1920 Diary

by Isaac Babel, H.T. Willetts (Translator), Carol J. Avins (Editor)

This diary by the famed twentieth-century Russian writer recounts Babel’s experiences with the Cossack cavalry during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919–1920. The basis for Red Cavalry , Babel’s best-known work, it records the devastation of the war, the extreme cruelty of the Polish and Red armies alike toward the Jewish population in the Ukraine and eastern Poland, and Babel’s own conflicted role as both Soviet revolutionary and Jew.

“Babel’s 1920 Diary, the source for many of his remarkable Red Cavalry stories, is itself as remarkable as the stories, particularly when one considers that the diarist was a journalist of only twenty-six. The staccato sentences in which Babel rapidly describes the horrific details of revolutionary brutality have the impact of an accomplished style, one that in its spontaneously elliptical way is strangely no less artful than the artfully nuanced directness that is the triumph of Red Cavalry .”—Philip Roth

“An electrifying translation accompanied by an indispensable introduction. . . . Babel’s journey is a Jewish lamentation . . . a tragic masterwork.”
—Cynthia Ozick , The New Republic

“A precursor of Holocaust literature, and more powerful in its effect than any Holocaust literature that I have managed to read.”—Harold Bloom, New York Times Book Review

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Russia, Biography, Diary, Russian Literature, Memoir

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel (Russian: Исаак Эммануилович Бабель; 1894 - 1940) was a Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry, Story of my Dovecote and Tales of Odessa, all of which are considered masterpieces of Russian literature. Babel has also been acclaimed as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry."

Loyal to, but not uncritical of, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Isaak Babel fell victim to Joseph Stalin's Great Purge due to his longterm affair with the wife of NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov. Babel was arrested by the NKVD at Peredelkino on the night of May 15, 1939. After "confessing", under torture, to being a Trotskyist terrorist and foreign spy, Babel was shot on January 27, 1940. The arrest and execution of Isaak Babel has been labeled a catastrophe for the world of literature.

Reviews

[Illiterate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fragmented notes. Sources for Red Cavalry.

[Eliza Whalen · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting look at a war lost in the history of wwi. i can see the value as an academic text, but could be incredibly boring to read. frustrating to hear him mention important / interesting moments that he plans to return to and elaborate on in the future, cant really fault him for that though.

[Ishbel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sądziłam, że w wydaniu z Polityki jest tylko wybór z Dziennika i z rozpędu przeczytałam całość. Jeśli ktoś ma wydanie Armii Konnej z Polityki, to jest tam przedrukowany dokładnie ten Dziennik i w tym tłumaczeniu. Wydanie z Czytelnika ciekawe o tyle, że zawiera sporo fotografii z frontu wojny polsko-bolszewickiej.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The source document for the Red Calvary stories, Babel’s diary from 1920 is fascinating reading, even more compelling than the stories they became. It captures the experience in terse, emblematic notes. Babel, a Jew who hid this fact from most of his colleagues, moved with a Cossack Red Army troop through the Polish-Soviet War, watching as villages and towns endured serial occupations by two forces that were brutal, ragged, starved and given to pogroms. Part of a Soviet education unit, Babel preaches the dawn of Communist utopia, but himself as trouble seeing the difference between the ground level reality of the Cossack army versus that of the Polish army. Both requisition any food, clothing, or materiel they can find, loot liberally, and riot (rape, murder, burn, and desecrate) routinely. He is also not so revolted by the Cossack’s brutality that he can’t find something admirable in their toughness, their loyalty to one another, and their primitive warrior spirit. There is also the personal experience, the loneliness, the strain of disguise and compromised values, the homesickness, and deprivation. War is hell in more ways than we can count and Babel captures it with dry, uncompromising clarity.

[Eva Shteinman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This diary is a series of Babel’s shorthand notes and reflections on the grim realities of war, written during the Polish-Soviet War, which occurred in the aftermath of World War 1. Sometimes painfully graphic, this book is by no means an easy read. One interesting element of the book, though, is the way in which Babel sways between expressions of love and attempts to distance himself from the Jews he encounters on his journeys. These ambivalences are perhaps emblematic of the conflicting desires many Socialist Jews experienced at the time, anxious as to whether the Soviet revolution posed a danger to Judaism, but unsure as to whether Judaism should be the priority. Babel is undergoing an internal conflict that is ancient for Jews everywhere – the conflict between religion and national identity. Which one should take priority? In times of war, should the priorities shift? This is an interesting read for anyone interested in Russian Jewish history.

[Jeremiah Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The atrocities and violence recorded by Babel are at the same time tragic and spell-binding.

[Jinjer]

Isaac Babel's 1920 Diary. Babel was a Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry, Story of my Dovecote and Tales of Odessa, all of which are considered masterpieces of Russian literature.

[Jacob Stock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully lyrical in situ commentary on the depravity of war; and very dense. The end notes are helpful to flesh out the historical and literary significance as you follow Babel into Poland.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s always a pleasure to read Babel. The diary is almost as good as the short stories. This compliments the Red Cavalry stories in particular.

[Peter Rowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Babel bro on his hero’s journey

[Jan Kubiznak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Syrové a surové. Pokud se nezajímáte o I. Babela nebo polsko-sovětskou válku, nic zvláštního nepřinášející.

[Erma Odrach · Rating 5 out of 5]

This diary is really a journal Babel kept during the Russo-Polish war, when he rode with the Cossacks. Many of the entries, which provide material for the Red Cavalry, detail the brutality of war and revolution. Also, Babel confronts his Jewish identity and the tragedies of the period. This is a remarkable and invaluable historical account. Born in Odesssa in 1894, Babel died in an NKVD prison in 1940.

[She Reads What? · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can one really say that they like a book like this? More aptly, I "felt" this book: I felt the despair, disgust, hopelessness, and conflict of Babel, as the ruin he saw around him in each town was often destroyed further by the "heroes" he accompanied. In the vein of Anne Frank's diary, an important book to read.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Babel's diary is really little more than fragmentary notes and impressions from his time with the Red Cavalry at the Polish. Notes by editor Carol Avins are very insightful and, in fact, the best part of the book.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars
These fragmented journal entries of a journalist in the Russian(?) war were difficult for me to follow or take anything from. Whatever merit lay buried beneath the rambling, incoherent thoughts was not with the work to extract it.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before he was a famous author, Babel was a writer attached to the Soviet army in the 1920 war against Poland. Mostly in the form of notes, which surely helped him recall events for use in future writing, the diary is most notable for its documentation of cruelty by the Soviets.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

just came across this in 2002 notebook: brutality and lyricism. Not much of a critique, but I also say you can see where his stories come from (Red Calvary), and RC is one of my favourite ever books, so 5 stars!

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Babel's diary is like a treasure hunt. Scattered throughout are the seeds of his exquistely crafted short stories. It was exciting to discover their origins.

[Landjonker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A unique portrait of a gruesome time.

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

fabulous companion to the Red Cavalry Stories; kind of stands in as an extra hundred pages of the same, with a good introduction and interesting notes on who's who from the real to the fiction.

[Paul Kerschen]

World on fire. In its artlessness it can even make passages of Red Cavalry seem rhetorically overdone, which is not the effect you'd expect. I thought of The Red and the White often.