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Edited and translated from the Russian by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova Knopf Canada is proud to present a masterpiece of the Second World War, never before published in English, from one of the great Russian writers of the 20th century a vivid eyewitness account of the Eastern Front and "the ruthless truth of war." When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941, Vasily Grossman became a special correspondent for the Red Star, the Red Army's newspaper.A Writer at War based on the notebooks in which Grossman gathered raw material for his articles depicts the crushing conditions on the Eastern Front, and the lives and deaths of soldiers and civilians alike. It also includes some of the earliest reportage on the Holocaust. In the three years he spent on assignment, Grossman witnessed some of the most savage fighting of the war: the appalling defeats of the Red Army, the brutal street fighting in Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk (the largest tank engagement in history), the defense of Moscow, the battles in Ukraine and much more. Historian Antony Beevor has taken Grossman's raw notebooks, and fashioned them into a narrative providing one of the most even-handed descriptions at once unflinching and sensitive we have ever had of what he called "the ruthless truth of war."
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
ISBN-10
0375424075
ISBN-13
9780375424076
eBay Product ID (ePID)
47026131
Product Key Features
Book Title
Writer at War : Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941-1945
Author
Vasily Grossman
Original Language
Russian
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Topic
Military / World War II, Modern / 20th Century, Russian & Former Soviet Union
Publication Year
2006
Genre
Literary Criticism, History
Number of Pages
400 Pages
Dimensions
Item Length
9.6in
Item Height
1.3in
Item Width
6.5in
Item Weight
24.3 Oz
Additional Product Features
Lc Classification Number
D764.G772 2006
Reviews
"Excellent…Grossman, like Isaac Babel twenty years before him, lifts war correspondence to new heights." -Literary Review "Grossman was able to gain access to the inner worlds both of officers and soldiers, and he had the eye for the telling image that you would expect from a great novelist…. But for those of us only reluctantly thrilled by accounts of battles, the greater interests lie in his precise reports of the wreckage and ironies of war and in the changes in the inner world of the witness himself…. [He] was above all a clear-eyed and generous witness to the human cost of war, civilians and soldiers of both sides, the lost women and broken men; in the very highest order of journalistic achievement, he was as alert to the victims as much as to the heroes his audience was required to read about." -Daily Telegraph "Grossman had an eye for detail and the material assembled here, so colourful and sharp, helps us to understand both the writer and the war he was attempting to describe…. In bringing his notebooks to a wider audience, and in reminding us about this brilliant witness, Beevor and Vinogradova have done their readers - and Grossman's memory a great service." -The Independent "Grossman's evocation of the chaos of major retreats and advances is especially vivid…. By writing about the Shoah, Grossman showed both moral integrity and extraordinary courage of imagination....A Writer at Waris impeccably edited, the commentary as informative as it is inobtrusive." -Financial Times "A remarkable addition to the literature of 1941-45… A wonderful portrait of the wartime experience of Russia, whose people the author loved so much and felt for so deeply… Beevor and Vinogradova's collection of his writings forms a worthy memorial to a remarkable man." -Sunday Telegraph, "Excellent…Grossman, like Isaac Babel twenty years before him, lifts war correspondence to new heights." -Literary Review "Grossman was able to gain access to the inner worlds both of officers and soldiers, and he had the eye for the telling image that you would expect from a great novelist…. But for those of us only reluctantly thrilled by accounts of battles, the greater interests lie in his precise reports of the wreckage and ironies of war and in the changes in the inner world of the witness himself…. [He] was above all a clear-eyed and generous witness to the human cost of war, civilians and soldiers of both sides, the lost women and broken men; in the very highest order of journalistic achievement, he was as alert to the victims as much as to the heroes his audience was required to read about." -Daily Telegraph "Grossman had an eye for detail and the material assembled here, so colourful and sharp, helps us to understand both the writer and the war he was attempting to describe…. In bringing his notebooks to a wider audience, and in reminding us about this brilliant witness, Beevor and Vinogradova have done their readers - and Grossman's memory a great service." -The Independent "Grossman's evocation of the chaos of major retreats and advances is especially vivid…. By writing about the Shoah, Grossman showed both moral integrity and extraordinary courage of imagination.... A Writer at War is impeccably edited, the commentary as informative as it is inobtrusive." -Financial Times "A remarkable addition to the literature of 1941-45… A wonderful portrait of the wartime experience of Russia, whose people the author loved so much and felt for so deeply… Beevor and Vinogradova's collection of his writings forms a worthy memorial to a remarkable man." -Sunday Telegraph
Table of Content
Introduction Translators' Note Glossary PART ONE The Shock of Invasion 1941 1. Baptism of Fire August 1941 2. The Terrible Retreat August to September 1941 3. On the Bryansk Front September 1941 4. With the 50th Army September 1941 5. Back into the Ukraine September 1941 6. The German Capture of Orel October 1941 7. The Withdrawl before Moscow October 1941 PART TWO The Year of Stalingrad 1942 8. In the South January 1942 9. The Air War in the South January 1942 10. On the Donets with the Black Division January and February 1942 11. With the Khasin Tank Brigade February 1942 12. 'The Ruthless Truth of War' March 1942 to July 1942 13. The Road to Stalingrad August 1942 14. The September Battles 15. The Stalingrad Academy Autumn 1942 16. The October Battles 17. The Tide Turned November 1942 PART THREE Recovering the Occupied Territories 1943 18. After the Battle January 1943 19. Winning Back the Motherland The Early Spring of 1943 20. The Battle of Kursk July 1943 PART FOUR From the Dnepr to the Vistula 1944 21. The Killing Ground of Berdichev January 1944 22. Across the Ukraine to Odessa March & April 1944 23. Operation Bagration June & July 1944 24. Treblinka July 1944 PART FIVE Amid the Ruins of the Nazi World 25. Warsaw and Lódz January 1945 26. Into the Lair of the Fascist Beast January 1945 27. The Battle for Berlin April & May 1945 Afterword The Lies of Victory Acknowledgements Bibliography Source Notes Index Maps Gomel and the Central Front, August 1941 In the Donbass, January to March 1942 Stalingrad, Autumn and Winter 1942 The Battle of Kursk, July 1943
I have always wanted to study WW2 from the R...ussian side. I recall in high school in the Fifties, we viewed Joseph Stalin, Soviet Union dictator of the time as being the most incompetent self-serving tyrant of all the allied world leaders, --not necessarily so! Though Grossman points out his major mistakes (which of course are notations that could not be published at the time), there were other contributing factors affecting Stalin's decisions:
O Many units of the Red Army had recent combat experience, they participated in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 on the side of the Republicans; they fought a fierce border battle with Finland in the west to a draw in 1939; they allied with Hitler to attack and divide Poland in the autumn of 1939; and they held the Japanese at bay from their eastern borders with Mongolia in early 1939. Stalin believed the Non-aggression Pact with Germany of August 27, 1939 would be honored, and he transferred his main combat units to stop further threats from Imperial Japan.
O He did not withdraw any eastern units until November 1941, when Soviet Intelligence determined Japan would attack Anglo/US forces in the Pacific.
O He underestimated the power of religion among the people, and temporarily lifted the ban on religious worship until the close the war.
O He correctly counted on the sacrifice of all people, of all ages, to come aid the national emergency he called, the Great Patriotic War.
Grossman, a Soviet Jew, was a highly skilled journalist and reporter. He had a knack for getting everyone from generals to recruits, from German prisoners to condemned deserters, from old grandmothers to school girls to talk to him. He matches very closely the skills of our own Ernie Pyle, or perhaps Ed Murrow. This book covers the main notebooks written by Grossman and their subsequent publication in the official Soviet Army newspaper, RED STAR. Those notes that survive (some are lost or unknown), provide perfect evidence for future analysis and investigation. Most are anecdotal, meaning written observations he saw personally, or heard from other reporters or soldiers. There is the problem of censorship and security. I.e., soldiers were prohibited from keeping personal diaries, yet his notes could be interpreted as a diary and could be a personal threat. His writing style is that of irony and humor, which came to endear his readers to him (the soldiers he wrote about especially). He is brave, and earns the trust of his editor for calling to go into the most dangerous places; into the face of encircling German armies on the attack, to Moscow during its siege, and then to the Battle of Stalingrad. Near the end he sees firsthand the liberation of Nazi death camps.
And he is perceptive. He interviews a Jewish Colonel of the Red Army and hears him say, "Jews should be fanatics in this war! They are not fighting enough." Meaning that as early as January 1942, some Russian officers already knew the Holocaust had begun... If you are a WW2 buff, consider this book as a reference; if you love the contrast of dark humor to real life, consider this book a masterwork; and if you believe in the miracle of people united against a common enemy, this is a revelation! --Michael M. Elling
