Synopses & Reviews
Edited and translated from the Russian by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova Knopf Canada is proud to present a masterpiece of the Second World War, never before published in English, from one of the great Russian writers of the 20th century – a vivid eyewitness account of the Eastern Front and “the ruthless truth of war.”
When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941, Vasily Grossman became a special correspondent for the Red Star, the Red Army’s newspaper. A Writer at War – based on the notebooks in which Grossman gathered raw material for his articles – depicts the crushing conditions on the Eastern Front, and the lives and deaths of soldiers and civilians alike. It also includes some of the earliest reportage on the Holocaust. In the three years he spent on assignment, Grossman witnessed some of the most savage fighting of the war: the appalling 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 and much more.
Historian Antony Beevor has taken Grossman’s raw notebooks, and fashioned them into a narrative providing one of the most even-handed descriptions – at once unflinching and sensitive – we have ever had of what he called “the ruthless truth of war.”
Synopsis
From one of the great Russian writers of the 20th century--author of "Life and Fate"--comes a stunning eyewitness account of the Eastern Front in the Second World War. Grossman's raw notebook entries provide perhaps the best descriptions of what he called "the ruthless truth of war."
About the Author
Vasily Grossman (1905-1964) came to be regarded as a hero of the Second World War. Life and Fate, his novel about the siege of Stalingrad, was written in 1960 but was declared a threat to the Soviet government and was confiscated by the KGB. Twenty years later it was smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm and published to wide acclaim in the West.
Antony Beevor was educated at Winchester and Sandhurst. A regular officer in the 11th Hussars, he served in Germany and England. He has published several novels, and his works of non-fiction include The Spanish Civil War, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, which won the 1993 Runciman Award, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 and Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. With his wife, Artemis Cooper, he wrote Paris: After the Liberation: 1944-1949. His book Stalingrad was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, the Wolfson History Prize and the Hawthornden Prize in 1999.
Table of Contents
IntroductionTranslators’ Note
Glossary
PART ONE
The Shock of Invasion 1941
1. Baptism of Fire August 1941
2. The Terrible Retreat August to September 1941
3. On the Bryansk Front September 1941
4. With the 50th Army September 1941
5. Back into the Ukraine September 1941
6. The German Capture of Orel October 1941
7. The Withdrawl before Moscow October 1941
PART TWO
The Year of Stalingrad 1942
8. In the South January 1942
9. The Air War in the South January 1942
10. On the Donets with the Black Division January and February 1942
11. With the Khasin Tank Brigade February 1942
12. ‘The Ruthless Truth of War’ March 1942 to July 1942
13. The Road to Stalingrad August 1942
14. The September Battles
15. The Stalingrad Academy Autumn 1942
16. The October Battles
17. The Tide Turned November 1942
PART THREE
Recovering the Occupied Territories 1943
18. After the Battle January 1943
19. Winning Back the Motherland The Early Spring of 1943
20. The Battle of Kursk July 1943
PART FOUR
From the Dnepr to the Vistula 1944
21. The Killing Ground of Berdichev January 1944
22. Across the Ukraine to Odessa March & April 1944
23. Operation Bagration June & July 1944
24. Treblinka July 1944
PART FIVE
Amid the Ruins of the Nazi World
25. Warsaw and Lódz January 1945
26. Into the Lair of the Fascist Beast January 1945
27. The Battle for Berlin April & May 1945
Afterword
The Lies of Victory
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Source Notes
Index
Maps
Gomel and the Central Front, August 1941
In the Donbass, January to March 1942
Stalingrad, Autumn and Winter 1942
The Battle of Kursk, July 1943