Overview

Vsevolod Ivanov's personal experiences in Siberia and Central Asia during the Revolution and Civil War, set against a childhood and youth wandering that vast expanse, infuse his writing. Combining traditional elements with the fantastic and the surreal, Ivanov's stories address not only the themes of the Revolution--the dehumanizing effects of famine; the ferment, energy, and uncertainty of the tempestuous times--but also the quotidian: the quiet world of man and nature, and the elemental bond that tied peasants to their native land. Fertility and Other Stories makes available for the first time in English some of the best stories of one of the most talented twentieth-century Russian writers.

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9780810115477

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A first English-language collection of the short fiction of a vigorous Russian writer, once a Soviet favorite son (for his correct Red Army tale Armored Train 14-69 ) and later denied Party approval - a fluctuation that left its mark on Ivanov's inconsistent candor and realism. If stories like The Child casually assume the politicization of illiterate peasants, their author's obviously mixed loyalties show to better literary advantage in such troubling pieces as Fertility (in which a nearly mystical closeness to nature both empowers and destroys a simple villager's life) and The Mansion, an ironical study of an egotist whose loyalties shift with the passing winds. Ivanov, who was a friend and protege of Maxim Gorky's, exhibits at his best some of that mentor's proletarian energy, Isaac Babel's wry political subtlety, and even Gogol's bizarre inventive power. He's a neglected writer very much worth rediscovering. (Kirkus Reviews)

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