1920 Diary (Yale Nota Bene)

by Isaac Babel (Author), H. T. Willetts (Translator), Carol J. Avins (Editor)

New
Paperback
2002
$25.47

This diary by the famed twentieth-century Russian writer recounts Babel's experiences with the Cossack cavalry during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1920. The basis for Red Cavalry, Babel's best-known work, it records the devastation of the war, the extreme cruelty of the Polish and Red armies alike toward the Jewish population in the Ukraine and eastern Poland, and Babel's own conflicted role as both Soviet revolutionary and Jew.

Synopsis

This diary by the famed twentieth-century Russian writer recounts Babel's experiences with the Cossack cavalry during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1920. The basis for Red Cavalry, Babel's best-known work, it records the devastation of the war, the extreme cruelty of the Polish and Red armies alike toward the Jewish population in the Ukraine and eastern Poland, and Babel's own conflicted role as both Soviet revolutionary and Jew.

$25.47

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 194
Edition: Revised ed.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 19 Mar 2002
ISBN 10: 0300093136
ISBN 13: 9780300093131

Media Reviews

Babel's 1920 Diary, the source for many of his remarkable Red Cavalry stories, is itself as remarkable as the stories, particularly when one considers that the diarist was a journalist of only twenty-six. The staccato sentences in which Babel rapidly describes the horrific details of revolutionary brutality have the impact of an accomplished style, one that in its spontaneously elliptical way is strangely no less artful than the artfully nuanced directness that is the triumph of Red Cavalry. Philip Roth An electrifying translation accompanied by an indispensable introduction... Babel's journey is a Jewish lamentation... a tragic masterwork. Cynthia Ozick, The New Republic A precursor of Holocaust literature, and more powerful in its effect than any Holocaust literature that I have managed to read. Harold Bloom, New York Times Book Review Selected as a Notable Book of the Year (1995) by the New York Times Book Review.

Author Bio

Isaac Babel was born in Odessa in 1894 and was shot in Lubyanka prison in 1940. Carol J. Avins is associate professor of Russian literature at Rutgers University.