Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier: The Decline of the USSR and other Heresies of the Twentieth Century
A work of experimental nonfiction that spotlights the so-called Undesirables of recent history, forced into martyrdom and infamy.

Daniel Elkind’s hybrid-genre debut, Chizhevsky’s Chandelier is a nonfiction experiment that tells the story of A.L. Chizhevsky, the inventor and father of the field of heliobiology, who — like his hero Galileo — was punished for daring to suggest that human history revolved around the sun.

This expansive narrative of historical reckoning stages a confrontation between factions of American anarchists, disciples of the Báb in 19th-century Persia, Jewish baseball players, and the quixotic quest to grow enormous chickens. Nested within is the story of the last Soviet generation (the “Tetris generation”) and its dreams and illusions. In biographical chapters recalling his experience as a refugee from Soviet Russia, Elkind finds echoes of the exile of Emma Goldman and other political Undesirables from America to their “native” land in 1919, then in the throes of revolutionary fervor.

The result of this literary experiment is an irreverent and deeply personal investigation into what it means to record and remember in today’s oversaturated world, where all of the stories we tell ourselves have been turned inside-out.
1147018122
Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier: The Decline of the USSR and other Heresies of the Twentieth Century
A work of experimental nonfiction that spotlights the so-called Undesirables of recent history, forced into martyrdom and infamy.

Daniel Elkind’s hybrid-genre debut, Chizhevsky’s Chandelier is a nonfiction experiment that tells the story of A.L. Chizhevsky, the inventor and father of the field of heliobiology, who — like his hero Galileo — was punished for daring to suggest that human history revolved around the sun.

This expansive narrative of historical reckoning stages a confrontation between factions of American anarchists, disciples of the Báb in 19th-century Persia, Jewish baseball players, and the quixotic quest to grow enormous chickens. Nested within is the story of the last Soviet generation (the “Tetris generation”) and its dreams and illusions. In biographical chapters recalling his experience as a refugee from Soviet Russia, Elkind finds echoes of the exile of Emma Goldman and other political Undesirables from America to their “native” land in 1919, then in the throes of revolutionary fervor.

The result of this literary experiment is an irreverent and deeply personal investigation into what it means to record and remember in today’s oversaturated world, where all of the stories we tell ourselves have been turned inside-out.
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Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier: The Decline of the USSR and other Heresies of the Twentieth Century

Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier: The Decline of the USSR and other Heresies of the Twentieth Century

by Dan Elkind
Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier: The Decline of the USSR and other Heresies of the Twentieth Century

Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier: The Decline of the USSR and other Heresies of the Twentieth Century

by Dan Elkind

Paperback

$16.95 
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Overview

A work of experimental nonfiction that spotlights the so-called Undesirables of recent history, forced into martyrdom and infamy.

Daniel Elkind’s hybrid-genre debut, Chizhevsky’s Chandelier is a nonfiction experiment that tells the story of A.L. Chizhevsky, the inventor and father of the field of heliobiology, who — like his hero Galileo — was punished for daring to suggest that human history revolved around the sun.

This expansive narrative of historical reckoning stages a confrontation between factions of American anarchists, disciples of the Báb in 19th-century Persia, Jewish baseball players, and the quixotic quest to grow enormous chickens. Nested within is the story of the last Soviet generation (the “Tetris generation”) and its dreams and illusions. In biographical chapters recalling his experience as a refugee from Soviet Russia, Elkind finds echoes of the exile of Emma Goldman and other political Undesirables from America to their “native” land in 1919, then in the throes of revolutionary fervor.

The result of this literary experiment is an irreverent and deeply personal investigation into what it means to record and remember in today’s oversaturated world, where all of the stories we tell ourselves have been turned inside-out.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781915672797
Publisher: Watkins Media
Publication date: 08/19/2025
Pages: 192
Product dimensions: 5.12(w) x 7.77(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

Daniel Elkind was born in Moscow in 1984. He is the author of Theory and Failure: Some Latter-Day Curse Tablets and Reflections on the Nature of the League (Gauss PDF). His work has appeared in Lapham’s Quarterly, the LA Review of Books, the Believer, Public Domain Review, and elsewhere. A former New Yorker, he is now based in Atlanta.
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