![]() ![]() What made it more difficult still was the fact that the advice shifted from one month to the next. The differences were due to the strictures of the state Stalinist state censors, or the ‘advice’ of the Soviet Writers’ Guild, or following ‘discussions’ with Communist Party members. Some characters appear in one version but not another. He even at one point wrote directly to Stalin himself, appealing for permission to have the book published.Īs a result of the bureaucratic obstacle course Grossman was obliged to pick his way through, there are several versions of the novel, with paragraphs or whole sections included in some but not others. To get it published – eventually, serialised in Novy Mir in late 1952 – Grossman had to jump through bureaucratic hoops that would have driven many a novelist to despair. ![]() It was written between 19, when Joseph Stalin was still firmly in control of the USSR and this fact is heavily reflected in both the content and the tone of the book. There is a very interesting back story to the writing and publication of Stalingrad. Vasily Grossman’s novel Stalingrad has been published in English for the first time and like its sequel, Life and Fate, it stands squarely in the best traditions of Russian epic novels and is well worth the read. ![]()
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