''Children of the Arbat'' (russian: Дети Арбата) is a

semi-autobiographical An autobiographical novel is a form of novel using autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction. Beca ...

historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

Anatoly Rybakov Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov (russian: Анато́лий Нау́мович Рыбако́в; – 23 December 1998) was a Soviet and Ukrainian writer, the author of the anti-Stalinist '' Children of the Arbat ''trilogy, the novel ''Heavy Sand ...

set during the era of

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

Premise

It recounts the era in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

of the build-up to the Congress of the Victors, the early years of the second Five Year Plan and the (supposed) circumstances of the murder of

Sergey Kirov Sergei Mironovich Kirov ( né Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and memb ...

prior to the beginning of the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...

. It is the first book of the trilogy, followed by the books ''1935 and Other Years'' (russian: Тридцать пятый и другие годы, (Book I of ''Fear'') 1989), ''

Fear Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear i ...

'' (russian: Страх) and '' Dust and Ashes'' (russian: Прах и пепел).

The novel

The story is mainly told that of the fictional Sasha Pankratov, a sincere and loyal

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (russian: link=no, Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи (ВЛКСМ), ), usually known as Komsomol (; russian: Комсомол, links=n ...

member who is exiled as a result of party intrigues. Rybakov too was exiled in the early 1930s. Hysteria grows as simple mistakes and humor are seen as examples of sabotage or acts of wreckers. ('' The Joke'' by

Milan Kundera Milan Kundera (, ; born 1 April 1929) is a Czech writer who went into exile in France in 1975, becoming a naturalised French citizen in 1981. Kundera's Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, then conferred again in 2019. He "sees himself ...

deals with similar topics). The book exposes how, despite the honest intentions of Pankratov and older

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

s like Kirov,

Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...

is destroying all their hopes. The novel is also notable for its portrayal of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

as a scheming and paranoid figure. The book, which was written between 1966 and 1983, was suppressed until the

Perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...

era (published for the first time as a ''

feuilleton A ''feuilleton'' (; a diminutive of french: feuillet, the leaf of a book) was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art critic ...

'' in 1987). It was a great publishing sensation of that era owing to its criticism of the Soviet system, its portrayal of Stalin and harsh in its cynical view of those who turned the Soviet Union into a "Great Power".

English translation

The English translation, by Harold Shukman, was first published in 1988 by Little, Brown & Company (). It was later reprinted in paperback by Dell Publishing, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell ().

References

External links

*Sheppard, R.Z. & Jackson, James O. (June 6, 1988)
"Red-Hot Children of the Arbat"
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

''. About the book's first Soviet editions. {{DEFAULTSORT:Children Of The Arbat Novels by Anatoly Rybakov 1987 novels Novels about political repression in the Soviet Union Works originally published in Russian newspapers Novels set in the 1930s Book censorship in the Soviet Union Censored books

Premise

The novel

English translation

See also

References

External links