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Tangled Loyalties: The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg
Rubenstein uncovers the man behind the controversies, the gifted writer whose life embodied all the tragic dilemmas of a Russian Jewish intellectual under totalitarianism.
Journalist, novelist, and poet Ilya Ehrenburg (1891-1967) was one of the most important Russian cultural figures of the 20th century. A political exile from czarist Russia, he spent years in Paris as a bohemian poet and later became a correspondent for Izvestia in Western Europe. He was one of the few distinguished Soviet writers to survive Stalin. Ehrenburg’s 1954 novel The Thaw lent its name to the critical period following Stalin’s death. His memoir People, Years, Life outraged the Kremlin in the 1960s by describing a “conspiracy of silence” that had prevailed under the dictator.
Ehrenburg was a young Bolshevik who turned anti-Communist and then two decades later became a spokesman for Stalin. He was an assimilated Jew who fought anti-Semitism and a Russian patriot who was both mistrusted by orthodox Communists and denounced by Hitler as his main enemy. As a Jew, he was said to have betrayed his people; as a writer, his talent; as a man, his conscience. Yet, as Joshua Rubenstein shows, Ehrenburg retained a measure of integrity. He helped other writers, including Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Boris Pasternak. He battled censorship and championed European art in Moscow. His circle of friends included Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera, Ernest Hemingway, Isaac Babel, and André Malraux.
In vivid detail, Tangled Loyalties draws extensively on new material from Russian archives, from Ehrenburg’s private correspondence, and from interviews with scores of family members and friends. This penetrating biography will challenge our assumptions about collaboration, assimilation, dissent, and moral survival.
Journalist, novelist, and poet Ilya Ehrenburg (1891-1967) was one of the most important Russian cultural figures of the 20th century. A political exile from czarist Russia, he spent years in Paris as a bohemian poet and later became a correspondent for Izvestia in Western Europe. He was one of the few distinguished Soviet writers to survive Stalin. Ehrenburg’s 1954 novel The Thaw lent its name to the critical period following Stalin’s death. His memoir People, Years, Life outraged the Kremlin in the 1960s by describing a “conspiracy of silence” that had prevailed under the dictator.
Ehrenburg was a young Bolshevik who turned anti-Communist and then two decades later became a spokesman for Stalin. He was an assimilated Jew who fought anti-Semitism and a Russian patriot who was both mistrusted by orthodox Communists and denounced by Hitler as his main enemy. As a Jew, he was said to have betrayed his people; as a writer, his talent; as a man, his conscience. Yet, as Joshua Rubenstein shows, Ehrenburg retained a measure of integrity. He helped other writers, including Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Boris Pasternak. He battled censorship and championed European art in Moscow. His circle of friends included Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera, Ernest Hemingway, Isaac Babel, and André Malraux.
In vivid detail, Tangled Loyalties draws extensively on new material from Russian archives, from Ehrenburg’s private correspondence, and from interviews with scores of family members and friends. This penetrating biography will challenge our assumptions about collaboration, assimilation, dissent, and moral survival.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
64 people want to read
About the author
Joshua Rubenstein
28 books14 followersJoshua Rubenstein is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. He was a staff member of Amnesty International USA from 1975 to 2012. He lives in Brookline, MA.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 15, 2020
I am a big fan of the biographer, the author, and this book. I think it’s important to see how a few authors were able to navigate Stalinism and Soviet aesthetics and retain at least some artistic and moral integrity.
February 24, 2014
A balanced, well-documented study of a controversial Russian Jewish writer of the 20th century.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews