Vasilii Grossman, Mama

Robert Chandler (Queen Mary, University of London)

Ed. by Andrei Rogatchevski, UiT - The Arctic University of Norway
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 1989

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story

Resources

“Mama” was written in 1960 but first published only in 1989, in the volume Neskol’ko pechal’nykh dnei [A Few Sad Days]. Like Grossman’s other last stories, it is more laconic and more modernist than his two great Stalingrad novels, Za pravoe delo (For a Just Cause [English translation titled “Stalingrad”]) and Zhizn’ i sud’ba [Life and Fate]. In Life and FateGrossman spells out his thoughts very clearly indeed and is not afraid to repeat them; in his last stories he often only hints at them. If Life and Fateis comparable to a Shostakovich symphony, these stories are more like his quartets.

Like much of Grossman’s fiction, &…

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2940 words

Citation: Chandler, Robert. "Mama". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 December 2018 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35779, accessed 11 March 2025.]

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