Vasilii Grossman Libri

«Il libro segue con ottocentesca, tolstojana generosità molteplici destini individuali spostandosi da Stalingrado (città doppia: simbolo di difesa e libertà contro la violenza nazista e insieme luogo-emblema dell’Urss staliniana; solo nella “casa di Grekov” si vive secondo onore e senza gerarchie) ai lager sovietici e ai mattatoi nazisti, da Mosca (le stanze del potere, le celle della Lubjanka) alla provincia russa. E raccontando la “crudele verità” della guerra, le storie intrecciate di eroi e traditori, automi di partito ed esseri pensanti, delatori, burocrati, intriganti, carnefici, martiri, personaggi fittizi e reali, inframmezzando la narrazione con numerosi dialoghi (di ascendenza, questi, dostoevskiana), Grossman continua a interrogarsi sull’essenza di sistemi che uccidono la realtà – di conseguenza anche gli uomini – falsificandola, sostituendola con l’Idea. Al posticcio e menzognero “bene” di Stato lo scrittore può opporre soltanto, per quanto ardua e apparentemente impossibile in tempi disumani, la bontà individuale, rivendicando – sommessamente, ma con tenacia – l’irripetibilità del singolo destino umano. Giacché “Ciò che è vivo non ha copie ... E dove la violenza cerca di cancellare varietà e differenze, la vita si spegne”». Serena Vitale

Nel 1960, Vasilij Grossman, scrittore noto sin dagli anni Trenta e corrispondente di guerra, completò un grande romanzo a cui aveva dedicato quasi dieci anni. Ignorava che il manoscritto della sua epopea, ambiziosa quanto il "Guerra e pace" del Novecento, fosse già sotto esame del Comitato centrale. Nel febbraio del 1961, due agenti del KGB confiscano non solo il manoscritto, ma anche le carte carbone e i nastri della macchina da scrivere, per garantire che non rimanesse traccia del "grande romanzo". I burocrati sovietici percepirono immediatamente la minaccia rappresentata da un'opera come "Vita e destino", considerandola forse più pericolosa del "Dottor Zivago". Ciò che appare come un vasto affresco storico si rivela rapidamente una profonda riflessione sul male. Attraverso le vicende di numerosi personaggi interconnessi, Grossman esplora la natura del male, rivelando come esso si mascheri da bene universale, giustificando atrocità e bassezze. La sua analisi mette in luce la menzogna e la cancellazione della verità, inducendo a piegarsi davanti a ideali sublimi. George Steiner ha osservato che "libri come Vita e destino" superano quasi tutti i romanzi seriamente considerati in Occidente.

The collected shorter works by the author of Life and Fate and Everything Flows, published in English for the first time.

"Suppressed by the KGB and years later smuggled out of the Soviet Union to be published, Vasily Grossman?s novel is an unsparing story of ordinary Russians tragically caught between the fascism of the invading Nazis and the oppression of their own Soviet government. The sprawling plot follows the travails of the extended family of Viktor Shtrum along the vast eastern front of the war. Shtrum is a brilliant nuclear physicist who faces rising anti-Semitism in Moscow while his relatives navigate the threat of camps and prisons on both the Soviet and the Nazi sides. Grossman?s extensive wartime reporting, combined with his Tolstoyan narrative skills, allow him to portray with unprecedented detail and authenticity the human cost of the struggle between two freedom-denying powers. In vividly rendered scenes that range from the dramatic battle of Stalingrad to the remote Siberian gulag, and encompassing characters ranging from a grieving mother to a woman in love and from a six-year-old boy on the way to a gas chamber to Stalin and Hitler, Grossman?s masterpiece is a profound and moving reckoning with the darkness of the twentieth century and a testament to the stubborn persistence of kindness and hope."--Publisher

"Vassily Grossman (1905 -1964) has become well-known in the last twenty years - above all for his novel Life and Fate. This has often been described as a Soviet (or anti-Soviet) War and Peace. Most readers, however, do not realize that it is only the second half of a dilogy. The first half, originally titled Stalingrad but published in 1952 under the title For a just cause, has received surprisingly little attention. Scholars and critics seem to have assumed that, since it was first published in Stalin's lifetime, it can only be considered empty propaganda. In reality, there is little difference between the two novels. The chapters in the earlier novel about the Shaposhnikov family are as tender, and sometimes humorous, as in the later novel. The chapters devoted to the long retreats of 1941 and the first half of 1942 are perhaps still more vivid than the battle scenes in the later novel"-- Provided by publisher

'Everything Flows is as important a novel as anything written by Solzhenitsyn, and Robert Chandler's superb translation makes it a joy to read'Antony BeevorIvan Grigoryevich has been in the Gulag for thirty years. Released after Stalin's death, he finds that the years of terror have imposed a collective moral slavery. He must struggle to find a place for himself in an unfamiliar world. Grossman tells the stories of those people entwined with Ivan's fate: his cousin Nikolay, a scientist who never let his conscience interfere with his career, Pinegin, the informer who had Ivan sent to the camps and Anna Sergeyevna, Ivan's lover, who tells of her involvement as an activist in the Terror famine of 1932-3.Everything Flows is Vasily Grossman's final testament, written after the Soviet authorities suppressed Life and Fate.'Vasily Grossman is the Tolstoy of the USSR' Martin Amis

K vydání připravili Antony Beevor a Luba Vinogradova. Známý historik Antony Beevor se setkal s pozůstalostí sovětského publicisty a spisovatele Vasilije Grossmana během psaní své oceňované knihy Stalingrad - Osudové střetnutí 1942-1943. Cenný materiál ho pak inspiroval k uspořádání a vydání této knihy, která by za života spisovatele Grossmana rozhodně nemohla vyjít. Vasilij Grossmann vstoupil dobrovolně do Rudé armády v roce 1941 po napadení Sovětského svazu Hitlerem. Více než tři roky pracoval jako speciální zpravodaj pro armádní noviny Rudá hvězda. Během svého válečného působení se etabloval jako "hlavní hlasatel" z fronty. Jeho reportáže a hlášení plné krvavé reality a beznaděje však byly ve své době přísně cenzurovány. Tato kniha, doplněná spoustou nepublikovaných Grossmanových poznámek, postřehů a dobových popisů perfektně doplňuje renomované práce pojednávající o druhé světové válce. Vasilij Grossman jako vnímavý pozorovatel se smyslem pro důležité detaily podává čtenáři barevný a panoramatický pohled na tehdejší události. Jeho zprávy z bitvy u Stalingradu, bitvy u Kurska, z dobývaného Berlína nebo z návštěvy osvobozené Treblinky slouží jako modelový příklad válečné reportáže.

Vom Staunen über das Glück, am Leben zu sein.