Vasilii Grossman, Zhizn' i sud'ba [Life and Fate]

Robert Chandler (Queen Mary, University of London)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1980

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)
Switzerland (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

After Stalin’s death in 1953, Grossman enjoyed a period of public success. He was awarded a prestigious decoration, “The Red Banner of Labour”, and Za pravoe delo (For a Just Cause), the first of his two Stalingrad novels, was republished. Meanwhile he was writing two masterpieces, neither of which was to be published in Russia until the late 1980s: Zhizn’ i sud’ba (Life and Fate) and Vse techet (Everything Flows). Though sometimes described as a sequel to the politically less heretical For a Just Cause, Life and Fate is better seen as a separate novel that includes many of the same characters.

Life and Fate is important both as literature and as history. Grossman a…

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3117 words

Citation: Chandler, Robert. "Zhizn' i sud'ba". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 November 2010 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21502, accessed 18 April 2024.]

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