Background
Konstantin Simonov was born on November 28, 1915, in St. Petersburg. His father took an active part in the revolution and served throughout the civil war as a commander in the Red Army.
(Na rubezhe KhIKh KhKh vekov obostrilos' sopernichestvo ...)
Na rubezhe KhIKh KhKh vekov obostrilos' sopernichestvo velikikh derzhav v bor'be za vliyanie na Afganistan i politiku ego pravyashchikh krugov. Afganskaya territoriya razdelyala aziatskie vladeniya Anglii i Rossii, a potomu i London, i Peterburg s odinakovym uporstvom stremilis' ukrepit' zdes' svoi pozitsii. Britanskoe pravitel'stvo, stremyas' izbezhat' vozmozhnogo stolknoveniya s Rossiey neposredstvenno na granitsakh Indii, vsemi silami pytalos' uderzhat' afganskoe gosudarstvo v zavisimosti ot Velikobritanii, prevratit' ego territoriyu v sferu isklyuchitel'no angliyskikh interesov. Pryamym vyzovom Velikobritanii yavilis' ves'ma nastoychivye popytki Rossii dobit'sya vosstanovleniya pryamykh otnosheniy s kabul'skim pravitel'stvom. Faza ostrogo vneshnepoliticheskogo protivoborstva velikikh derzhav v Afganistane byla proydena v 1907 g. Rossiya i Velikobritaniya pristupili k poisku kompromissnogo resheniya afganskoy problemy. Uzhe cherez neskol'ko let pozitsii politicheskikh krugov Londona i Peterburga opredelyalis' mysl'yu o neobkhodimosti razdela afganskogo gosudarstva na sfery vliyaniya, a sobytiya Pervoy mirovoy voyny priveli obe storony k osoznaniyu neizbezhnosti lisheniya Kabula poslednikh ostatkov samostoyatel'nosti.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3659447714/?tag=2022091-20
(The combination of traditional Tolstoyan verbiage with th...)
The combination of traditional Tolstoyan verbiage with the time-worn universal theme of war has not prevented this Russian author (Days and Nights) and journalist from creating an intense and absorbing World War II documentary of the first months at Russia's Western Front, as the Germans advance relentlessly toward Moscow. More than an accurate, exciting record of the actual battles, retreats, and encirclements, the novel is meaningfully overcast with an aura of warany war of any nationnot only its horrors, but its rewards, its spirit, and above all, its blind disregard for any ""disparity between the living and the dead"". In microcosm, the hero of the book is Vanya Sintsov, a young military journalist who joins the front ranks to fight, is wounded and captured, and escapes, but without his survival guaranteethe Party Card and Identity Papers. The struggle to redeem his official status as a soldier through his own actions takes him from unit to unit, from comrade to comrade, never doubting his country's victory, but often despairing at human nature. Sinstov, with all his faith and failings, is still only an opitome; it is the Russian Army and all its emergency supporters that is the true epic hero. Aided by Ainsztein's fine translation, Simonov has managed, in a gargantuan complex of characters and events, to capture that elusive dust that inexorably settles on a people at war. Long but rewardingboth for historical accuracy and artful fiction.-Kirkus Reviews
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JHP4J50/?tag=2022091-20
Konstantin Simonov was born on November 28, 1915, in St. Petersburg. His father took an active part in the revolution and served throughout the civil war as a commander in the Red Army.
Simonov traveled with his father's division and received his secondary education at various provincial schools, chiefly in Ryazan and Saratov. He finished school in 1930. Between 1930 and 1934 Simonov attended university part-time while working as a lathe operator in Saratov and Moscow. In 1934 he entered the Gorky Institute of Literature, studying there until 1939. He received his degree in literature and completed a year of graduate study at the institute.
Simonov's first verses were published in 1934. He continued to write poetry throughout the 1930s, and his first book, Verses, 1939, was published in 1940. Much of its contents was inspired by a trip that Simonov made to Mongolia in 1939 as a war correspondent. In 1939 Simonov became a member of the Communist party, and in June 1941 he was called to military duty as a correspondent for the journal Red Star. His wartime dispatches were read by a wide audience, and he was awarded several medals for his work, including the Stalin Prize. After World War II Simonov traveled extensively as a member of various literary and journalistic delegations, visiting Japan, China, the United States, and Western Europe. A member of the editorial boards of various Soviet journals and publishing houses, Simonov twice served as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the U. S. S. R.
Simonov's literary output was large and varied. He is primarily known for his poetry about the suffering that war causes both to men at war and to their families. Although not innovative, his poetry communicates a personal compassion for its subjects. Its style often draws on colloquial speech and conversational rhythms. Simonov's prose is also noteworthy. His most widely read novel is Days and Nights (1944), which deals with the courage of Soviet forces during the siege of Stalingrad. Simonov does not limit himself to the depiction of heroic acts alone but also portrays the deep emotions of men under stress. His prose exhibits an economy of style and a sense of dramatic action unusual in war novels of the cold-war era, which generally glorified the Soviet government and were expected to function as propaganda for the Soviet system. Simonov's postwar novels deal largely with the conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. In Smoke of the Fatherland (1947), he blames the United States for the cold war but asserts the need for common understanding.
Simonov was a proponent of conventional values in officially acceptable Soviet literature, the only literary expression possible for a writer after modernism and the expression of individual vision or creativity were suppressed in the 1920s and 1930s. In the less repressive Khrushchev era after 1953, he was able to create more independent characters who revealed more of the true circumstances of Soviet life. While he was editor of the distinguished journal Novy Mir (1954-57), he published an essay criticizing Soviet Realism, the doctrine that all literature must further the goals of the Soviet political system and present only a positive view of Soviet life. In 1957 he was removed as editor for publishing controversial works.
In 1968 he and other high-ranking members of the Union of Soviet Writers refused to sign a statement of official support for the government's invasion of Czechoslovakia; yet he remained an esteemed member of the Soviet literary establishment. Throughout the 1970s he served as secretary of the Union of Writers. He died in Moscow in 1979.
(The combination of traditional Tolstoyan verbiage with th...)
(Na rubezhe KhIKh KhKh vekov obostrilos' sopernichestvo ...)
(244 pages of excellent text.)
He married four times.