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No Ordinary Summer #2
No Ordinary Summer - 2
It was during World War II that Konstantin Fedin began work on a group of related novels about the October Revolution and the Civil War in Russia. After Early Joys appeared No Ordinary Summer, justly considered one of the finest works of Soviet literature. Said Fedin about No Ordinary Summer: "The old world was shaken to its foundations by the October Socialist Revolution. I wanted to show this tremendous historical act refracted through the psychology of the many characters of all sorts and from all walks of life." The main theme of the novel is expressed in the life stories of Izvekov and Ragozin. It is through them history is interpreted and the future envisaged.
732 pages, Paperback
Published July 12, 2003
6 people want to read
About the author
Konstantin Fedin
36 books6 followersKonstantin Aleksandrovich Fedin (Russian: Константин Федин) was a Soviet novelist.
Born in Saratov of humble origins, Fedin studied in Moscow and Germany and was interned there during World War I. After his release he worked as an interpreter in the first Soviet embassy in Berlin. On returning to Russia he joined the Bolsheviks and served in the Red Army; after leaving the Party in 1921 he joined the literary group called the Serapion Brothers, who supported the Revolution but wanted freedom for literature and the arts.
His first story, "The Orchard," was published in 1922, as was his play Bakunin v Drezdene (Bakunin in Dresden). His first two novels are his most important; Goroda i gody (1924; tr. as Cities and Years, 1962, "one of the first major novels in Soviet literature") and Bratya (Brothers, 1928) both deal with the problems of intellectuals at the time of the October Revolution, and include "impressions of the German bourgeois world" based on his wartime imprisonment. His later novels include Pokhishchenie Evropy (The rape of Europe, 1935), Sanatorii Arktur (The Arktur sanatorium, 1939), and the historical trilogy, Pervye radosti (First joys, 1945), Neobyknovennoe leto (An unusual summer, 1948), and Kostyor (The fire, 1961-67). He also wrote a memoir Gorky sredi nas (Gorky among us, 1943).
Edward J. Brown sums him up as follows: "Fedin, while he is probably not a great writer, did possess in a high degree the talent for communicating the atmosphere of a particular time and place. His best writing is reminiscent re-creation of his own experiences, and his memory is able to select and retain sensuous elements of long-past scenes which render their telling a rich experience."
From 1959 until his death in 1977, he served, first as a secretary, and than as chair of the Union of Soviet Writers.
Born in Saratov of humble origins, Fedin studied in Moscow and Germany and was interned there during World War I. After his release he worked as an interpreter in the first Soviet embassy in Berlin. On returning to Russia he joined the Bolsheviks and served in the Red Army; after leaving the Party in 1921 he joined the literary group called the Serapion Brothers, who supported the Revolution but wanted freedom for literature and the arts.
His first story, "The Orchard," was published in 1922, as was his play Bakunin v Drezdene (Bakunin in Dresden). His first two novels are his most important; Goroda i gody (1924; tr. as Cities and Years, 1962, "one of the first major novels in Soviet literature") and Bratya (Brothers, 1928) both deal with the problems of intellectuals at the time of the October Revolution, and include "impressions of the German bourgeois world" based on his wartime imprisonment. His later novels include Pokhishchenie Evropy (The rape of Europe, 1935), Sanatorii Arktur (The Arktur sanatorium, 1939), and the historical trilogy, Pervye radosti (First joys, 1945), Neobyknovennoe leto (An unusual summer, 1948), and Kostyor (The fire, 1961-67). He also wrote a memoir Gorky sredi nas (Gorky among us, 1943).
Edward J. Brown sums him up as follows: "Fedin, while he is probably not a great writer, did possess in a high degree the talent for communicating the atmosphere of a particular time and place. His best writing is reminiscent re-creation of his own experiences, and his memory is able to select and retain sensuous elements of long-past scenes which render their telling a rich experience."
From 1959 until his death in 1977, he served, first as a secretary, and than as chair of the Union of Soviet Writers.
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