Vasilii Grossman Book order

"Suppressed by the KGB and years later smuggled out of the Soviet Union to be published, Vasily Grossman?s novel is an unsparing story of ordinary Russians tragically caught between the fascism of the invading Nazis and the oppression of their own Soviet government. The sprawling plot follows the travails of the extended family of Viktor Shtrum along the vast eastern front of the war. Shtrum is a brilliant nuclear physicist who faces rising anti-Semitism in Moscow while his relatives navigate the threat of camps and prisons on both the Soviet and the Nazi sides. Grossman?s extensive wartime reporting, combined with his Tolstoyan narrative skills, allow him to portray with unprecedented detail and authenticity the human cost of the struggle between two freedom-denying powers. In vividly rendered scenes that range from the dramatic battle of Stalingrad to the remote Siberian gulag, and encompassing characters ranging from a grieving mother to a woman in love and from a six-year-old boy on the way to a gas chamber to Stalin and Hitler, Grossman?s masterpiece is a profound and moving reckoning with the darkness of the twentieth century and a testament to the stubborn persistence of kindness and hope."--Publisher

Vasily Grossman wrote three novels about the Second World War, each offering a distinct take on what a war novel can be, and each extraordinary. A common set of characters links Stalingrad and Life and Fate, but Stalingrad is not only a moving and exciting story of desperate defense and the turning tide of war, but also a monumental memorial for the countless war dead. Life and Fate, by contrast, is a work of moral and political philosophy as well as a novel, and the deep question it explores is whether or not it is possible to behave ethically in the face of overwhelming violence. The People Immortal is something else entirely. Set during the catastrophic first months of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, this is the tale of an army battalion dispatched to slow the advancing enemy at any cost, with encirclement and annihilation its promised end. A rousing story of resistance, The People Immortal is the novel as weapon in hand.

"Vassily Grossman (1905 -1964) has become well-known in the last twenty years - above all for his novel Life and Fate. This has often been described as a Soviet (or anti-Soviet) War and Peace. Most readers, however, do not realize that it is only the second half of a dilogy. The first half, originally titled Stalingrad but published in 1952 under the title For a just cause, has received surprisingly little attention. Scholars and critics seem to have assumed that, since it was first published in Stalin's lifetime, it can only be considered empty propaganda. In reality, there is little difference between the two novels. The chapters in the earlier novel about the Shaposhnikov family are as tender, and sometimes humorous, as in the later novel. The chapters devoted to the long retreats of 1941 and the first half of 1942 are perhaps still more vivid than the battle scenes in the later novel"-- Provided by publisher

Vasily Grossman, author of Life and Fate, reflects on a season spent in Armenia.

The collected shorter works by the author of Life and Fate and Everything Flows, published in English for the first time.

Exploring the profound themes of war, memory, and loss, this collection features Vasily Grossman's impactful short stories, journalism, essays, and letters. It includes his early success "In the Town of Berdichev," a powerful commentary on the cost of war, and the poignant story "Mama," which delves into the complexities of family during the Great Terror. Notable works also encompass his chilling report from Treblinka and reflections on art amid atrocity, alongside deeply personal letters to his mother, revealing the emotional depth of Grossman's experiences.

When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941, Vasily Grossman became a special correspondent for the Red Star , the Soviet Army's newspaper, and reported from the frontlines of the war. A Writer at War depicts in vivid detail the crushing conditions on the Eastern Front, and the lives and deaths of soldiers and civilians alike. Witnessing some of the most savage fighting of the war, Grossman saw firsthand the repeated early defeats of the Red Army, the brutal street fighting in Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk (the largest tank engagement in history), the defense of Moscow, the battles in Ukraine, the atrocities at Treblinka, and much more. Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova have taken Grossman's raw notebooks, and fashioned them into a gripping narrative providing one of the most even-handed descriptions --at once unflinching and sensitive -- we have ever had of what Grossman called “the ruthless truth of war.”

Eyewitness testimonies, letters, diaries, and affidavits form a powerful collection documenting Nazi atrocities against Jews in Eastern Europe. This definitive edition offers crucial insights into the experiences of victims in camps, ghettoes, and towns, making it a significant contribution to Holocaust literature and an essential resource for understanding this dark chapter in history.

Ivan Grigoryevich has been in the Gulag for thirty years. Released after Stalin's death, he finds that the years of terror have imposed a collective moral slavery. He must struggle to find a place for himself in an unfamiliar world

Completed in the late 1950s by its distinguished Russian author, this novel has been recognized as fiction on an epic scale: powerful, deeply moving, and devastating in its depiction of a world mutilated by war and ideological tyranny.