The damned and the dead
Subtitle: the Eastern Front through the eyes of Soviet and Russian novelists
By: Frank Ellis
Series: Modern war studies; Modern war studies
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Lawrence, Kan
Language: eng
Number of pages: 376
ISBN-13: 9780700617845
Subjects: Soviet Union; Russian literature; Russian fiction; War in literature; Literature and the war; History and criticism; Campaigns; Soviet Personal narratives; World War, 1939-1945; Russian Novelists; Veterans; Soviet Union. Raboche-Krestʹi︠a︡nskai︠a︡ Krasnai︠a︡ Armii︠a︡; Biography; History
Description: "The confrontation between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army on the Eastern Front of World War II was defined by incalculable suffering, destruction, casualties, and heroism. While many historians have chronicled the epic nature of that arena of war, it has largely been left to Russian novelists to fully express the intense human dimensions of that conflict. Frank Ellis's groundbreaking study provides the first comprehensive survey of that impressive body of literature. Canvassing a wide spectrum of works by Soviet and post-Soviet writers, many of whom were war veterans themselves, Ellis uncovers themes both common to war literature in general and distinctive to the Soviet experience ... One of the many threads running throughout Ellis's study is the dilemma of the Red Army soldier condemned to serve a regime that was utterly paranoid regarding the allegiances of its own armies, so much so that Soviet soldiers often felt as threatened by the Soviet government as they did by the German armies. Many of these novels reinforce the now well known fact that Stalin devoted considerable resources to ferreting out soldiers whose actions (or inactions) suggested disloyalty to his repressive regime. A few of them ... became battlegrounds in their own right, pitting Soviet writers against Soviet censors in a struggle over the public memory of the war. Russia's memories of World War II are forever tied to the suffering of its people. Ellis's rich and revealing work shows us why."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [354]-364 and index.
Table of contents: title: The sword and the pen : an overview of war literature; title: Return from the front : the veterans dissent; title: Traitors, wolves, and infernal cold : the war stories of Vasil' Bykov; title: The imperium ripostes : the return of the Vozhd'; title: The hinge of fate : the Battle of Stalingrad in Soviet-Russian war literature; title: NKVD reports from Stalingrad, 1942-1943 : blocking detachments, deserters, executions, and morale; title: The Russian war novel of the 1990s : a final reckoning?; title: Afterword; title: Appendix A: Order of the headquarters of the Supreme Command of the Red Army, 270, 16th August 1941; title: Appendix B: Order of the People's Commissar for Defence of the USSR, 227, 28th July 1942; title: Appendix C: Statute concerning the main counter-intelligence directorate of the People's Commissariat of Defence ("SMERSH") and its agencies in the provinces, 21st April 1943.