The Tempering of Russia

by Ilya Ehrenburg, Prof. Alexander Kaun (Translator)

Overview

A searing picture of the terrible ordeal Russia has undergone, and of the heroism that conquered the German invaders.

“Soviet Russia’s most noted contemporary journalist has culled for American readers some of the more colorful passages in which he described the Nazi invasion of his homeland. His prose is fiery, his hate for the Germans is intense, and his love for Russia and her people is boundless.”—Foreign Affairs

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781787206939
Publisher:	Eschenburg Press
Publication date:	07/11/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	333
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

ILYA GRIGORYEVICH EHRENBURG (27 January 1891 - 31 August 1967) was a Soviet writer, journalist, translator, and cultural figure. He was one of the most prolific and notable authors of the Soviet Union, with around 100 published titles, and a renowned reporter during three wars (WWI, Spanish Civil War and WWII).

Born in Kiev to a Lithuanian Jewish family, he became involved in the Bolshevik organisation at 17, was arrested by the tsarist secret police (Okhrana), and met Lenin and other prominent exiles in France. However, he soon left the circle and turned to bohemian life in the Paris quarter of Montparnasse, writing poetry, visiting the cafés, and meeting famous artists, including Picasso.

During WWI he became a war correspondent for a St. Petersburg newspaper and continued to oppose the Bolshevik policy. In 1920 he went to Kiev but, following anti-Semitic pogroms, fled to Koktebel on the Crimea peninsula. Upon his return to Moscow he became a Soviet cultural activist and journalist, covering the Spanish civil war between 1936-39 and throughout World War II.

Ehrenburg was a prominent member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. He received the Stalin Peace Prize in 1952. He died of prostate and bladder cancer in 1967, aged 76.

ALEXANDER KAUN (October 30, 1889 - June 22, 1944) was a Professor of Slavic Languages at Berkeley University. Born in Russia, he was educated at the Free University in St. Petersburg and then moved to the U.S., teaching Hebrew at the Chicago Hebrew Institute from 1909-16. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1916 and was appointed Assistant in Russian at the University of California from 1917-18. He received his M.A. in Slavic Languages in 1918 and his Ph.D. in 1923. He became Professor of Slavic Languages in 1943 and was also the department chairman. He died suddenly of heart failure in 1944, aged 54.