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Children of the Arbat (Russian: Дети Арбата) is a novel by Anatoly Rybakov that recounts the era in the Soviet Union 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 prior to the beginning of the Great Purge. It is the first book of the trilogy, followed by the books Fear and Dust and Ashes.
Principally told through the story of the fictional Sasha Pankratov, a sincere and loyal Komsomol member who is exiled as a result of party intrigues, the novel is semi-autobiographical - Rybakov too was exiled in the early 1930s. The book recounts the growing hysteria of the period where simple mistakes or humour were seen as examples of sabotage or acts of wreckers (cf 'The Joke' by Milan Kundera). In effect the book exposes how, despite the honest intentions of Pankratov and older Bolsheviks like Kirov, Stalinism is destroying all their hopes.
The novel is also notable for its portrayal of Joseph Stalin as a scheming and paranoid figure.
The book, which was written between 1966 and 1983, was suppressed[1] until the period known as Perestroika (published for the first time as a feuilleton in 1987). It was the great publishing sensation of the Perestroika era, as it was so direct in its criticism of the Soviet system, seemingly honest in its portrayal of Stalin and harsh in its cynical view of those who turned the Soviet Union into a 'Great Power'.
The book was first published in English in 1988 by Dell Publishing, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell.
