Propaganda: Power and Presentation Exhibition at the British Library

First of all, I haven't posted for a while and that is something I will aim to rectify. You lucky sods.

I had never been to the British Library before, much less visit an exhibition. But this exhibition, whilst not without its faults was well worth a visit and I highly recommend it. It crams an awful lot into a relatively small exhibition space, and takes a very broad overall view at propaganda and how its evolved from it's earliest days, to the modern use of the internet by governments and also social media such as Twitter.

Whilst I would have liked huge sections on the Soviet regime, the exhibition doesn't focus on any one country or era overwhelmingly. However, there are still plenty enough exhibits etc on the Soviet era, especially under Stalin. The artefacts include Soviet Pravda and other such like publications. One of the aspects of Stalin's rule that fascinates me is how he instilled a culture of fear in all, even those who were close to him. Simon Sebag Montiefiore's seminal work 'The Court of the Red Tsar' describes how Stalin completely rewrote sections of his and Russia's history to suit him and his views.

Overall this exhibition is very much worth a visit, aside from a slightly dull section on medical propaganda.

My personal top ten

1. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman.
2. Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsyn.
3. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4. The Court of the Red Tsar, by Simon Sebag-Montifiore
4. Everything Flows, by Vasily Grossman.
5. Memoirs of a Revolutionary, by Victor Serge
6. The Foundation Pit, by Platonov
7. Dead Souls, by Gogol.
8. The Case of Comrade Tulayev, by Victor Serge
9. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Solzhenitsyn.
10. The Road, by Vasily Grossman.

What I will be attempting to cover on this blog...

Aside from book reviews, I will attempt to pass poor critique of any Russian exhibitions I visit. I will attempt to blog about the authors themselves, and I may even attempt to look back at books I have previously read before.

It's going to be fun.

The Road: Short Fiction & Essays, by Vasily Grossman (edited/translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler)

Grossman’s epic masterpiece ‘Life and Fate’ is one of my favourite novels of all time (easily top 5, if not top 2) so I was looking forward to this. Lovely hardback cover as well. It is a collection of various Grossman essays/short stories over the course of his literary career, from his early days in popularity, then the terror of Stalin’s purges, the time spent as a war correspondent, his essays on Treblinka and the Shoah, then post war articles as a writer who had been fallen foul of Stalin.

Highlights include:

‘In the Town of Berdichev’ is a short story of a woman who abandons her family to be a good Bolshevik to go into battle. The Shoah era stories show the terrifying ordeal of Jewish civilians living under the Nazi ordeal and this includes the masterful report, and one of the first, on a Nazi death camp - ‘The Hell of Treblinka’. Despite the odd factual inaccuracy its immensely powerful and very descriptive of a truly hellish place.

The Elk is pretty short but Grossman manages to succinctly attack both man’s attitude to animals and those who betrayed their friends etc in naming and denunicating them during the great purges of the 30′s. ‘Mama’ is a very clever approach to writing a story about the fevered and deadly atmosphere of the purges. By looking at the events through the eyes of an adopted baby by the Head of the NKVD Grossman is able to portray the rise and fall of Yezhov – the ‘dwarf’ who is helped Stalin purge hundreds of thousands in a brief period of time.

To summarise: buy this book immediately. Ok, I know I am quite evangelical about Grossman but he really is one of the best, bravest and honest Russian writers of the 20th century.

Why do I like Russian literature?

I try to read as often as possible, and I always have a book on the go. More often then not, it's a novel by a Russian author. There is an image around Russian literature, it's one of huge sombre tomes about serious issues and there is a hint of pretension surrounding the novels.

To be frank, this is somewhat true. The novels are often huge, although the Russians also traditionally are big fans of the short story, which will also be covered in this blog. They are rarely about cheerful subjects, and there is always tragedy and danger potentially on the next page. This reflects the history of Russia, especially in the Soviet Union era.

A quick digression - in this blog I'll be covering novels from all eras of modern Russia, from the the reign of the Czars to the days of the post Stalin rulers. I read mostly novels from during and after the rule of Stalin. 

But back to the title of this blog post. Why do I read Russian literature? Because of a variety of reasons. I am hugely interested in politics (having studied it at university) and history in general. Russian novels often have a political tone to them, and they are rich in history. The scope of the novels can be vast, as seen by Life and Fate which has a long list of characters and locations.

In this blog I'll look at both fiction and non - fiction, but I'll also keep an eye out for any exhibitions or articles that take my fancy.