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Барсуки
«Барсуки» — первый роман выдающегося советского писателя Леонида Леонова — это крупное эпическое полотно, в котором изображено предреволюционное собственническое мещанство из Зарядья и драматические эпизоды революционной борьбы в деревне. Глубокое знание старорусского бытового уклада дало возможность автору создать яркие образы деревенских искателей правды, показать характеры городских торговцев и ремесленников.
Его центральная тема - один из драматических моментов в истории послереволюционной деревни - мятеж против советской власти части крестьянства, недовольной продразверсткой и поражение этого анархического выступления.
Его центральная тема - один из драматических моментов в истории послереволюционной деревни - мятеж против советской власти части крестьянства, недовольной продразверсткой и поражение этого анархического выступления.
492 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1924
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About the author
Leonid Leonov
62 books14 followers Леонид Леонов
Leonid Maximovich Leonov (Russian: Леонид Максимович Леонов; 31 May 1899 — 8 August 1994) was a Soviet novelist and playwright. He has been dubbed the 20th-century Dostoyevsky for the deep psychological torment of his prose.
Leonid was born in Moscow in 1899. His father, Maxim Leonov, was a self-educated peasant poet who was at one time the chairman of the Surikov Literary and Musical circle (Surikov was also of peasant origin). Maxim Leonov later joined the Sreda literary group of Moscow, which counted Maxim Gorky, Leonid Andreyev, and Ivan Bunin among its members.
Leonid's earliest memory was of 1905, when Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia was assassinated by the terrorist Kalyayev. In the same year Leonid's father was arrested for two pamphlets that he had published. Leonid was taken twice by his grandmother to visit his father in prison. After serving 20 months, Maxim Leonov was exiled to Arkhangelsk. Leonid visited him there several times, and his impressions and observations were later reflected in many of his works, especially Sot.
He attended the Moscow Third gymnasium from 1910 to 1918. His first poems, reviews, and news reports were published in 1915 in the journal Severnoe Utro. He had intended to study medicine at Moscow State University, but his plans were disrupted by the outbreak of the Russian Civil War.
Leonid Maximovich Leonov (Russian: Леонид Максимович Леонов; 31 May 1899 — 8 August 1994) was a Soviet novelist and playwright. He has been dubbed the 20th-century Dostoyevsky for the deep psychological torment of his prose.
Leonid was born in Moscow in 1899. His father, Maxim Leonov, was a self-educated peasant poet who was at one time the chairman of the Surikov Literary and Musical circle (Surikov was also of peasant origin). Maxim Leonov later joined the Sreda literary group of Moscow, which counted Maxim Gorky, Leonid Andreyev, and Ivan Bunin among its members.
Leonid's earliest memory was of 1905, when Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia was assassinated by the terrorist Kalyayev. In the same year Leonid's father was arrested for two pamphlets that he had published. Leonid was taken twice by his grandmother to visit his father in prison. After serving 20 months, Maxim Leonov was exiled to Arkhangelsk. Leonid visited him there several times, and his impressions and observations were later reflected in many of his works, especially Sot.
He attended the Moscow Third gymnasium from 1910 to 1918. His first poems, reviews, and news reports were published in 1915 in the journal Severnoe Utro. He had intended to study medicine at Moscow State University, but his plans were disrupted by the outbreak of the Russian Civil War.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 16, 2019
At the times of historical cataclysms, the meaning of good and evil becomes blurred and all those who fight on the opposite sides of barricades think that they fight on the side of good…
The Badgers is a book of conflicts: conflict between urban and rural, clash of new and old, opposition of love and hate, collision of private and collective.
The novel is written in the very vivid and picturesque language and it is full of truthful cruelty of those cruel times…
The Badgers is a story of a peasant revolt against the merciless and brutal Soviet state power. After rioting, the partisans were hiding in the woods and living in earth huts like badgers in their burrows.
The Badgers is a tale of great passions.
Somehow or other, life goes on in spite of everything. And there is love.
The Badgers is a book of conflicts: conflict between urban and rural, clash of new and old, opposition of love and hate, collision of private and collective.
The novel is written in the very vivid and picturesque language and it is full of truthful cruelty of those cruel times…
Now that all the candles were lit, it was a little brighter in the room. In the light cast upwards from the candles, the bearded faces of the men and the wrinkled faces of the women bore the stamp of a dull, uncomprehending wisdom. They were not saddened by grief nor astonished by death, they knew that life was no flowery meadow and that living was nothing like picking flowers.
The Badgers is a story of a peasant revolt against the merciless and brutal Soviet state power. After rioting, the partisans were hiding in the woods and living in earth huts like badgers in their burrows.
The Badgers is a tale of great passions.
Somehow or other, life goes on in spite of everything. And there is love.
March 4, 2025
Finished THE BADGERS (1924) by Leonid Leonov (1899-1994), a popular novelist of the Soviet era. THE BADGERS is an adventure story describing the macro-conflict between Bolshevik tax collectors and increasingly impoverished rural villagers. On the micro scale, the conflict is between two brothers, Semyon, who becomes the leader of a gang of brigands (the Badgers), and Pavel, who becomes a military enforcer charged with eliminating such gangs. Mixed in the tale is Pavel’s love-interest, Nastya. This early novel by Leonov bears characteristics of his later fiction, described as “eminently satisfactory to Soviet officialdom: optimistic, patriotic, and sufficiently detached from controversy to insure Leonov’s own safety and popularity” (Helen Muchnic, FROM GORKY TO PASTERNAK: SIX WRITERS IN SOVIET RUSSIA).
Writers such as Leonov remind me of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s observation, “Can we, dare we, describe the full loathsomeness of the state in which we lived? And if we do not show that loathsomeness in its entirety, then we at once have a lie. For this reason I consider that literature did not exist in our country…Because without the full truth it is not literature” (GULAG ARCHIPELAGO). At the end of THE BADGERS, Pavel, renamed Anton, is the true hero bringing Lenin’s Soviet order to the peasants. Never mind that a decade later these same peasants will die of starvation under Stalin.
Why read someone like Leonid Leoniv? So one can understand what Solzhenitsyn means by “a lie.”
Like Yoda sending Luke Skywalker into the Cave of Evil, the student of Russian literature and history must occasionally enter the darkness in order to understand what it means to survive and thrive under the delusions of psychopathic totalitarianism. It can be a nauseating experience, which is how I felt when reading a portion of Leon Trotsky’s “Literature and Revolution.” Trotsky wrote, “It is not true that we regard only that art as new and revolutionary which speaks of the worker… [New art] must plow the whole field in all directions.” The Russian artists who languished in obscurity in order to survive, or who were tortured and died in Siberian gulags, or who escaped into exile, those artists who strove to speak truth would disagree with Comrade Trotsky.
Writers such as Leonov remind me of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s observation, “Can we, dare we, describe the full loathsomeness of the state in which we lived? And if we do not show that loathsomeness in its entirety, then we at once have a lie. For this reason I consider that literature did not exist in our country…Because without the full truth it is not literature” (GULAG ARCHIPELAGO). At the end of THE BADGERS, Pavel, renamed Anton, is the true hero bringing Lenin’s Soviet order to the peasants. Never mind that a decade later these same peasants will die of starvation under Stalin.
Why read someone like Leonid Leoniv? So one can understand what Solzhenitsyn means by “a lie.”
Like Yoda sending Luke Skywalker into the Cave of Evil, the student of Russian literature and history must occasionally enter the darkness in order to understand what it means to survive and thrive under the delusions of psychopathic totalitarianism. It can be a nauseating experience, which is how I felt when reading a portion of Leon Trotsky’s “Literature and Revolution.” Trotsky wrote, “It is not true that we regard only that art as new and revolutionary which speaks of the worker… [New art] must plow the whole field in all directions.” The Russian artists who languished in obscurity in order to survive, or who were tortured and died in Siberian gulags, or who escaped into exile, those artists who strove to speak truth would disagree with Comrade Trotsky.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews