Ivan Moscow by Boris Pilnyak - eBook

An explosive narrative from the Russian master of modernity Boris Pilnyak. Pilnyak had lived directly the momentous changes of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and in Ivan Moscow he channeled the sense of danger and upheaval into a novel where the next direction can never be predicted. Shuttling back and forth in time, the difficult-to-summarize story involves a factory situated deep in the Poludov Mountains, syphilitic delirium, and a radioactive Egyptian mummy. If there’s a narrative that conveys the shock of Russian modernity circa 1920 in such a riotous and entertaining fashion, well, we would like to know about it. Our text is a revised version of A. Schwartzman’s translation of the book (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1935).

Boris Andreievich Vogau (Oct. 11 1894—April 21 1938), known to readers as Boris Pilnyak, was a Russian writer of novels and short stories. Following the events of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing civil war, he rose to prominence with the success of his novel (1921), which gave narrative form to the widespread upheaval. For the next decade he enjoyed a position of relative fame and success, travelled abroad, and published travelogues of his experiences. Increasingly, he was subject to ideological pressure from Soviet officials and fellow writers. He was arrested in October 1937 and executed the following year.