Vasilii Grossman Livres

Dans ce roman-fresque, composé dans les années 1950, à la façon de Guerre et paix, Vassili Grossman (1905-1964) fait revivre l'URSS en guerre à travers le destin d'une famille, dont les membres nous amènent tour à tour dans Stalingrad assiégée, dans les laboratoires de recherche scientifique, dans la vie ordinaire du peuple russe, et jusqu'à Treblinka sur les pas de l'Armée rouge. Au-delà de ces destins souvent tragiques, il s'interroge sur la terrifiante convergence des systèmes nazi et communiste alors même qu'ils s'affrontent sans merci. Radicalement iconoclaste en son temps - le manuscrit fut confisqué par le KGB, tandis qu'une copie parvenait clandestinement en Occident -, ce livre pose sur l'histoire du XXe siècle une question que philosophes et historiens n'ont cessé d'explorer depuis lors. Il le fait sous la forme d'une grande œuvre littéraire, imprégnée de vie et d'humanité, qui transcende le documentaire et la polémique pour atteindre à une vision puissante, métaphysique, de la lutte éternelle du bien contre le mal.

Lorsqu'en 1941 les troupes allemandes envahissent l'URSS, Staline autorise la constitution d'un Comité antifasciste juif, lequel, suivant une suggestion d'Albert Einstein, décide de consigner dans un " livre noir " les atrocités commises par les nazis contre les populations juives, en URSS, et par la suite en Pologne. Réalisé sous la direction de deux écrivains et correspondants de guerre russes, Ilya Ehrenbourg et Vassili Grossman, ce rapport fut envoyé aux États-Unis (où fut établie une version anglaise incomplète), et remis au procureur soviétique de Nuremberg. En revanche, dès l'après-guerre, il fut interdit en URSS, et plusieurs de ses rédacteurs exécutés. Partiellement édité en russe en Israël en 1980, il ne le fut intégralement qu'en 1993 à Vilnius (Lituanie). C'est un document historique de premier ordre. Les enquêteurs ont parcouru l'Ukraine, la Biélorussie, les pays Baltes, la Pologne, se rendant dans les camps nazis juste libérés, rassemblant des centaines de documents, allant jusqu'à faire venir par avion spécial des témoins de massacres ou de déportations. Cet ouvrage demeure la principale source d'information sur l'extermination des juifs dans les territoires de l'ex-URSS. C'est aussi un bouleversant morceau d'histoire immédiate, dû à des journalistes et écrivains de conviction et de talent.

Eyewitness testimonies, letters, diaries, and affidavits form a powerful collection documenting Nazi atrocities against Jews in Eastern Europe. This definitive edition offers crucial insights into the experiences of victims in camps, ghettoes, and towns, making it a significant contribution to Holocaust literature and an essential resource for understanding this dark chapter in history.

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

Ivan 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

Exploring the profound themes of war, memory, and loss, this collection features Vasily Grossman's impactful short stories, journalism, essays, and letters. It includes his early success "In the Town of Berdichev," a powerful commentary on the cost of war, and the poignant story "Mama," which delves into the complexities of family during the Great Terror. Notable works also encompass his chilling report from Treblinka and reflections on art amid atrocity, alongside deeply personal letters to his mother, revealing the emotional depth of Grossman's experiences.

When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941, Vasily Grossman became a special correspondent for the Red Star , the Soviet Army's newspaper, and reported from the frontlines of the war. A Writer at War depicts in vivid detail the crushing conditions on the Eastern Front, and the lives and deaths of soldiers and civilians alike. Witnessing some of the most savage fighting of the war, Grossman saw firsthand the repeated early defeats of the Red Army, the brutal street fighting in Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk (the largest tank engagement in history), the defense of Moscow, the battles in Ukraine, the atrocities at Treblinka, and much more. Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova have taken Grossman's raw notebooks, and fashioned them into a gripping narrative providing one of the most even-handed descriptions --at once unflinching and sensitive -- we have ever had of what Grossman called “the ruthless truth of war.”

Vasily Grossman, author of Life and Fate, reflects on a season spent in Armenia.