Vasily Grossman (1905–1964)
Author of Life and Fate
About the Author
Grossman, a graduate in physics and mathematics from Moscow University, worked first as a chemical engineer and became a published writer during the mid-1930s. His early stories and novel deal with such politically orthodox themes as the struggle against the tsarist regime, the civil war, and the show more building of the new society. Grossman served as a war correspondent during World War II, publishing a series of sketches and stories about his experiences. Along with Ehrenburg, he edited the suppressed documentary volume on the fate of Soviet Jews, The Black Book. In 1952 the first part of his new novel, For the Good of the Cause, appeared and was sharply criticized for its depiction of the war. The censor rejected another novel, Forever Flowing (1955), which was circulated in samizdat and published in the West. The secret police confiscated a sequel to For the Good of the Cause, the novel Life and Fate, in 1961, but a copy was smuggled abroad and published in 1970. Grossman's books were issued in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and have met with both admiration and, on part of the nationalist right wing, considerable hostility. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Vasily Grossman
A Writer at War. Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945 (2005) — Author — 1,200 copies, 26 reviews
The Treblinka Hell: Photographic Album of Martyrs, Heroes, and Executioners (1944) 78 copies, 5 reviews
Mõned kurvad päevad : [jutustused] 2 copies
Grossman Vasilij Semenovic 2 copies
Nekoliko tužnih dana 1 copy
Stjepan Koljčugin 1 copy
Življenje in usoda 1 copy
Избранное, 2 тома 1 copy
Wszystko płynie... 1 copy
Armenische Reise: Die Reise des großen russischen Schriftstellers an die Ränder des Imperiums 1 copy
Kolchugin's Youth 1 copy
(A Writer At War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945) [By: Grossman, Vasily] [Sep, 2006] 1 copy
Stepan Koltschugin - Band 2 1 copy
Kõik voolab 1 copy
Stepan Koltschugin - Band 1 1 copy
Associated Works
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Spring 2015 (2015) — Author "Experience: This Terrible Truth" — 3 copies
Moderne russische Erzähler — Author — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Grossman, Vasily
- Legal name
- Grossman, Vasily Semyonovich
Гроссман, Василий Семёнович - Birthdate
- 1905-12-12
- Date of death
- 1964-09-14
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Moscow State University
- Occupations
- author
journalist
war correspondent
chemical engineer - Organizations
- Red Star (Krasnaya Zvezda)
Unity - Awards and honors
- Red Banner of Labor
- Short biography
- Born in the Ukraine in 1905, Vasilly Grossman published his first novel 'Stepan Gluchkauf 'in 1933. Grossman was Jewish and his place of birth was one of the largest Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. Grossman is most notable for his work as a journalist during WWII and his eyewitness accounts of the fall of Stalingrad, the fall of Berlin and the Holocaust. He published the first account of a German death camp written by a journalist. He went on to publish a novel about Stalingrad in 1952 called "For a Just Cause" and in 1960 "Life and Fate".
- Nationality
- Russia
- Birthplace
- Berdichev, Ukraine, Russian Empire
- Places of residence
- Moscow, Soviet Union
Geneva, Switzerland
Kiev, Ukraine, Soviet Union - Place of death
- Moscow, Soviet Union
- Burial location
- Troyekurovskoye Cemetery Moscow, Russia
- Map Location
- Russia
Members
Discussions
Life and Fate featured on BBC R4 in Fans of Russian authors (September 2011)
Life and Fate: Part 1 in Group Reads - Literature (November 2009)
Reviews
Vasily Grossman was working on ‘Everything Flows’ until his final days in the hospital, where he would die at just 58. Thinking that the KGB had destroyed any chance of his masterpiece ‘Life and Fate’ to ever be published, and with the constant threat of persecution hanging over him, he courageously continued to write honest, open accounts of life in the Soviet Union. The framework for ‘Everything Flows’ is that a man returns to Moscow after spending thirty years in a gulag. show more There are some touching scenes as he seeks out family members who have erased him from their minds, as well as familiar places which have changed, but the real meat of the novel is not in its plot, but in Grossman’s searing political and historical commentary. There are few authors who write with such intelligence and clarity of thought.
The strongest chapters are on the Holodomor, the genocide of roughly five million people in Ukraine in 1932-33, that does not have the awareness it should. Grossman describes how it happened, starting with the forced relocation of masses of people to the middle of nowhere, to fend for themselves in winter, and ending with the smaller quantities of grain produced shipped off to the cities, literally starving those who had grown it. He recognizes that “it was the same as the Nazis putting Jewish children in the gas chamber”, and the irony of this genocide, as well as Soviet anti-Semitism and prison camps, given how the USSR was a powerful ally in stopping Hitler, is not lost on him. The horrifying conditions are also described on a personal level, in highly poignant scenes. “Is it really true that no one will be held to account for it all? That it will all just be forgotten without a trace?” his character wonders. Grossman is trying his very best to ensure none of the outrages in his lifetime were forgotten.
And how important is it to remember and learn from history? Attempting to force nationalism, labeling those who disagree as "enemies of the people", labeling the intelligentsia as "cosmopolitan" in a derogatory way, and inciting the hatred of minorities - in the Soviet case, fake news about Jewish doctors killing their patients, and kulaks being parasites who burned bread and murdered children - does it sound alarmingly familiar to things going on in today’s politics in the U.S. and around the world?
Another excellent chapter describes the conditions in a women’s prison camp through the experiences of a woman named Masha, who had once “read Blok, who had studied literature, who…had written poetry of her own…could also sew, make borsch, bake torte napoleon, and who had breast-fed a child.” She’s forced into sleeping with a senior guard, tries to commit suicide, and eventually resigns herself to being treated “worse than a dog” until she eventually leaves the prison in a coffin.
If the book sounds grim, well, I suppose it is, and that’s undoubtedly one of the reasons Grossman is not more highly read, and probably why I didn’t give the book a slightly higher rating.
There is such irony that a communist movement for the people, for the peasants and workers, would lead to collectivization and famine, loss of all freedoms and prison camps – and that it would be worse for peasants than it had been under the Tsars, who at least often had a heart in times of hardships. “How can we call ourselves workers if we don’t have the right to strike,” says one character. And, as men are always going to look out for themselves, it also led to far-from-socialistic corruption: “It occurred to Ivan Grigoryevich that it was perhaps not so very surprising that incorruptible asceticism, the faith of the barefoot and fanatical apostles of the commune, had led in the end to fraudsters who were ready to do anything for the sake of a good dacha, for a car of their own, for some rubles to put away in their piggy bank.”
The later chapters work well as further history lessons. For example, how the revolutionaries of the 1910’s had gotten to middle age in the 1930’s, and were then shipped off to prison camps themselves, consumed by the State they had created; the socialist element now “a mere wrapping, a verbal husk, and empty shell.” The psychology of Lenin, often portrayed for his thoughtful personal moments (including, interestingly enough, re-reading ‘War and Peace’), but ruthless to political enemies and having a paradoxical contempt for freedom. And, how Russians have never had freedom – through Tsars, communism, and now, of course, long after Grossman’s time, Putin. Grossman recognizes freedom as more important than anything else, but wonders, “When will we see the day of a free, human, Russian soul? When will this day dawn? Or will it never dawn?”
However, the most profound messages are universal. One character draws a very dark conclusion, the pessimistic view that the fundamental law of humanity over history is not one of progress and freedom, but of violence. He puts it as a law of conservation of violence, that violence is eternal, changing its shape and form, but always present. “Sometimes it is directed against colored people, sometimes against writers and artists, but, all in all, the total quantity of violence on earth remains constant,” he says. It’s incredibly sobering.
On the other hand, in what seem to be the final pages Grossman ever wrote, his character has forgiveness of those who had interrogated him, denounced him, stolen from him, and beaten him – “all of them, in their weakness, coarseness, and spite, had done evil without wanting to.” It reveals an enlightenment and a humanity that is almost unimaginable. show less
The strongest chapters are on the Holodomor, the genocide of roughly five million people in Ukraine in 1932-33, that does not have the awareness it should. Grossman describes how it happened, starting with the forced relocation of masses of people to the middle of nowhere, to fend for themselves in winter, and ending with the smaller quantities of grain produced shipped off to the cities, literally starving those who had grown it. He recognizes that “it was the same as the Nazis putting Jewish children in the gas chamber”, and the irony of this genocide, as well as Soviet anti-Semitism and prison camps, given how the USSR was a powerful ally in stopping Hitler, is not lost on him. The horrifying conditions are also described on a personal level, in highly poignant scenes. “Is it really true that no one will be held to account for it all? That it will all just be forgotten without a trace?” his character wonders. Grossman is trying his very best to ensure none of the outrages in his lifetime were forgotten.
And how important is it to remember and learn from history? Attempting to force nationalism, labeling those who disagree as "enemies of the people", labeling the intelligentsia as "cosmopolitan" in a derogatory way, and inciting the hatred of minorities - in the Soviet case, fake news about Jewish doctors killing their patients, and kulaks being parasites who burned bread and murdered children - does it sound alarmingly familiar to things going on in today’s politics in the U.S. and around the world?
Another excellent chapter describes the conditions in a women’s prison camp through the experiences of a woman named Masha, who had once “read Blok, who had studied literature, who…had written poetry of her own…could also sew, make borsch, bake torte napoleon, and who had breast-fed a child.” She’s forced into sleeping with a senior guard, tries to commit suicide, and eventually resigns herself to being treated “worse than a dog” until she eventually leaves the prison in a coffin.
If the book sounds grim, well, I suppose it is, and that’s undoubtedly one of the reasons Grossman is not more highly read, and probably why I didn’t give the book a slightly higher rating.
There is such irony that a communist movement for the people, for the peasants and workers, would lead to collectivization and famine, loss of all freedoms and prison camps – and that it would be worse for peasants than it had been under the Tsars, who at least often had a heart in times of hardships. “How can we call ourselves workers if we don’t have the right to strike,” says one character. And, as men are always going to look out for themselves, it also led to far-from-socialistic corruption: “It occurred to Ivan Grigoryevich that it was perhaps not so very surprising that incorruptible asceticism, the faith of the barefoot and fanatical apostles of the commune, had led in the end to fraudsters who were ready to do anything for the sake of a good dacha, for a car of their own, for some rubles to put away in their piggy bank.”
The later chapters work well as further history lessons. For example, how the revolutionaries of the 1910’s had gotten to middle age in the 1930’s, and were then shipped off to prison camps themselves, consumed by the State they had created; the socialist element now “a mere wrapping, a verbal husk, and empty shell.” The psychology of Lenin, often portrayed for his thoughtful personal moments (including, interestingly enough, re-reading ‘War and Peace’), but ruthless to political enemies and having a paradoxical contempt for freedom. And, how Russians have never had freedom – through Tsars, communism, and now, of course, long after Grossman’s time, Putin. Grossman recognizes freedom as more important than anything else, but wonders, “When will we see the day of a free, human, Russian soul? When will this day dawn? Or will it never dawn?”
However, the most profound messages are universal. One character draws a very dark conclusion, the pessimistic view that the fundamental law of humanity over history is not one of progress and freedom, but of violence. He puts it as a law of conservation of violence, that violence is eternal, changing its shape and form, but always present. “Sometimes it is directed against colored people, sometimes against writers and artists, but, all in all, the total quantity of violence on earth remains constant,” he says. It’s incredibly sobering.
On the other hand, in what seem to be the final pages Grossman ever wrote, his character has forgiveness of those who had interrogated him, denounced him, stolen from him, and beaten him – “all of them, in their weakness, coarseness, and spite, had done evil without wanting to.” It reveals an enlightenment and a humanity that is almost unimaginable. show less
Life and Fate is a literary classic. Picture War and Peace set in the 20th century. Replace Napolean with Hitler and substitute the Shaposhnikov family for the Rostofs. I've read scores of works with a World War II backdrop, but never from this perspective.
Never have I seen the war from the viewpoint of the average Russian, at Stalingrad, in the Ukraine, in Moscow and in the death camps. Most jarring is the repressive shadow of Communism and the fear constantly felt by even the most show more patriotic and loyal party member. Most heart breaking is the astonishing story of Sofya Levinton, her journey to the gas chamber and her "adoption" of the frail, young orphan.
It has been said that a death is a shame, a thousand deaths is a tragedy, but twenty million deaths is a statistic (or something to that effect) and it is true. Until we see an event from the perspective of an individual, we cannot grasp the horror and the emotions involved in an historical event with the scale of a Stalingrad or Treblinka. We cannot grasp the fear and trepidation created by a party apparatus such as the 20th century Communist Party.
This classic work brings all those emotions and human reactions to bear through the eyes of a typical Russian extended family. Though it is a translation, it flows smoothly and seamlessly. While the plethora of Russian names and nicknames is sometimes confusing, an index of characters in the back of the book assists immeasurably. I cannot recommend this novel highly enough. show less
Never have I seen the war from the viewpoint of the average Russian, at Stalingrad, in the Ukraine, in Moscow and in the death camps. Most jarring is the repressive shadow of Communism and the fear constantly felt by even the most show more patriotic and loyal party member. Most heart breaking is the astonishing story of Sofya Levinton, her journey to the gas chamber and her "adoption" of the frail, young orphan.
It has been said that a death is a shame, a thousand deaths is a tragedy, but twenty million deaths is a statistic (or something to that effect) and it is true. Until we see an event from the perspective of an individual, we cannot grasp the horror and the emotions involved in an historical event with the scale of a Stalingrad or Treblinka. We cannot grasp the fear and trepidation created by a party apparatus such as the 20th century Communist Party.
This classic work brings all those emotions and human reactions to bear through the eyes of a typical Russian extended family. Though it is a translation, it flows smoothly and seamlessly. While the plethora of Russian names and nicknames is sometimes confusing, an index of characters in the back of the book assists immeasurably. I cannot recommend this novel highly enough. show less
Vasily Grossman is often acclaimed as the Leo Tolstoy of the Soviet Union. The comparison is rather superficial in that it seems to be based on a perceived correspondence between their two masterpieces, Tolstoy's War and Peace and Grossman's Life and Fate. Aside from the fact that both books are massive and deal with an invasion of Russia, the two men and their books are very different.
To me, Grossman has always seemed more like Somerset Maugham. His tales are simple, yet carefully show more constructed. He reveals the inner workings of his characters through their outward behavior. Grossman's journalistic background is always on display. He meticulously records the world around him. His art is in the precise selection of an act or moment that will momentarily shine a light through the tiniest of cracks in his characters' armor to reveal the inner workings of their hearts.
The Road is a collection of some of Grossman's short works of fiction and nonfiction essays selected from different periods of his life. The center piece of the book is a new translation of Grossman's article "The Hell of Treblinka" which restores some content missing from previous translations. Even if you have read Treblinka before, say in Antony Beevor's A Writer at War, it is worth having the book for this translation alone. Restored are subtle jabs at Great Britain and America. Grossman, like most Russians, felt that too much of the burden of war was left for the Soviet Army to fight. Clearly he seemed to feel that western dawdling contributed to the size of the catastrophe that befell the Polish and Russian Jews.
Grossman's writing career stretched from the early 1930s into the early 1960s--from Stalin and the collectivization until Krushchev and the Thaw. The stories and essays in this book span those tumultuous years, beginning with his first published story, "In the Town of Berdichev," and ending with his late life ruminations on cemetaries and Soviet life. Berdichev, set during the Civil War years of 1920-21, tells the story of a manish Red Cavalry woman, Vavilova, who finds herself pregnant without a husband. (The father had died in an earlier battle.) Circumstances require that she spend several weeks in the town of Berdichev while she waits to have the child.
Grossman builds a beautifully crafted story around the contrasting lives of the rustic Jewish residents of Berdichev and the devoted proletarian soldier from Moscow. Vavilov briefly inhabits a seductive world as alien to her as another planet. In the end, however, her sense of purpose wins out.
As good as Berdichev is, it is Grossman's story "The Old Teacher" that will hit you the hardest. Written during the war, "The Old Teacher" is his first attempt at coming to grips with the fate of the Ukrainian Jews under the German occupation. There are strong echos of this story in Life and Fate, but the power of this version stands on its own.
The weakest portion of the book are some of the late stories. While Grossman was penning his greatest novels, some of his shorter works sank into a maudlin sentimentality. The stories of an Italian donkey and Moscow dog are still skillfully told, but they seem almost a retreat by an old man from a life too difficult to face.
There is much to like in The Road. Any fan of Grossman will want to have a copy for their shelves, but the book is uneven. With luck, this will not be the end of translations of his works into English. Let's hope that some of his earlier works will make it to these shores. show less
To me, Grossman has always seemed more like Somerset Maugham. His tales are simple, yet carefully show more constructed. He reveals the inner workings of his characters through their outward behavior. Grossman's journalistic background is always on display. He meticulously records the world around him. His art is in the precise selection of an act or moment that will momentarily shine a light through the tiniest of cracks in his characters' armor to reveal the inner workings of their hearts.
The Road is a collection of some of Grossman's short works of fiction and nonfiction essays selected from different periods of his life. The center piece of the book is a new translation of Grossman's article "The Hell of Treblinka" which restores some content missing from previous translations. Even if you have read Treblinka before, say in Antony Beevor's A Writer at War, it is worth having the book for this translation alone. Restored are subtle jabs at Great Britain and America. Grossman, like most Russians, felt that too much of the burden of war was left for the Soviet Army to fight. Clearly he seemed to feel that western dawdling contributed to the size of the catastrophe that befell the Polish and Russian Jews.
Grossman's writing career stretched from the early 1930s into the early 1960s--from Stalin and the collectivization until Krushchev and the Thaw. The stories and essays in this book span those tumultuous years, beginning with his first published story, "In the Town of Berdichev," and ending with his late life ruminations on cemetaries and Soviet life. Berdichev, set during the Civil War years of 1920-21, tells the story of a manish Red Cavalry woman, Vavilova, who finds herself pregnant without a husband. (The father had died in an earlier battle.) Circumstances require that she spend several weeks in the town of Berdichev while she waits to have the child.
Grossman builds a beautifully crafted story around the contrasting lives of the rustic Jewish residents of Berdichev and the devoted proletarian soldier from Moscow. Vavilov briefly inhabits a seductive world as alien to her as another planet. In the end, however, her sense of purpose wins out.
As good as Berdichev is, it is Grossman's story "The Old Teacher" that will hit you the hardest. Written during the war, "The Old Teacher" is his first attempt at coming to grips with the fate of the Ukrainian Jews under the German occupation. There are strong echos of this story in Life and Fate, but the power of this version stands on its own.
The weakest portion of the book are some of the late stories. While Grossman was penning his greatest novels, some of his shorter works sank into a maudlin sentimentality. The stories of an Italian donkey and Moscow dog are still skillfully told, but they seem almost a retreat by an old man from a life too difficult to face.
There is much to like in The Road. Any fan of Grossman will want to have a copy for their shelves, but the book is uneven. With luck, this will not be the end of translations of his works into English. Let's hope that some of his earlier works will make it to these shores. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
Stalingrad is the first book in the duology completed by Life and Fate. In Stalingrad we follow Hitler's advance through Russia, encirclement of the Russian armies, the occupation of Ukraine. The Soviet Army has retreated as far as Stalingrad, the southernmost city in unoccupied Russia, an industrial centre that produces steel and tanks for the Soviet Army. Beyond Stalingrad is the Kazakh steppe. Stalin has ordered that there is to be no retreat.
Stalingrad follows the fate of the show more Shaposhnikov family and its connections. Near the beginning of the book, in the lull before the siege, these family members and friends gather to celebrate the birthday of the matriarch, Alexandra Vladimirovna Shaposhnikova, understanding that they might never meet again. Stalingrad focuses on people: the middle-aged peasant farmers who leave their wives and children to tend the crops, expecting to die; the young boys leaving their work groups for the front; the factory workers; the coal miners; the women left destitute, trying to feed their children. By concentrating on the nobility of individuals, Grossman skirts the unpalatable truth, that many thousands were shot for desertion. This is not the reality he is free to write about in Stalin's Russia. As Marusya, daughter of Alexandra, says, "There is the truth of the reality forced on us by the accursed past. And there’s the truth of the reality which will defeat the past."
A chapter on Fascism could well be about Stalinism. Grossman was known to have equated the two.
Grossman adapted Stalingrad to the demands of the Soviet censors, who excised humour and references to real conditions, and tried to remove the main Jewish character. Robert Chandler, the translator, has, with the aid of the researcher Yuri Bit-Yunin, restored sections from Grossman's original typescript. Chandler's introduction and his chapter on the alterations he made to the various Russian published texts are informative and well worth reading. In Life and Fate, which was 'arrested' by the Soviets, Grossman writes what he believes.
I can recommend Stalingrad, but if you haven't read Life and Fate, read that instead. show less
Stalingrad follows the fate of the show more Shaposhnikov family and its connections. Near the beginning of the book, in the lull before the siege, these family members and friends gather to celebrate the birthday of the matriarch, Alexandra Vladimirovna Shaposhnikova, understanding that they might never meet again. Stalingrad focuses on people: the middle-aged peasant farmers who leave their wives and children to tend the crops, expecting to die; the young boys leaving their work groups for the front; the factory workers; the coal miners; the women left destitute, trying to feed their children. By concentrating on the nobility of individuals, Grossman skirts the unpalatable truth, that many thousands were shot for desertion. This is not the reality he is free to write about in Stalin's Russia. As Marusya, daughter of Alexandra, says, "There is the truth of the reality forced on us by the accursed past. And there’s the truth of the reality which will defeat the past."
A chapter on Fascism could well be about Stalinism. Grossman was known to have equated the two.
Grossman adapted Stalingrad to the demands of the Soviet censors, who excised humour and references to real conditions, and tried to remove the main Jewish character. Robert Chandler, the translator, has, with the aid of the researcher Yuri Bit-Yunin, restored sections from Grossman's original typescript. Chandler's introduction and his chapter on the alterations he made to the various Russian published texts are informative and well worth reading. In Life and Fate, which was 'arrested' by the Soviets, Grossman writes what he believes.
I can recommend Stalingrad, but if you haven't read Life and Fate, read that instead. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 71
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 8,672
- Popularity
- #2,766
- Rating
- 4.2
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- 231
- ISBNs
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