotted, multiple perspectives, and first person narratives, and they have the subjects "communism," "soviet union history," and "secrets."
These books have the appeal factors moving, and they have the genre "translations -- russian to english"; and the subjects "totalitarianism," "communism," and "soviet union history."
These books have the appeal factors moving, and they have the subjects "totalitarianism," "communism," and "soviet union history."
These books have the genre "translations -- czech to english"; and the subjects "communism," "soviet union history," and "stalinism."
These books have the genre "translations -- russian to english"; and the subjects "families," "communism," and "soviet union history."
These books have the genre "translations -- russian to english"; and the subjects "communism" and "soviet union history."
These books have the subject "communism."

Similar Authors From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for other authors you might want to read if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
The compelling novels and nonfiction of Vasilii Grossman and Alexander Solzhenitsyn are deeply moving, richly detailed testimonials to the history of war, revolution, and political oppression in the Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn has been known in the West for decades; Grossman's legacy is coming to light a half-century after his death. -- Michael Shumate
Taken together, the romantic fiction of Boris Pasternak and political novels of Vasilii Grossman present a bleak but dramatic story of the first half-century of Soviet rule. Pasternak writes of the World War I era and the Russian Revolution, while Vasilii Grossman focuses on World War II and the eras of Stalin and Khrushchev. -- Michael Shumate
The psychological literary fiction of Russian novelist and journalist Vasilii Grossman and Hungarian novelist Magda Szabo present heartrending stories from two different Eastern European countries that suffered from the devastation of World War II and the following decades of Communist totalitarian rule. -- Michael Shumate
These authors' works have the subjects "state-sponsored terrorism," "communism," and "totalitarianism."
These authors' works have the subjects "world war ii," "state-sponsored terrorism," and "communism."
These authors' works have the appeal factors moving, and they have the subjects "world war ii," "communism," and "families."
These authors' works have the appeal factors bleak and spare, and they have the genre "psychological fiction"; and the subjects "state-sponsored terrorism," "communism," and "soviet union history."
These authors' works have the subjects "world war ii" and "soviet union history."
These authors' works have the appeal factors bleak, and they have the subjects "world war ii," "state-sponsored terrorism," and "communism."
These authors' works have the subjects "world war ii," "state-sponsored terrorism," and "political prisoners."
These authors' works have the subjects "communism," "totalitarianism," and "families."
These authors' works have the genres "psychological fiction" and "literary fiction"; and the subjects "communism," "soviet union history," and "loss."

Published Reviews

Publisher's Weekly Review

Grossman's epic, sprawling novel from 1952 is a masterpiece of intertwined plots that cascade together in a long sequence of militaristic horror. Grossman (1905-1964), best known for this book's sequel, Life and Fate, was on the scene as a Soviet war reporter during WWII's Nazi siege of Stalingrad, and the novel teems with his firsthand observations. The action is told from dozens of perspectives, ranging from humble workers to Hitler himself. Most of the characters have some relationship to Stalingrad's Shaposhnikov family. After an opening dinner party, the Shaposhnikovs are separated by a war that has drawn ever nearer to their city. Alexandra, the family matriarch, is forced into exile with her oldest daughter, Ludmila. Ludmila's husband, Viktor Shtrum, an important scientist, is worried that his Jewish mother has been a victim of the Holocaust. Alexandra's second daughter, Marusya, and her daughter, Vera, display heroism in their wartime work in an orphanage and a hospital. The beautiful Zhenya, Alexandra's youngest daughter, has left Nikolay Krymov, a communist thinker, and is being courted by Pyotr Novikov, a gifted military strategist. Two of the family's grandchildren, Tolya and Seryozha, are in military units defending the city. When the bombing of Stalingrad begins, Grossman cuts between viewpoints, rewinding time over and over again. A spectacular afterword details the extent of censorship the text suffered under Stalin. As a stand-alone novel, this is both gripping and enlightening, a tour de force. When considered as a whole with Life and Fate, this diptych is one of the landmark accomplishments of 20th-century literature. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Powered by Syndetics

Kirkus Book Review

An extraordinary novel by war correspondent Grossman (1905-1964), completing, with Life and Fate, a two-volume Soviet-era rejoinder to War and Peace.Improbably, Grossman survived the purges of the Stalin era even though the dictator's gaze often fell on him. Toward the end of Stalin's life, Grossman set to work on the pair of books that would recount what Russians call the Great Patriotic War. His characters come from both sides of the battle and include a German lieutenant who crosses the Don River with his company in triumph but, by the end of the cycle, comes to understand the error of his ways. Grossman's great subject, in his fiction as well as his reportage, was the terrible nature of totalitarianism. His characters are given to saying things that in the wrong ears could land them in trouble, as when an officious commissar insists that a neighborhood bomb shelter is meant to save people like him, to which a woman, hiding from the shelling, replies, "The fat bruteanyone would think he's a German. He thinks Hitler's here already. But we're Soviet citizens. We're all equal. He's the one who should be thrown out to dienot our children!" Soldiers, nurses, schoolteachers: All wither under the months of street-by-street fighting, as do the refugees who flood in from the surrounding countryside, having "heard the roar of the approaching avalanche." For them and millions of others, Grossman writes in a burst of poetry toward the end of the volume, the "fire of Stalingrad was the fire of Prometheus," promising undying resistance to fascism even as the great fish in the Volga hug the riverbanks, hoping to keep safe from the rain of metal, and the ants, mice, bees, and other tiny creatures of the Soviet earth try to accustom themselves to "the earth's constant trembling."A classic of wartime literature finally available in a comprehensive English translation that will introduce new readers to a remarkable writer. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Powered by Syndetics

PW Annex Reviews

Grossman's epic, sprawling novel from 1952 is a masterpiece of intertwined plots that cascade together in a long sequence of militaristic horror. Grossman (1905–1964), best known for this book's sequel, Life and Fate, was on the scene as a Soviet war reporter during WWII's Nazi siege of Stalingrad, and the novel teems with his firsthand observations. The action is told from dozens of perspectives, ranging from humble workers to Hitler himself. Most of the characters have some relationship to Stalingrad's Shaposhnikov family. After an opening dinner party, the Shaposhnikovs are separated by a war that has drawn ever nearer to their city. Alexandra, the family matriarch, is forced into exile with her oldest daughter, Ludmila. Ludmila's husband, Viktor Shtrum, an important scientist, is worried that his Jewish mother has been a victim of the Holocaust. Alexandra's second daughter, Marusya, and her daughter, Vera, display heroism in their wartime work in an orphanage and a hospital. The beautiful Zhenya, Alexandra's youngest daughter, has left Nikolay Krymov, a communist thinker, and is being courted by Pyotr Novikov, a gifted military strategist. Two of the family's grandchildren, Tolya and Seryozha, are in military units defending the city. When the bombing of Stalingrad begins, Grossman cuts between viewpoints, rewinding time over and over again. A spectacular afterword details the extent of censorship the text suffered under Stalin. As a stand-alone novel, this is both gripping and enlightening, a tour de force. When considered as a whole with Life and Fate, this diptych is one of the landmark accomplishments of 20th-century literature. (June)

Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly Annex.

Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly Annex.
Powered by Content Cafe

Reviews from GoodReads

Loading GoodReads Reviews.

Staff View

Loading Staff View.