Бегство

Трилогия: Революция и последствия #2

by Mark Aldanov, Марк Алданов

Россия вне России

Роман "Бегство" - вторая книга трилогии известного русского писателя-эмигранта Марка Алданова "Ключ" - "Бегство" - "Пещера". В центре повествования - контрреволюционный заговор 1918 года, его провал и вынужденное бегство заговорщиков за пределы России.

Genres: Russian Literature

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1931

About the author

Mark Aleksandrovich Aldanov was a Russian writer and critic,known for his historical novels.

Mark Landau (Aldanov) was born in Kiev in the family of a rich Jewish industrialist. He graduated the physical-mathematical and law departments of Kiev University. He published serious research papers in chemistry. In 1919 he emigrated to France. During 1922-1924 he lived in Berlin and during 1941-1946, in the United States.

Ivan Bunin, the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, nominated Aldanov for Nobel Prize a total of six times - in 1938, 1939, 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1950.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The revolution is over… Bolshies are at power… The winter is full of discontent…

They were eating worse and worse. It was hard to get provisions in Petersburg even by paying high, and there was very little money about the house. Vitya had lunch at school, and dined with the Kremenetskis, who had taken him to stay with them after his mother’s death. Yatsenko was indifferent to everything now. He looked terrible – all his visitors remarked on this, supposing that such observations would be agreeable to him.

The former lawyer lives as quietly as a mouse… But nonetheless he is arrested as a saboteur…

Yatsenko had read of a certain sad feeling which overtakes a prisoner at the moment when for the first time “the heavy door swings shut behind him shrieking and groaning.” But he experienced no such feeling; he was aware only of great weariness. As soon as the guard had left with his lantern, wishing him a pleasant good night, Yatsenko, his hand cautiously raised, felt his way to the cot, then undid his necktie, removed his high, turned-down starched collar, and lay down, yielding to enjoyment of the bed, the solitude, even the darkness.

A state of affairs gets more and more aggravated… It becomes more and more dangerous to stay in the capital… 

Arrests in the city were becoming more commonplace, and at the same time were assuming a much more serious look. In the early days of the new regime those arrested were either quickly released or brought before revolutionary tribunals which, in the majority of cases, sentenced them to social opprobrium. But this state of affairs did not last long. Now the prisons were overflowing, those confined were very badly cared for, and nothing more was heard of their release.

It’s time to run away and hide… Time to escape…

“Take any manual of history, by preference not a work in several volumes, but a simple synopsis, where statements are bald and brief, and facts are compressed and clear. You will see that three quarters of the history of humanity is a story of savagery, stupidity, and rascality. In this respect the Bolsheviks have not yet shown us much that is new… Perhaps they will yet, though; they’re talented folk. But this is the point: earlier, rascality was almost always redeemed by something else. Pushkin and Tolstoy rose from amid the law of serfdom. Now we have entered the band of pure rascality, frank and unadorned. Dung is no longer the excrement, it is the environment.”

Equality can’t be achieved by making the poor ones rich, it can only be achieved by making the rich ones poor.

[Tatyana Naumova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Какая-то слишком актуальная книга

[João RS · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually rate this book even higher than the first novel in the trilogy. It follows many of the same characters as they struggle to survive the first year of Bolshevik rule. As their paths gradually diverge, the Revolution gives each of them a very different fate.
What impressed me most was Aldanov's portrayal of revolutionary Petrograd. Streets are covered with political posters and official proclamations, crowds gather to read communiqués on Brest-Litovsk, rumours of Lenin's assassination attempt and the murder of Captain Cromie at the British Embassy spread through the city, arrests become increasingly common, and politics invades every aspect of daily life.
The historical atmosphere is extraordinary. Aldanov describes the futurist decorations of Petrograd during the May Day celebrations, revolutionary pageants, and the burning of the "Hydra of Counter-Revolution," whose heads represent Lloyd George and Clemenceau. A translator's note even reveals that one chapter is composed of authentic political posters and fragments of conversations.
The novel also avoids simplistic political stereotypes. Wealthy financiers who had already moved their fortunes abroad often managed to escape—even to German-occupied Ukraine, where, as one character remarks, "between two hells one chooses the lesser." Meanwhile, aristocrats lost their estates, while liberals, professors, lawyers, and other professionals frequently became some of the Revolution's greatest victims, losing their livelihoods, freedom, and often their lives.
Like the first volume, this novel is less interested in judging history than in showing how educated Russian society experienced it. It is an outstanding continuation of the trilogy and left me eager to find the final volume.