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Wild river
Behind the dynamiting of the Dnieper Dam - the great electrical heart of Ukraine and the prize upon which Hitlers eyes were fastened in 1941 - lies the human story of the generation that built it.
At 14 Stephan Bogdanov was an outlaw, the leader of a gang of thieving wild boys, who like many others roamed the cities and countryside of war torn Russia. Anya Kosareva was a peasants daughter with an urge to grasp the new freedom and equality which the Soviet Union offered to women. Stephan and Anya were the typical children of the revolution. This is the story of their life on a collective farm with its struggles and privations and high hopes; of their love and marriage; of Anya’s rise to prominence in Soviet agriculture; and of Stepans transformation through his labors on the Dnieper Dam. It took hard work for a woman to reach a position where she would meet the approval of Stalin himself. And it wasn’t easy for a wile young gang leader to become a leader of men, strong enough in purpose to destroy the fruits of many years efforts.
The theme of this novel is nothing less than a people’s struggle to create a great new society and their sacrifice to defend it. But in the telling there are the simplicity and human feeling that come from intimate familiarity with the people themselves. The reader lays it down not only with a new realization of the differences between the Soviet way of life and our own, but with the renewed sense of similarity, despite social and political differences, that unites human beings everywhere
At 14 Stephan Bogdanov was an outlaw, the leader of a gang of thieving wild boys, who like many others roamed the cities and countryside of war torn Russia. Anya Kosareva was a peasants daughter with an urge to grasp the new freedom and equality which the Soviet Union offered to women. Stephan and Anya were the typical children of the revolution. This is the story of their life on a collective farm with its struggles and privations and high hopes; of their love and marriage; of Anya’s rise to prominence in Soviet agriculture; and of Stepans transformation through his labors on the Dnieper Dam. It took hard work for a woman to reach a position where she would meet the approval of Stalin himself. And it wasn’t easy for a wile young gang leader to become a leader of men, strong enough in purpose to destroy the fruits of many years efforts.
The theme of this novel is nothing less than a people’s struggle to create a great new society and their sacrifice to defend it. But in the telling there are the simplicity and human feeling that come from intimate familiarity with the people themselves. The reader lays it down not only with a new realization of the differences between the Soviet way of life and our own, but with the renewed sense of similarity, despite social and political differences, that unites human beings everywhere
212 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1944
7 people want to read
About the author
Anna Louise Strong
80 books75 followersAmerican journalist and activist, best known for her reporting on and support for communist movements in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.
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