- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Phoenix (17 Aug 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1842120638
- ISBN-13: 978-1842120637
- Product Dimensions: 23.5 x 15.6 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 575,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Review
Valuable...This is not the typical diary of a famous writer, rather, a memoir of the revolution and civil war that captures the political uncertainty of the period.--Frederick H. White "Slavic and East European Journal "
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
Set against the backdrop of Moscow and Odessa in 1918 and 1919 these are the great anti-Bolshevik diaries of Ivan Bunin, the first Russian to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature. Originally published in 1936 but banned during the Soviet period, these diaries are now translated into English for the first time by the distinguished Professor of Russian History at the University of Notre Dame, Thomas Gaiton Marullo. Bunin despised the Bolsheviks, whom he believed were ruining his beloved country. In these diaries he recreates the time of revolution and civil war with graphic and gripping immediacy. His uncompromising truths are jolting. His pain and suffering in watching the overthrow of his country by 'thugs' and the chaos of civil war, and his fears for the devastation of 'patriarchal' Russian culture, consumed his days and receive vivid expression in his diaries. An original and important contribution to our understanding of this tumultuous period by a master of prose and a perceptive social critic.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The previous customer review refers haughtily to the "hauteur" of Ivan Bunin, a "right-wing, upper class novelist." Say what? Bunin, a master of Russian prose, was understandably aghast as he watched the sudden, violent and senseless destruction of the glorious Russian culture. The reviewer sneers that "the folk, in Bunin's opinion, were ignorant, gullible, violent, dirty, and totally unfit to take a hand in government." Well, it sounds like Bunin got it just about right! Just look what the left-wing thugs ruling in the name of "the folk" did to Russia for the next 70 years.
Strangely, Soviet leaders decided that "Cursed Days" was unsuitable for consumption by "the folk." Hmmm... Talk about hauteur! Only in recent years was the publication of this amazing diary permitted in Bunin's homeland, and now - thanks to Thomas Gaiton Marullo's splendid translation - English-speaking readers can finally see that there were some people who weren't fooled in 1917. I just hope that modern readers will read Bunin's prophetic diary of those cursed days... and remember.
Neal McCabe
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a remarkable diary account of the year 1919. Bunin an educated native of Odessa watches in horror as the revolution starting with newspaper articles gradually encroaches then engulfs Odessa in an orgy of violence. The graphic horror is tame by modern day standards of Pornolism, but Bunin vividly depicts events unfolding.
This diary is rich in anger and despair, the writer articulate, intelligent and indeed from a class of people that were watching the very fabric of their civilisation being torn down with the utmost brutality.
The Bolsheviks, or footsoldiers representing it were drunken, bloodthirsty lice ridden peasants riding with the Horsemen of the apocalypse.
His writing is immediate and gripping. There is scarce concealed anger and contempt for this destructive wave representing the new 'ideology'.
This was all too lacking in the following decades. This therefore is a truly authentic look at the Revolution by someone observing from a personal level, and with a sound Political knowledge, the changes occurring on a day by day basis.
It provides many useful literary references in the footnotes , (which are if anything a little intrusive) and this book will act as a valuable primer for further reading.
This diary is rich in anger and despair, the writer articulate, intelligent and indeed from a class of people that were watching the very fabric of their civilisation being torn down with the utmost brutality.
The Bolsheviks, or footsoldiers representing it were drunken, bloodthirsty lice ridden peasants riding with the Horsemen of the apocalypse.
His writing is immediate and gripping. There is scarce concealed anger and contempt for this destructive wave representing the new 'ideology'.
This was all too lacking in the following decades. This therefore is a truly authentic look at the Revolution by someone observing from a personal level, and with a sound Political knowledge, the changes occurring on a day by day basis.
It provides many useful literary references in the footnotes , (which are if anything a little intrusive) and this book will act as a valuable primer for further reading.
4 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This day-to-day diary of the confusion and fears that confronted those who lived through Russia's revolutions and their aftermaths in 1917-19 is well worth reading. However, it has its frustrations, especially a) the unremitting tone of hauteur by this right-wing, upper class novelist when confronted by the ascendant working class, and b) the editor's feeling that every rumor reported by Bunin, no matter how outlandish (St. Petersburg has fallen to the Germans; "The Red Army has been chased from Russia") requires his footnote assuring us that "The rumor was not true". Although both are very different in focus from this book, I much preferred Bulgakov's The White Guard, an autobiographically fictional account of his life during the same time period, with the same confusion, in Kiev, and Sukhanov's The Russian Revolution, 1917, an almost hour-by-hour description of the actual government takeovers in 1917.
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