Ilya Ehrenburg – The Storm I have finally finished The Storm, a very good book that took me an unusually long time to get through. This is a very well-written socialist realist novel, indeed at times it is hard to believe this book ever had a place in the Stalinist cannon. A good book. This […]
Read more "The Storm"For all my readers on the sub-continent! Many of the visitors to this site come from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In their day the Soviet presses were well-distibuted and well-liked throughout India. The result is a fondness for these unusual books, a fondness I share. This post is for you: Jawaharlal Nehru in the Soviet […]
Read more "Jawaharlal Nehru in the Soviet Union"Vladimir Obruchev – Plutonia Another early Soviet science fiction classic by Obruchev. And another hidden-world story located somewhere in the ‘north’, where Russians could hide anything. The book focuses mostly on dinosaurs and other ancient species. This is also an undated Foreign Language Publishing House effort. Great cover: The book is designed by D. Bisti, […]
Read more "Plutonia"Alexander Bek – Volokolamsk Highway Now here’s a beautiful book. Originally written in 1944, the story of the the defense of Moscow. Re-issued in the late 40s or early ‘fifities by the Foreign Language Publishing House. Designed by A. Livanov. There aren’t many illustrations within the book, but the two there are are fantastic:
Read more "Volokolamsk Highway"Vladimir Obruchev – Sannikov Land Classic Soviet sci-fi, written in 1926. This edition, undated, is likely from the late 40s or ‘fifties. Published by the Foreign Language Publishing House. Great cover and jacket: Sannikov Land is not an invention of the author, a geologist, but a ‘real’ mythical island believed to be somewhere in the […]
Read more "Sannikov Land"I just got this addition to the designy, 1980s edition of Gorky’s works. Volume 7, My Apprenticeship, My Universities. Progress Publishers, 1981. This book is part of this series.
Read more "New Gorky"Here’s volume two, from 1947. I have read in a number of histories of the Soviet Union that this volume was never published. Clearly not true. The implication was that Stalin’s purge of Old Bolsheviks and the consequent rewriting of history was too all-encompassing for even a book written by Stalin himself to keep up. […]
Read more "History of the Civil War in the USSR, Volume 2"This is one of the best know collectible albums made by Soviet publishers. From the Cooperative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR, 1937, this is a translation and reformatting of the seminal Stalinist text, of the same name, published in Russian. The Authors of this volume are: M. Gorky, V. Molotov, K. Voroshilov, […]
Read more "History of the Civil War in the USSR, Volume 1"Here’s the earliest calendar I have. I have not seen many of theses so I do not know the run, or how many were made. If they were produced before the war they would certainly be extraordinary documents. Anyhow, to 1944: A nice way to start things off, even before the Stalin portrait. The colour […]
Read more "Soviet Calendar 1944"Here’s the second wartime calendar. This one has a very marshal feeling; you’ll see what I mean. Here’s one marshal. The marshals continue. Zhukov’s chest looks naked compared to the official post-war portrait, covered in metal and ribbon. The civil war heroes, Voroshilov and Budyonny, recast to lead the Soviet Army. A very unusual portrait […]
Read more "Soviet Calendar 1945"
I Collect Soviet Books 