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The Tanker Derbent
"S.O.S....S.O.S....S.O.S....Uzbekistan calling...Cargo heavy oil. Number ten tanks burst. Losing stability. Boats hard to launch because of fire on quarter-deck." This wireless message from the burning tanker Uzbekistan opens the tale of Derbent's heroic crew and their race to save the men of the Uzbekistan....The human interest of the theme and the warmth with which it is treated have earned recognition for the book in the Soviet Union and abroad." The book was made into a major motion picture in the Soviet Union. The author died during World War II.
- GenresRussia
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
3 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Yuri Krymov
2 books2 followersSoviet novelist Yury Solomonovich Beklemishev. He Graduated from the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Moscow State University in 1930.
He volunteered for the Red Army and joined the Communist Party in response to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. He was a military journalist at the front and was with the Soviet 26th Army on the Southwestern Front when invading German forces encircled almost the entire front in the Battle of Kiev in August – September 1941. Beklemishev was killed near Kiev on 20 September 1941.
He volunteered for the Red Army and joined the Communist Party in response to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. He was a military journalist at the front and was with the Soviet 26th Army on the Southwestern Front when invading German forces encircled almost the entire front in the Battle of Kiev in August – September 1941. Beklemishev was killed near Kiev on 20 September 1941.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 3, 2021
Stahanovculuk; kömür madeninde Stahanov isimli madencinin bir vardiyada verimini 14 kat aşması sonucu ortaya çıkıyor.
Krimov, gemide çalışırken Stahanovist hareketle karşılaşıyor ve Kızıl Tanker'i yazıyor.
Aydınlatıcı bir yazı linkte mevcut.
https://gelenek.org/alti-da-bir-ustu-...
Krimov, gemide çalışırken Stahanovist hareketle karşılaşıyor ve Kızıl Tanker'i yazıyor.
Aydınlatıcı bir yazı linkte mevcut.
https://gelenek.org/alti-da-bir-ustu-...
May 30, 2020
A great example of a great genre (socialist realism).
This story doesn't have one central character, but centres on the whole crew of a tanker ferrying oil across the Caspian sea. It describes their world vividly, though sometimes a bit too heavily (the author worked on one of these ships himself and unless you want to do a LOT of googling, a lot of the technical scenes won't make sense to landlubbers).
I still found myself having to google a couple of terms to understand what was going on, but this book centres around the Stakhanovite movement, named after the hyper-productive miner Alexei Stakhanov, where workers were encouraged to work harder and streamline productivity at work for the good of the entire people, and replace capitalist competition with a more humanistic socialist emulation.
The characters vary widely and are well fleshed out: hard bitten wharfies, mechanics, captains, radiomen and women are all represented (It's undeniably refreshing to read a novel from the 1930s with this amount of diversity in its protagonists). They all battle their own demons but come together to find a sense of usefulness and self-worth in their work. This work's portrayal of socialism and what can be achieved when workers put their differences aside and work together is well done.
One thing to keep in mind is that it is a book of its time, and that time is 1938 in the Soviet Union. Amidst scenes that feel ripped from everyday life there are frequent episodes of political education at work, workers making collective decisions about what action to take, and other such weird episodes. These hammer home the sincerity of the authors intentions. He lived in this world, he saw this process enter the workplace and revolutionise it and he was inspired to write a novel about it (he went on two years later to join the communist party before being killed by the Nazis in WWII).
Overall, other than the technicality of some scenes on the tanker and the (at times) clunky translation I really enjoyed this book, and I definitely recommend it, especially to people curious about a local perspective of life and work in the USSR under Stalin
This story doesn't have one central character, but centres on the whole crew of a tanker ferrying oil across the Caspian sea. It describes their world vividly, though sometimes a bit too heavily (the author worked on one of these ships himself and unless you want to do a LOT of googling, a lot of the technical scenes won't make sense to landlubbers).
I still found myself having to google a couple of terms to understand what was going on, but this book centres around the Stakhanovite movement, named after the hyper-productive miner Alexei Stakhanov, where workers were encouraged to work harder and streamline productivity at work for the good of the entire people, and replace capitalist competition with a more humanistic socialist emulation.
The characters vary widely and are well fleshed out: hard bitten wharfies, mechanics, captains, radiomen and women are all represented (It's undeniably refreshing to read a novel from the 1930s with this amount of diversity in its protagonists). They all battle their own demons but come together to find a sense of usefulness and self-worth in their work. This work's portrayal of socialism and what can be achieved when workers put their differences aside and work together is well done.
One thing to keep in mind is that it is a book of its time, and that time is 1938 in the Soviet Union. Amidst scenes that feel ripped from everyday life there are frequent episodes of political education at work, workers making collective decisions about what action to take, and other such weird episodes. These hammer home the sincerity of the authors intentions. He lived in this world, he saw this process enter the workplace and revolutionise it and he was inspired to write a novel about it (he went on two years later to join the communist party before being killed by the Nazis in WWII).
Overall, other than the technicality of some scenes on the tanker and the (at times) clunky translation I really enjoyed this book, and I definitely recommend it, especially to people curious about a local perspective of life and work in the USSR under Stalin
January 15, 2019
رواية هايلة لاصحاب بكالريوس ميكانيكا السفن
February 5, 2022
Not my favorite book but interesting given its context (socialist realism); story became easier to follow once I familiarized myself with all the characters
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March 19, 2022I fell for Communism when I read this book as a young teenager. Then I visited Russia and saw the reality.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews