10 years after Ivan Denisovich

Fülszöveg

Some reviews of Z^ores Medvedev's previous books A QUESTION OF MADNESS (with Roy Medvedev)
'Gives a better sense of what life is like in a police state than anything I have read for a long time.'
Leonard Schapiro, Sunday Times
'These officials come straight from the pages of the nineteenth century satirists.'
Edward Crankshaw, The Observer
'The authors' astuteness, aversion to rhetoric and dry wit are singularly impressive.'
The Economist
'Lucidly, and with humour, the two brothers describe the whole nightmare process.'
Stephen Constant, Sunday Telegraph
'Immense dignity and more than a little wry humour.'
David Fishlock, Financial Times
THE MEDVEDEV PAPERS The Plight of Soviet Science
'It is impossible to over-rate the importance of this book.'
Alex Comfort, The Guardian
'Medvedev is a shrewd, resourceful and ironical observer.'
Avrion Mitchison, New Statesman
'He is one of a brave and stubborn vanguard who by asserting their rights will eventually lead many... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Some reviews of Z^ores Medvedev's previous books A QUESTION OF MADNESS (with Roy Medvedev)
'Gives a better sense of what life is like in a police state than anything I have read for a long time.'
Leonard Schapiro, Sunday Times
'These officials come straight from the pages of the nineteenth century satirists.'
Edward Crankshaw, The Observer
'The authors' astuteness, aversion to rhetoric and dry wit are singularly impressive.'
The Economist
'Lucidly, and with humour, the two brothers describe the whole nightmare process.'
Stephen Constant, Sunday Telegraph
'Immense dignity and more than a little wry humour.'
David Fishlock, Financial Times
THE MEDVEDEV PAPERS The Plight of Soviet Science
'It is impossible to over-rate the importance of this book.'
Alex Comfort, The Guardian
'Medvedev is a shrewd, resourceful and ironical observer.'
Avrion Mitchison, New Statesman
'He is one of a brave and stubborn vanguard who by asserting their rights will eventually lead many others to do the same.'
Iverach McDonald, The Times
This is the first authoritative book on Solzhenitsyn to come out of the Soviet Union. Dr Zhores Medvedev, who is a personal friend of Solzhenitsyn and took part in many of the events he describes, gives us at once a fascinating portrait of the great writer in his struggle against censorship and a penetrating description of Soviet literary politics during the last ten years.
The book begins with an account of the publication oi Ivan Denisovich in Movy Mir - a shattering event in the lives of all who read it - and of the short period during the Khrushchev era when liberal counsels prevailed. After his fall, there was a return to more normal channels of ideological direction, and official conservative bureaucrats took over. Dr Medvedev exposes the manipulation of the Lenin Prize which was awarded to a mediocre book instead of to Solzhenitsyn ; the stage-management of the Fourth Writers' Congress in a determined attempt to prevent open discussion of the Sinyavsky-Daniel case and the persecution of Solzhenitsyn; the whispering campaign that was instituted against him; the attacks in the Soviet press and the falsified articles on him which were presented as translations from foreign journals.
Particularly valuable is the light shed on the unsavoury black market in samizdat in the West - where publication by émigré presses has brought discredit on Solzhenitsyn - and the detailed account of the extraordinary behaviour of the Swedish Embassy in Moscow when it came to awarding him the Nobel Prize there.
Continued on back flap
There are fascinating pages on Tvardovsky, the poet and editor oi Novy Mir-, his role in promoting a return to genuine literary values, and the devotion he inspired among his editorial colleagues. The chapter describing Tvardovsky's funeral is one of the most moving in the book.
What emerges from this extremely important, haunting book is an unforgettable portrait of Solzhenitsyn, and the friends who support, share and are inspired by his struggle against bureaucracy, blatant lying and the threat of violence. Dr Medvedev writes with admirable detachment, despite his personal involvement; his descriptions of the manoeuvres of the political and literary hierarchy are at times almost comic - almost, because the reader can never forget the deadly seriousness of the threat. Vissza