Vasilii Grossman

Boris Lanin (Russian Academy of Education, Moscow)

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

Born 12 Dec 1905
Died 14 Sep 1964
Activity 1932-1964

Places

Born in Ukraine
Active in Russia; Ukraine

Cultural Identities

Jewish European

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Story-writer

Resources

Grossman lived in an epoch of repression. Not only human freedom but the human personality itself was placed outside the law. Grossman was aware of this, and he sought and formulated “laws” which could be put above the arbitrariness of the system. From Stepan Kol'chugin (1937-40), his early and most typical socialist realist novel, Grossman had been seeking such laws. He was interested in the laws of life and death, war and love: in short, in laws as yet unknown to others. Starting out as a Marxist, he tested Marxist dogmas with the power of his intellect. For this, it was necessary to crack the Marxist code, so as to return its all words to their previous meaning – and then to look at, and listen to, those words afresh.…

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2774 words

Citation: Lanin, Boris. "Vasilii Grossman". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 April 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5901, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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