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Stalingrad

Vasily Grossman,

Robert Chandler (Translator)

Start date: November 1, 2019

Finish date: December 31, 2019

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Dec 26, 2019 Laura rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-2019, audio-books, fiction-20th-century, russia, russian-fiction, hf-world-war-ii

From BBC Radio 4:
Part One: Viktor Shtrum
Grossman's WarStalingrad Episode 1 of 2

By Vasily Grossman
Translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler
Dramatised by Mike Walker

Part one of Grossman's dark and honest account of the epic battle of Stalingrad; a prequel to his novel Life and Fate.

The Radio 4 adaptation of Life and Fate triggered an enormous revival of enthusiasm for this towering Russian novel of the twentieth century, and the extraordinary life and work of its author Vasily Grossman.

Now Kenne From BBC Radio 4:
Part One: Viktor Shtrum
Grossman's WarStalingrad Episode 1 of 2

By Vasily Grossman
Translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler
Dramatised by Mike Walker

Part one of Grossman's dark and honest account of the epic battle of Stalingrad; a prequel to his novel Life and Fate.

The Radio 4 adaptation of Life and Fate triggered an enormous revival of enthusiasm for this towering Russian novel of the twentieth century, and the extraordinary life and work of its author Vasily Grossman.

Now Kenneth Branagh, Greta Scacchi and Mark Bonnar star in Grossman’s prequel to Life and Fate, newly published in its first ever English translation by Richard and Elizabeth Chandler.

Stalingrad explores the approach of war to the city of Stalingrad, through the many lives of the Shaposhnikov family and their partners. Atomic scientist Viktor Shtrum struggles with his work for the Soviet state, while his family live, love and work despite swirling rumours, to run the city’s power stations, factories and hospitals.

Meanwhile at the front, we meet old-school Bolshevik Commissar Nikolai Krymov in the thick of the Russian army’s pell-mell retreat before Operation Barbarossa, and follow the 'unknown' soldiers on the battlefield, giving their lives to hold the line at the Volga.

After three years of agonised rewrites under the censors' gaze, Stalingrad was finally published in the USSR to universal acclaim, though Grossman was soon being denounced for depicting Russians who were not always heroes. But as a former war correspondent, Grossman was determined to tell the dark and honest truth of the epic battle of Stalingrad, and the men and women caught up in it.

The whole of Grossman’s War, including Radio 4’s dramatisation of Life and Fate, is now available on BBC Sounds.

Viktor Shtrum ….. Kenneth Branagh,
Lyuda Shaposhnikova ..... Greta Scacchi
Alexandra ….. Ann Mitchell
Zhenya ….. Doon Mackichan
Stepan Spiridonov ….. Kenneth Cranham
Nina ….. Danusia Samal
Vera ….. Scarlett Courtney
Tolya ….. Will Kirk
Novikov ….. Rick Warden
Lenya ….. Greg Jones
Pryahkin ….. Clive Hayward
Yeremenko ….. Neil McCaul
Apparatchik ….. Adam Courting
Driver ….. Ikky Elias
Woman….. Sinead MacInnes

Original music composed by John Hardy, with Rob Whitehead, and performed by Oliver Wilson-Dixon, Tom Jackson, Stacey Blythe, and Max Pownall.

Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting
Series Producer Alison Hindell

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000... ...more

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Aug 13, 2019 Chuck LoPresti rated it liked it

Having just finished this perhaps it's too soon to write a review but knowing that I have much more to read....here's a perfunctory hack...

This wasn't a difficult read, and it's been watered down it appears...so compared to the impact and power of Life and Fate...this book is the lesser of the two. There's portions that seem really manufactured....like the discussion of the merits of art in general...and some of it seems so wooden that it almost doesn't feel like Grossman's writing. If you've re Having just finished this perhaps it's too soon to write a review but knowing that I have much more to read....here's a perfunctory hack...

This wasn't a difficult read, and it's been watered down it appears...so compared to the impact and power of Life and Fate...this book is the lesser of the two. There's portions that seem really manufactured....like the discussion of the merits of art in general...and some of it seems so wooden that it almost doesn't feel like Grossman's writing. If you've read Ledig or Shalamov - there's nothing here that compares to the physical violence presented in those books and Platonov's Foundation Pit contains more human agony by a long shot. But - Grossman didn't set out to shock and awe - he wrote about Stalingrad the way he understood it, from a human perspective. I'll admit I found the cast of characters a bit dizzying at times but I'll chalk that up to my lack of attention to detail and would rather have it that way than being led by the nose.

Perhaps if I didn't have Life and Fate in my head - I would have like it more....Life and Fate shook me to my foundations - left me weeping. This had me busy reading...but not overly engaged. I've not wasted my time and I love Grossman no less....but I'll say - if you're making a choice between the two - read Life and Fate. I should also admit that the concept of patriotism leaves a bad taste in my mouth - and anyone that reads without moving their lips and sees the date of this review will understand why.

Edits - a few days later - I'm almost angry about this book. Voinovich snuck Like and Fate out of Soviet Russia under threat of ....well...horrible things. This book was published in Russia...where's the Grossman that railed against the antisemitism? Where is the Grossman that in Life and Fate drew clear parallels between Stalin and Hitler? Whatever this book might have been at one time has been hacked and chewed to pap leaving little more than censored and sanctioned sentiment. I feel cheated. ...more

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Jun 21, 2023 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Read most of book in 2019- just the last 20 pages i. 2023

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Jan 23, 2021 Tom rated it it was amazing

Vasily Grossman, who witnessed the devastated Stalingrad and talked to its citizens and soldiers, wanted to create another panoramic epic of the war equal to Tolstoy’s War and Peace with a theme equal to that of War and Peace. The scale is large, though occurring over the space of a single summer—multigenerational, multi-ethnic—encompassing social rank as well as moral, ethical, and political duty at the risk of life. Heroes walk here, as do cads. Love is known, kept, and lost. Being an admired Vasily Grossman, who witnessed the devastated Stalingrad and talked to its citizens and soldiers, wanted to create another panoramic epic of the war equal to Tolstoy’s War and Peace with a theme equal to that of War and Peace. The scale is large, though occurring over the space of a single summer—multigenerational, multi-ethnic—encompassing social rank as well as moral, ethical, and political duty at the risk of life. Heroes walk here, as do cads. Love is known, kept, and lost. Being an admired character does nothing to suspend a character’s life—we, too, lose what matters to us.

The novel begins after the start of WWII and Hitler's assault on the USSR, Germany troops quickly and easily slicing through Russian territory, with little significant resistance. At this point, though, Germany’s ability to continue that streak through to Stalingrad seems unlikely. Until it doesn’t. Before the all-out siege, we are introduced to characters returning from the front, leaving for the front, helping the war effort, and so on, from cities to countryside, from farms to high-ranking military officers. Sons, daughters, grandparents, grandchildren all strive to exist under extreme conditions.

Actual fighting takes up a smaller portion of this 900-page brick (closer to 1,100 pages including notes and the afterword), and the novel ends before the siege. (Part 2, Life and Fate, another 1,000-page, picks up with the same (remaining) characters of Part 1 after the siege.) Despite offering up this tome as an homage to Russian bravery, Soviet censors managed to be offended by the original manuscript, which underwent revisions before it was able to be published—after Part 2. Stalingrad’s translators, the Chandlers, have done their best to re-create the ur-text submitted by Grossman. Since I am not a student of Russian language, literature, or publishing practices, I cannot say with the authority of a scholar how their achievement stands in those regards.

However, as a novel in the Russian tradition of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (both of differing temperaments regarding each other as well as Grossman) in particular and the 19th-century Western European practice of cranking out 700-900-page books, Stalingrad fits well while also extending the tradition. Although I’m tempted to now pick up the copy of Life and Fate that has sat unread on my shelves for decades, Robert Chandler, in his afterword, says that he is contemplating re-translating it, since he now has available manuscript pages that were inaccessible before the fall of the Soviet Union. A good companion to this novel to compare Grossman’s realism to what actually occurred would be Svetlana Alexievich’s Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II. ...more

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Jan 26, 2020 Catherine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a remarkable, humane study of war. The novel tells the story of the battle of Stalingrad, which, according to Wikipedia, remains the largest (in terms of personnel) and the bloodiest (in terms of people killed or wounded) in the history of warfare. If I had known much about the battle before I started, I might never have attempted to read it. The story is grim, certainly, and there is a lot of just plain warfare -- tanks, artillery, troop movements, attacks, defenses. But the novel is pe ...more

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