Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by josh_caporale
Moscow in the 1930s - A Novel from the Archives by Natalia Gromova
2.0
2.5 stars
I received a review copy of this book from Glagoslav Publications in exchange for an honest review.
I am quite thankful to have had the opportunity to be approached by a publishing company that translates Slavic literature into English, for I am always curious to explore literature from across the globe. I feel that diverse reading is critical in being able to understand the world around us, past and present, and also provide us with the ability to understand their point of view. The key intent of Moscow in the 1930s is to give us an insight of the literary scene during what could arguably be the greatest peak of Soviet leader Josef Stalin's fury. I expected great intensity and it felt like when it was good, this was a book of great intensity. Unfortunately, this novel was also very scattered and it became a challenge to follow, so I felt I needed to take points off of the final rating.
Natalia Gromova engages in research, with heavy concentration on the lives of literary figures during Stalin's reign, or roughly that between the 1920s and 1950s. I was not familiar with many of these figures, with the exception of Mikhail Bulgakov, Anna Akhmatova, and Osip Mandelstam, whose wife, Nadezhda, is mentioned. I was aware that Osip Mandelstam was sent to the Gulags during the 1930s (which is not heavily explored), but Gromova tells us of others that wrote and were affected during this period of time, on many occasions referring straight to what they said in their diaries or in interviews with those associated. The writer whose story I felt stuck out the most was that of Daniil Andreyev, who wrote the now lost "Wanderers of Night" and his main work, "The Rose of the World." His writing exposed the practices that took place in Soviet Russia and, in the case of the latter, life after Stalin.
Reading this book gave me an idea of how literature was affected during this particular period of time, but it is still a foggy idea that will require me to engage in some more research. Having some background information on the figures in this book would prove to be a great help in understanding the text at hand. If not, the text at hand is certainly going to be mind boggling. This work did, however, spark my curiosity in doing more research on some of these writers and explore the works they have written. I feel that this book is an okay source for discovering figures in Soviet literature.
I received a review copy of this book from Glagoslav Publications in exchange for an honest review.
I am quite thankful to have had the opportunity to be approached by a publishing company that translates Slavic literature into English, for I am always curious to explore literature from across the globe. I feel that diverse reading is critical in being able to understand the world around us, past and present, and also provide us with the ability to understand their point of view. The key intent of Moscow in the 1930s is to give us an insight of the literary scene during what could arguably be the greatest peak of Soviet leader Josef Stalin's fury. I expected great intensity and it felt like when it was good, this was a book of great intensity. Unfortunately, this novel was also very scattered and it became a challenge to follow, so I felt I needed to take points off of the final rating.
Natalia Gromova engages in research, with heavy concentration on the lives of literary figures during Stalin's reign, or roughly that between the 1920s and 1950s. I was not familiar with many of these figures, with the exception of Mikhail Bulgakov, Anna Akhmatova, and Osip Mandelstam, whose wife, Nadezhda, is mentioned. I was aware that Osip Mandelstam was sent to the Gulags during the 1930s (which is not heavily explored), but Gromova tells us of others that wrote and were affected during this period of time, on many occasions referring straight to what they said in their diaries or in interviews with those associated. The writer whose story I felt stuck out the most was that of Daniil Andreyev, who wrote the now lost "Wanderers of Night" and his main work, "The Rose of the World." His writing exposed the practices that took place in Soviet Russia and, in the case of the latter, life after Stalin.
Reading this book gave me an idea of how literature was affected during this particular period of time, but it is still a foggy idea that will require me to engage in some more research. Having some background information on the figures in this book would prove to be a great help in understanding the text at hand. If not, the text at hand is certainly going to be mind boggling. This work did, however, spark my curiosity in doing more research on some of these writers and explore the works they have written. I feel that this book is an okay source for discovering figures in Soviet literature.