1920 Diary
eBook - PDF

1920 Diary

  1. 192 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

1920 Diary

About this book

This diary by the famed twentieth-century Russian writer recounts Babel’s experiences with the Cossack cavalry during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919–1920. The basis for Red Cavalry, Babel’s best-known work, it records the devastation of the war, the extreme cruelty of the Polish and Red armies alike toward the Jewish population in the Ukraine and eastern Poland, and Babel’s own conflicted role as both Soviet revolutionary and Jew.

 “Babel’s 1920 Diary, the source for many of his remarkable Red Cavalry stories, is itself as remarkable as the stories, particularly when one considers that the diarist was a journalist of only twenty-six. The staccato sentences in which Babel rapidly describes the horrific details of revolutionary brutality have the impact of an accomplished style, one that in its spontaneously elliptical way is strangely no less artful than the artfully nuanced directness that is the triumph of Red Cavalry.”—Philip Roth

 “An electrifying translation accompanied by an indispensable introduction. . . . Babel’s journey is a Jewish lamentation . . . a tragic masterwork.”

—Cynthia Ozick, The New Republic

 “A precursor of Holocaust literature, and more powerful in its effect than any Holocaust literature that I have managed to read.”—Harold Bloom, New York Times Book Review

 Isaac Babel was born in Odessa in 1894 and was shot in Lubyanka prison in 1940.  Carol J. Avins is associate professor of Russian literature at Rutgers University.

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Yes, you can access 1920 Diary by Isaac Babel, H. T. Willetts, Carol J. Avins in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Literary Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Yale University Press
Year
1995
eBook ISBN
9780300173307
Edition
1
Topic
Literature
Subtopic
Literary Biographies
Index
Literature
Notes
13
September
eshes
chayil:
"A
woman
of
valor" 
(Hebrew). 
From
the
poem
in
praise
of
the
virtuous 
woman
in
Proverbs
31:10-31,
which 
begins
"A
woman
of
valor
who 
can 
find? 
/ 
For 
her
price
is 
far
above 
rubies."
14
September
Klevan:
See
notes
to
11
July, 
when 
Babel 
passed 
through 
this 
town
head-
ing
west.
The
First 
Cavalry
Army
was
forced
to
retreat 
eastward
after
the
defeat
at
Zamosc.
In 
the 
final
entry,
15
September,
Babel
describes 
returning
to
Rovno 
(see 
notes
to 
6
June
IJutyl)
Appendix
"We
Need 
More
Trunovs!"
For 
a 
fictionalized,
disturbingly 
ambiguous 
portrait
of 
the
subject
of
this
eulogy,
see
Babel's
Red
Cavalry
story
"Squadron
Commander
Trunov."
"Knights
of
Civilization"
See
Babel's
diary 
entries
in
Berestechko,
7-8
August.
Pan:
A
Polish 
honorific 
that
can 
be
used
to
mean
"mister,"
"sir,"
or
"gentleman"
and
that,
in 
the
plural.
Babel
uses
to
imply
a
contrast 
between
bourgeois
Poland
and 
the 
new
proletarian 
Russia.
szlachta:
Gentry; 
also 
translated
as
"aristocracy" 
(Polish).
"The
Killers 
Must
Be
Finished
Off
See 
the
diary 
entry
in
KomarĂłw,
28
August.
126

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. List of Illustrations
  3. Editor's Acknowledgments
  4. Editor's Note on the Translation
  5. Map of Poland in the Era of the Polish-Soviet War
  6. Map of Babel's Route with the First Cavalry Army
  7. Introduction: Isaac Babel's "Red Cavalry" Diary
  8. 1920 Diary
  9. Appendix: Babel's Publications in the Red Cavalryman
  10. Notes to Babel's Texts