The Birth of Theatre - Couverture rigide

Freund, Philip

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0720611679 ISBN 13 : 9780720611670

Editeur : Peter Owen Publishers, 2003

Synopsis

Book by Freund Philip

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

I congratulate Yuri Druzhnikov on an excellent and very important book. This is the way, gradually, that at least most Soviet lies will be revealed, if not all of them --Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Combines the scope of Solzhenitsyn with the mordant humour of Bulgakov --Observer

This stunning work of genius . . . as scathingly funny as it is unrelentingly deadly --Review of Contemporary Fiction

Originally published in Russia in 1979, this novel is set in late 1960's Moscow, at the time when Kruschev-era reforms were being turned back by the nascent Brezhnev-era repressions. The setting for this novel, which was written between 1969 and 1979, is a fictitious Soviet national newspaper, 'Trudovaya Pravda', the organ of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The employees of this paper, their lives, concerns, the machinations represent a microcosm of the Brezhnev-era period of stagnation, where inaction and self-preservation were the rules by which everyone lived. The novel opens with Igor Makartsev, the Executive Editor of 'Trudovaya Pravda', suffering a severe heart attack. It is slowly revealed that this heart attack was brought on by the appearance first of a mysterious, highly subversive, and illegal manuscript 'Russia in 1939', marked as samizdat, and second by the author himself, the Marquis Astolphe de Custine. In a scene reminiscent of Bulgakov, to whom Druzhnikov has been previously compared, the Marquis engages Makartsez, as the latter reads the manuscript, in a philosophical debate as to whether Russia's rulers treat their own people with the dignity and respect that should be accorded any human being. The issues discussed within the manuscript, although written about 1839 Russia, reflect issues of concern in the Soviet Union of the 1960's... ... While the actual time period presented in the novel is quite outdated, the themes are not. Just as the descriptions of nineteenth-century Russia are seen as true in the Soviet Union of the 1960's, so do the themes carry over to present-day Russia: petty bureaucrats climbing over each other to reach the top; a government that wishes only to speak with only one voice, drives away any remnants of an opposition press, and imposes censorship at every level; and a possible return to a cult of personality. In this way, Druzhnikov's novel is timeless. --The Samaritan Review

This stunning work of genius . . . as scathingly funny as it is unrelentingly deadly --Review of Contemporary Fiction

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Translated from the Russian by Thomas Moore Voted one of the ten best Russian novels of the twentieth century by the Warsaw Conference This novel is set in Moscow in the late 1960s, at a time when Khrushchev-era liberalization is being threatened by the return to personality cult and repression following the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. The editor-in-chief of the Communist Party newspaper collapses with a heart attack outside the Central Committee building. This is partly brought on by the appearance of a samizdat manuscript on his desk that leads to his anguishing over who left it and what to do with it to avoid falling victim to the malevolence its content is likely to unleash. The solution lies with Yakov Rappoport, an ageing and cynical Jewish veteran of the war and two spells in the Gulag, the author of not only the obnoxious popular campaigns sponsored by the newspaper (and all its letters to the editor) but of every single speech that gets made in public by the principals of the regime as well. His efforts to help his stricken editor, as well as the novel's star-crossed lovers, lead to a hallucinatory climax.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Peter Owen Publishers
• Date d'édition: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0720611679
• ISBN 13: 9780720611670
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 980