The great patriotic war

Picked up by chance, for £5.50 at the book shop at the top of Ryde, more or less opposite the Catholic church. 'A Story of a Real Man' by Boris Polevoi.

A nicely produced, but still mass production book from the Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1952. From a time when the Soviet Union was subsidising the production of books for foreign consumption. Of which I own at least one other, 'Views of the USSR', bought by my elder brother in 1961. Another nicely produced book, this one a picture book rather than a novel.

A 550 (small) page novel about a Soviet airman in the middle of what we call the Second World War. His life, loves and tribulations and eventually happy ending. The great patriotic war seen through perceptive but still rather rose tinted eyes; a world where all Russians are decent people and many of them are heroes.

The translation, by J. Fineburg, reminded me of Cecil Parrott's translation of  'The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War'. Perhaps there is something which draws together translations of books about soldiering from eastern Europe. Fineburg, who exists in various spellings, exists in Bing-world, but Google turned up his Wikipedia entry at reference 1, a Pole who emigrated to Britain to live in Hackney and work for the British Socialist Party, but who subsequently went to live in the Soviet Union in 1918, dying in his early seventies in 1957, so presumably he prospered there.

Rather good half tone illustrations by N. N. Zhukov, who seems to have got a Stalin prize for them in 1951. And who still exists to the extent of what appears to have been his house now being a museum. But Google goes one better than Bing, turning up reference 3.

The book itself won the Stalin prize in 1946, so it was a good book by someone in favour with the ruling party. B. Polevoi also exists in various spellings, but Bing did manage to find him at reference 2.

A moving war story, a book which reminded me why the war is remembered in a different way in what is now mostly Russia. Their huge land was brutally invaded, then occupied for several years and they took enormous damage in both human lives and material destruction. And they are justly proud of their achievement in winning the war in the west both for themselves and for the rest of us.

The book closes with a rather moving postscript by the author, who, it seems spent most of the war as a Pravda correspondent attached to the Red Army in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fineberg.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Polevoy.

Reference 3: https://soviet-art.ru/soviet-artist-nikolai-zhukov/.

Group search key: gha.