Обелиск

by Vasil Bykov, Василь Быков

Повесть продолжает тему войны, героизма и мужества совет­ских людей.
Быков показывает своих героев в наиболее острых, драматиче­ских ситуациях, в момент величайшего физического и нравствен­ного напряжения. Вместе с ними мы проходим огромный и крат­кий путь мужества и страдания, успеваем их полюбить и, расста­ваясь, запоминаем надолго - такова сила таланта писателя.

Genres: Russia, Fiction

269 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Vasil Bykov (Vasil Bykaŭ) was a Belarusian dissident and opposition politician, junior lieutenant, and author of novels and novellas about World War II. A significant figure in Soviet and Belarusian literature and civic thought, his work earned him endorsements for the Nobel Prize nomination from, among others, Nobel Prize laureates Joseph Brodsky and Czesław Miłosz.

Belarusian: Васіль Быкаў
Russian: Василь Быков

Reviews

[Pavel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought-provoking portrayal of life in soviet countryside set in ww2.
Author served in the war himself.

[Nadya · Rating 3 out of 5]

My memory of Bykau from childhood is very different from my experience reading his books again decades later. Time has passed, I've learned more about the world, and rereading him I realized that he was pretty misogynistic. Most of his work has no women in anything other than bit roles, and whenever they are mentioned it is in a dismissive manner. For how gender equal Soviet Union was, this was unusual.

In this novella, for example, Bykau talks about village teachers and how now (1970s) there are so many female teachers, but of course male teachers are needed, because only they can fully devote themselves to their students. Women can't do that because they have husbands and children that they prioritize. I wonder, if all these dedicated male teachers in his imagination have no wives or children. Or what is more likely, it is not required of them to care for their own children, when instead they have their students to care about. What nonsense.

Rest of the story is fine. I mostly liked his lyrics descriptions of roads and villages at dusk.

[Dmitry Demidov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Повесть понравилась чуть меньше, чем "Сотников".

[Aleś Karoza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Разважанні на тэму гераізму, акупацыі, і адукацыі падчас другой сусветнай. Савецкая эстэтыка мне зусім не блізкая, але тут хапае і агульначалавечых разважанняў.

[Anya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very difficult to read. The whole time while reading it, I have been worrying about Хведар. The guy was persecuted by the communistic USSR government during 1930-40s when rich people from the farms got their belongings taken away, so that the equality between everybody in the country would remain. His wife and daughter both died. And his only son works for the government and does terrible things to Hvedar's neighbors...It is about the search of what life is during difficult times and if it has a meaning at all