I received a review copy of this title from Deep Vellum Publishing through Edelweiss. The original title was published in the original Ukranian in 2010 and this English version has been translated by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Wheeler.
My Review:
This book can only be described as a literary Odyssey, a roaming adventure through the crumbling town of Voroshilovgrad and its surroundings in the post-Soviet period. The plot offers so much more than Herman’s bizarre story as he attempts to run his brother’s gas station; we are confronted by a poetic journey through the landscape of Ukraine and a up close look at the unique people who inhabit this part of what once was Soviet territory.
The landscape, described in painstakingly detailed and poetic prose, is an important and prominent character in the book. The gas station is old and falling apart and Kocha, an employee, lives in a trailer out back. The airport, which is no longer used, is fighting against nature which threatens to take its territory back. An old Soviet youth Pioneer camp is abandoned but its library which is full of books about Lenin is still intact. Even the hotel is described as a “partially sunken ship.” Everyone is trying to survive and somehow carve out an existence despite the decaying world around them.
The most important theme of the book is one of loyalty; the characters display a remarkable amount of loyalty to their decaying home and to each other. The city of Voroshilovgrad technically doesn’t even exist anymore as its reverted back to its old Ukranian name of Luhask. The place is an odd mixture of past and present: everyone is driving around in old, beat up cars, wearing outdated knock-off designer clothes and no ones cell phone works. When Herman arrives at his brother’s gas station, the two employees, Injured and Kocha, are mistrustful of Herman because they think that at any moment he will abandon them and go back to his white collar office job in the city of Kharkiv. Injured and Kocha are faithful employees of Herman’s brother Yura who has mysteriously left town. Herman calls his brother repeatedly but is unable to solve the mystery of his sudden departure from his life and his business.
Herman intends to stay in Voroshilovgrad for a day or two but the people and the experiences and his sense of responsibility keep him there indefinitely. Many of the adventures he has are ones that celebrate life and community. Injured, who once was the start striker on the local soccer team, recruits Herman to play a soccer game against their old rivals, the “gas guys” who live on the edge of town. The gas guys were transplanted from somewhere in the north and were hired by the government to source natural gas in the area. Herman’s old friends and the gas guys are a bunch of rough-and-tumble, worn out, tattooed men who act like children during this game. There is a hilarious argument over who won the game and when a fist fight breaks out between Herman’s own team members the gas guys timidly back down.
Herman is also treated to adventures that involve a wedding among a group of smugglers, a brief stay at a nomad Mongul camp, and a funeral for a local woman who has died. Each of these adventures have a humorous side because of the bizarre settings and interesting characters involved. The smugglers so appreciate Herman’s attendance at the wedding that they give him a pair of electric scissors, but are sorry to inform him that they don’t come with a warranty.
But each of Herman’s adventures also have a serious undertone as there is always a sense of danger looming about. Herman is also being threatened by a group of local Oligarchs who are trying to force him to sell his gas station. But once again loyalty works in Herman’s favor when his friends show up to help him out; despite any danger they might face, they would not think of having it any other way. Life in this city is not easy for Herman or for anyone else but a sense of belonging in this decrepit place is what keeps Herman in Voroshilovgrad permanently.
The word Odyssey keeps coming to mind as I think about this book. The various road trips and trips on foot that Herman takes, his encounters with villains and good people trying to help him make for a meandering and adventurous story full of strange characters. All the while Herman gravitates towards home which, in his heart, is where he knows he truly wants to be.
For an excerpt of this book and more information please visit the Deep Vellum website: http://deepvellum.org/product/voroshilovgrad/
About the Author:
Serhiy Zhadan is one of the key voices in contemporary Ukrainian literature: his poetry and novels have enjoyed popularity both at home and abroad. He has twice won BBC Ukraine’s Book of the Year (2006 and 2010) and has twice been nominated as Russian GQ’s “Man of the Year” in their writers category. Writing is just one of his many interests, which also include singing in a band, translating poetry and organizing literary festivals. Zhadan was born in Starobilsk, Luhansk Oblast, and graduated from Kharkiv University in 1996, then spent three years as a graduate student of philology. He taught Ukrainian and world literature from 2000 to 2004, and thereafter retired from teaching. Zhadan’s poetry, novels, and short stories have been translated into over a dozen languages. In 2013, he helped lead the Euromaidan demonstrations in Kharkiv, and in 2014, he was assaulted outside the administration building in Kharkiv, an incident that gained notoriety around the world, including a feature article in the New Yorker. He lives and works in Kharkiv.
This book is a collection of autobiographical essays from the renowned, female Russian author Teffi. The essays were all written during the early part of the twentieth century and reflect Teffi’s own struggles with having to flee a turbulent and oppressive Russia. The collection is divided into four parts, the first of which is entitled “How I Live and Work.” These first few essays in the book capture her inner thoughts and self-doubts as she becomes Teffi “The Author.”
I have been captivated by the plethora of post-Soviet literature that has been published just in the last year alone. The theme that is the most haunting to me is the one of waste: all of those wasted lives, all of that wasted time, and for what purpose? I remember the attitude towards the Soviets in the 1980’s with the “us”, the free American democracy, versus “them”, the oppressive Soviet totalitarian regime, propaganda. It seemed that the Soviet Union wanted everyone to believe that, not only was their system the best in the world, but their people were happy and thrived under that system. But recent post-Soviet books, like Oblivion, have proven that this ideal that their leaders put forth could not be further from the truth.
Sergei Lebedev was born in Moscow in 1981 and worked for seven years on geological expeditions in northern Russia and Central Asia. Lebedev is a poet, essayist and journalist. Oblivion, his first novel, has been translated into many languages. Lebedev’s second novel, Year of the Comet, is coming out from New Vessel Press in 2017.
This edition of Mandelstam’s Voronezh Notebooks, recently published by the New York Review of Books, is a collection eighty nine verses the Russian poet wrote while he was exiled to the city of Voronezh. During the early 1930’s Mandelstam wrote and published poetry that mocked and criticized Stalin and so it is no surprise that he was arrested and sent into exile. During part of his exile he was allowed to live in Voronezh which was a bit more civilized as far as Russian exiles were concerned. He was lucky that his wife Nadezhda was allowed to go with him and if it were not for her then much of his poetry would have been lost to us.
Osip Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets. He was arrested by Joseph Stalin’s government during the repression of the 1930s and sent into internal exile with his wife Nadezhda. Given a reprieve of sorts, they moved to Voronezh in southwestern Russia. In 1938 Mandelstam was arrested again and sentenced to a camp in Siberia. He died that year at a transit camp.
The Book Binder's Daughter 