GeekBookReviews.com content is reader-supported. "As an Amazon Associate, When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission." Learn more.

How the Steel Was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky

Discover the journey of a young Bolshevik in Soviet Russia with 'How the Steel Was Tempered' by Nikolai Ostrovsky. A captivating book review awaits.

Discover the journey of a young Bolshevik in Soviet Russia with 'How the Steel Was Tempered' by Nikolai Ostrovsky. A captivating book review awaits.

The protagonist of this book, Paul Korchagin, has experienced the hardships of life and cultivated a revolutionary spirit and a rebellious character. After the outbreak of the October Revolution, he joined the Red Army when he was only 16 years old. 

No matter in the war or in the recovery period of the national economy, Kechajin showed a fearless spirit, a steel-like will, strong patriotism, and opposition to the enemy. 

The infinite and infinite loyalty of the people. Due to repeated injuries and overwork in the war, he was paralyzed, blind, and firmly confined to the bed. 

However, he overcame the mental and physical blows and picked up a pen to sing praises to the heroes who fought for the establishment of the Soviet regime.

Contents Introduction: How the Steel Was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky

"Collection of Masterpieces of World Literature: How Steel Was Tempered" vividly shows the heroic spirit of a revolutionary soldier who overcomes disease and never falls behind. 

With its great artistic appeal, it reproduces the true picture of how the first generation of Communist Youth League members in the Soviet Union overcame all the difficulties and dangers in their life and fought hard and arduously for the realization of socialist ideals. 

The protagonist Paul Korchagin is a shining example of this generation. Paul grew up in a poor worker's family and experienced the pain of exploitation and oppression by the capitalist system. 

He worked as a small fireman in the canteen of a station and a worker in a power plant. His low social status and miserable life have tempered his indomitable character. He once risked his life and rescued the Bolshevik Zhukhlai from the bandit's bayonet. 

This was an important turning point in his life. After the October Revolution, Russia was facing economic difficulties and rampant attacks of imperialism and domestic reactionaries. 

Under the influence of Zhukhlai's revolutionary thought, the young Paul resolutely devoted himself to the Red Army and became the most famous Budyonny cavalry division. 

One of the brave soldiers. He and his comrades charged the enemy seventeen times a day, and he was wounded three times a year, but he always fought at the forefront. 

Whether serving as a soldier in Budyonny's cavalry division, doing work in the Communist Youth League and anti-revolutionary work in the local area, or building railways under extremely harsh natural conditions, his high sense of responsibility and strong work enthusiasm have attracted people. 

I admire it. Bleeding and wounding during the war years, overwork, and sickness during the construction period, made Paul completely lose his health, and was imprisoned in the hospital bed. 

However, his belief in the struggle for the liberation of all mankind has never wavered. He continued to work hard for the party, organized worker study groups, trained young activists, persevered in finding new weapons, and returned to the fighting ranks. 

He finally withstood the severe test. With a firm belief in communism and an optimistic attitude of never giving up in life, he overcame obstacles and hardships that ordinary people cannot overcome and became the side of young people in history and reality who are constantly striving for self-improvement. banner. His charisma will never go out of style.

About the author: Nikolai Ostrovsky

N. Ostrovsky (1904-1936), Soviet writer. Born in a poor working family in Ukraine, he started working as a child laborer at the age of 11. Joined the Communist Youth League in 1919, then participated in the civil war. From 1923 to 1924, he served as the leader of the Communist Youth League in the Ukrainian border area and joined the Communist Party in 1924. 

Due to his long-term participation in the arduous struggle, his health was seriously damaged. By 1927, his health condition deteriorated sharply, but he did not give in and fought against the disease with amazing perseverance. 

At the end of the same year, he set about writing a "historical lyrical heroic story" ("Born of the Storm") about Kotovsky's division. Unfortunately, the only manuscript was lost by the post office when it was sent to friends for review. 

This cruel blow did not frustrate his strong will but made him fight against the disease more tenaciously.

In 1929, he was paralyzed and blind in both eyes. In 1930, he used his own combat experience as material and began to write the novel "How Steel Was Tempered" with a tenacious will. 

The novel was a huge success and received sincere and enthusiastic acclaim from its contemporaries. In 1934, Ostrovsky was absorbed as a member of the Union of Soviet Writers. 

At the end of 1935, the Soviet government awarded him the Order of Lenin in recognition of his creative work and outstanding contributions to literature. On December 22, 1936, Ostrovsky died in Moscow due to a relapse of serious illness.

Book: How the Steel Was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky

How the Steel Was Tempered or The Making of a Hero, is a socialist realist novel written by Nikolai Ostrovsky. With 36.4 million copies sold, it is one of the best-selling books of all time and the best-selling book in the Russian language. --- Wikipedia

    • Originally published: 1934
    • Author: Nikolai Ostrovsky
    • Adaptations: Pavel Korchagin (1957)
    • Genres: Novel, Fiction
    • Language: Russian
    • Original title: КаĐș Đ·Đ°ĐșĐ°Đ»ŃĐ»Đ°ŃŃŒ ŃŃ‚Đ°Đ»ŃŒ

how-the-steel-was-tempered-nikolai-ostrovsky

Book Summary: How the Steel Was Tempered

How many years have I lent this book to him? I don’t remember it myself. I was looking at it by the bookcase and accidentally turned it out. I found that the edges and footers were folded, worn, and dusty. When I came back, what I said to him was: "I want to revisit the love between Paul and Tonya."

Maybe you, like me, are familiar with Paul's story from the nagging of your parents and teachers, and you can jump out of your tongue with such flexibility. "Ostrovsky" can recite the famous saying "A man lives only once" in one go, but he has never read this book in its entirety.

We are so far away from that era that the snowstorm in the Soviet Union became the scenery outside the window when we snuggled up by the fire. Those revolutions, politics, wars, classes... were either not understood or not interested at the time, and they were only roughly skipped. 

In the rapidly flipping pages of the book, I only searched for the name of that eternal girl——Donia.

As soon as the book was opened, it was the first meeting of Paul and Tonya, the delicate pencil sketch illustration: the girl Tonya leaned over a crooked willow tree and saw the dark beating fishing boy with bare feet. He folded the corner of the book on this page. I know that we have read this passage thousands of times in our hearts.

"She wore a white sailor suit with a blue stripe on the collar and a light gray skirt. A pair of lace socks hugged her well-proportioned tanned calves, and she wore brown sandals. Her chestnut hair was combed into a Thick braid.”

When I read this description of Tonya when I was a child, I was very surprised. It turns out that in a distant cold country, girls are dressed like this, elegant and clean, gentle and polite, with an aristocratic atmosphere, looking down at themselves The crumpled red scarf and unclean white rubber shoes make me feel melancholy and longing. Class is nothing, only beauty is what we recognize.

In the novel, a lecherous bad boy described Tonya as "this girl is as sweet as a raisin and has a unique flavor." It is strange to say that this metaphor is deeply engraved in my heart. A girl as sweet as a raisin is The condensed sweetness in the sun, I think of Tonya running in the sun like the wind like the way the leather shoes clattered.

"Both of them stood panting, their hearts pounding. Tonya was exhausted from running wildly. She leaned on Paul as if unconsciously, and Paul felt how close she was. Although it was only a momentary event, it remains deeply in the memory.”

The throbbing of the first love is so sudden, the beauty of this moment is pure and transparent, like the first blooming of unseasoned love. Like flowers.

I also read their love with the same throbbing, sweet, and sour taste. I still remember: Paul went to the barber shop to cut off his tangled hair for Tonya, and worked hard to buy a blue shirt and black trousers; Tonya's proud and abrupt test on the edge of the cliff and Paul's stubborn jump; There are their misunderstandings, their worries, and their parting.

On the last night, in a quiet room, the clock reminded us of the separation after six hours. They spent it next to each other, kissing passionately, bright as a flame. Paul's fingers accidentally touched Tonya's chest, he panicked and trembled, and hurried away.

"I didn't dare to hug and sleep. I was afraid that falling asleep like this would cause suspicion to my mother, so they separated. It was getting brighter before they fell asleep. Before going to bed, they made a promise that no one would forget the other." 

Seeing this, I couldn't help crying, I knew their love ended in this mutual respect, like a flower blowing down silently in the wind.

Paul's promise still echoed in my ears: 

"Donia, when the situation settles down, I will definitely be an electrician. If you don't dislike me, if you really love me, I will definitely do it." Your good husband, I will never beat you, and if I bully you, I will die a terrible death." 

I know through tears that I will never, there will never be that day, how many promises are so deep when I was young Made a deep promise, and then drifted away?

Many years later, they met next to the railway tracks ravaged by blizzards, and everything changed. But my Tonya still stayed on that night of separation and made a never-to-be-forgotten vow with the boy beside her.

Tonya, forever girl, forever first love, never to see you again. I remember her as bright and earnest, kind and sincere, and every word "you" she said made me feel affectionate. And this pure and untouchable, fire-like love will also be deeply buried in my memory.

Just like the first love, Donia is unforgettable.

Book Review of How Steel Was Tempered

Miscellaneous feelings: the history behind "How the Steel Was Tempered"

It's New Year, and I "organized" my bookcase. Those messy books, keep those that should be kept and sell those that should be sold for money. When I dug out those "Chen Zhima, Rotten Millet" novels, a novel with a tattered cover came into my eyes. That was "How the Steel Was Tempered" by the former Soviet writer N. Ostrovsky. 

When I bought this novel, I was only a middle school student; There is an appointment with the film, the first issue played the film "How the Steel Was Tempered" from the former Soviet Union in the 1970s, and there were comments from film critics at the end of the film. 

When the film was broadcast, I was immediately attracted by the plot of the film and went to the bookstore to buy the novel the next day. Although the novel is far longer and more complicated than the film, and the storyline is also different, I Still read him in one go. 

Later, the TV series "How the Steel Was Tempered" was broadcast on one set, and "Bauer Fever" was set off across the country. My book immediately became a hot commodity, and I borrowed it from my classmates. Feeling a little complacent. 

The author of the novel, Ni Ostrovsky, was born into a poor worker's family in Ostrosh County, Volyn Province, Ukraine, and began working as a child laborer at the age of 11. Joined the Communist Youth League in 1919, then participated in the civil war. 

From 1923 to 1924, he served as the leader of the Communist Youth League in the Ukrainian border area. He joined the Communist Party in 1924. 

In 1927, Ostrovsky was paralyzed due to illness and was bedridden. To show the face of the era and personal life experience oneself. His novel "How the Steel Was Tempered" was completed in this way.

Now, several years have passed, when I read this novel, I feel very different when I read it.

As we all know, "How Steel Was Tempered" has a large section describing the history of Ukraine before and after the October Revolution in 1917, from Ukraine's independence, revolution, and joining the Soviet Union; The historical background of the Triura "bandits" and the Polish-Soviet War.

The following briefly describes the background of the Ukrainian Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War reflected in How Steel Was Tempered:

After the February Revolution in Russia in 1917, the Ukrainian national patriotic group established the "Ukrainian Social Organization United Rada" on March 7, 1917 ("Rada" is Ukrainian, meaning "meeting", "parliament" and "congress") Italian, or "Soviet" in Russian). 

The Central Rada elected the famous historian Grushevsky as its chairman. Grushevsky was forced to stay in Moscow by the Tsarist government because of his opposition to Great Russian chauvinism. 

At first, the Ukrainian Central Rada and the Russian interim government mutually recognized each other on July 16, but on August 17, the reorganized Russian interim government overturned the agreement reached in July and did not recognize the legitimacy of the Ukrainian General Secretariat. 

The Central Rada supported the Bolsheviks at first, but soon declared Ukrainian autonomy. After the October Revolution, the Central Rada of Ukraine declared the independence of Ukraine on November 20 and established the Ukrainian People's Republic. 

On December 17, the Russian People's Committee issued an "ultimatum" to the Ukrainian Central Rada: On the one hand, it recognized the Ukrainian People's Republic, but on the other hand, it required it to submit to the Soviet Russian regime. Of course, the Ukrainian Central Rada will not respond to such an absurd ultimatum. 

Since most members of the Ukrainian Central Rada were nationalists and bourgeois, the Ukrainian workers' and soldiers' representatives "Soviet" who supported the Bolsheviks passed a resolution to transfer power in Kyiv to the Petrograd Military Council. 

On December 24, with the support of Soviet Russia, they held the first All-Ukraine Soviet Congress in Kharkiv, which declared Ukraine a Soviet republic to compete with the Central Rada. So far, Ukraine split and civil war broke out; With the help of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, uprisings continued in various parts of Ukraine. 

The Central Rada was unable to suppress the uprising, so it had to make peace with Germany and signed the "Brest-Lithuania Agreement". Thousands of troops entered Ukraine to help suppress and resist Soviet-Russian armed forces. This move was purely to lure wolves into the house. 

Unexpectedly, neither the Germans nor Soviet Russia was able to support the war. In March 1918, the Soviet Union and Germany compromised and signed the "Brest Treaty". Soviet Russia gave up Poland, Finland, and Ukraine. , Estonia, Turkey a large piece of territorial sovereignty of about 1 million square kilometers. 

In April 1918, the German occupying forces disbanded the Central Rada and established a regime headed by the Cossack Skoropatsky. Skoropatsky advocated the revival of Ukrainian culture, and Simon Petliura, a former member of the Dala Central Committee (the white bandit leader in the novel), also participated in it. 

In the autumn of 1918, Germany was defeated in the First World War. On November 13, Russia abolished the "Brest Peace Treaty" and began to recover lost territories. 

November 28th, Ukraine Supporters of the Bolsheviks formed the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government, and on January 29, 1919, the Ukrainian Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government was reorganized into the People's Commissars of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. 

On the other hand, the Ukrainian nationalist party established a nationalist ruling cabinet on November 14, 1918. On December 14, the ruling cabinet troops, led by Petliura, entered Kyiv to overthrow the Skoropatsky regime. In February of the following year, Petliura became the head of the ruling cabinet.

At the same time, a Ukrainian uprising broke out in the former Austrian Polish city of Lviv. The leader of the rebel army, Viktorsky, announced the establishment of the "Western Ukrainian People's Republic", with Lviv as its capital, and claimed sovereignty over the entire Eastern Galicia region. 

The anti-Ukrainian uprising supported by the Republic of Poland also broke out. The uprising Poles announced their separation from the "People's Republic of West Ukraine". General Simon Petliura led the Ukrainian army into Western Ukraine and fought with the Polish army. 

The Polish-Ukrainian War; was also the trigger for the outbreak of the Polish-Soviet War. Since the founding of the Polish Republic, Joseph PiƂsudski has always wanted to recover the land looted by Russia in 1772. 

This war just provided an opportunity to return the entire Ukraine and Lithuania to the territory, but PiƂsudski's Polish army and Peter While Liula's Ukrainian army was fighting, the Soviet Red Army also came. 

Facing the attack of the Soviet Red Army, Petliura signed a ceasefire agreement with the Poles. In PiƂsudski's view, the Bolsheviks were just paper tigers, vulnerable to a single blow, but Petliura, the Ukrainian nationalist, was able to tenaciously Resistance, although each other and enemies, the same anti-communist and anti-Russian people deepened the "closeness". 

On November 21, 1919, the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference confirmed Poland's exercise of sovereignty over Eastern Galicia for 25 years. On April 21, 1920, PiƂsudski and Simon Petliura of the Ukrainian People's Republic signed the Polish-Ukrainian Union treaty. 

PiƂsudski promised to help Petliura "defend" Kyiv from the Russians in exchange for Petliura's recognition of the Zbruch River as the border of Upo. On April 25, the Polish and Ukrainian armies, under the command of PiƂsudski, launched an attack on Soviet Russia, known as the Polish-Soviet War in history. 

In August 1920, the Soviet Red Army defeated Warsaw and ended with the defeat of Soviet Russia. In this war, the Polish Army lost 50,000 people and the Soviet-Russian Red Army lost 150,000 people. 

However, the two sides could no longer continue the war. In 1921 On March 18, 1999, Poland and Soviet Russia formally signed the "Peace Treaty between Poland, Russia, and Ukraine" in Riga, namely the "Treaty of Riga". 

Poland received the territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, while Soviet Russia received the accession of the Ukrainian Soviet in 1922.

Now, from the perspective of Ukrainians today, whether it is Soviet Russia or Poland, they are actually the partitioners of Ukraine, and Petliura is the hero of Ukraine, but he believes in the Poles too much. defeated and detained by the Poles, so he went into exile. Petliura in history is not as bad as in the novel. 

At least he is a Ukrainian nationalist. Petliura pursued the independence of Ukraine all his life. One of the three leaders of the Ukrainian Special Commission. He opposed the aggression of Germany and Poland and opposed Soviet Russia's ambitions for Ukraine. 

In fact, the trick that the Soviets are best at is "revolutionary export", supporting other countries, especially the establishment of Soviet regimes in neighboring countries, and then grandiosely including other countries in the form of "joining" into their own territory. In "How Steel Was Tempered", this kind of thinking is also secretly revealed:

"The war with the Polish White Army is over. The Red Army has almost reached the city of Warsaw, but because it is far away from the rear base, it cannot be replenished with manpower and material resources. Failing to break through the last line of defense of the Polish army, they withdrew back. The Poles called this retreat of the Red Army the "miracle on the Vistula River". In this way, the white Poland of the landowners survived again, and the Polish-Soviet society was established. The idea of a socialist republic has not been realized for the time being. The blood-stained country needs to take a break." 

I thought of Stalin's treatment of the Soviet family after World War II The model is even more unique. 

Stalin hoped that Yugoslavia and Bulgaria would merge, Romania and Hungary would merge, Poland and Czechoslovakia would merge, and then the three merged countries would "voluntarily" join the Soviet family; Following the mistakes of the three Baltic countries, Tito broke with Stalin first, disrupting this process and aborting Stalin's "Balkan Federation" plan. 

Judging from the encounters of the three Baltic countries and even Finland, northern Iran, and China's Xinjiang, the Soviet Union's big family model is more "aggressive" than Tsarist Russia.

In the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered", there are also a lot of descriptions of the massacre of Jews by the Petliura gang. Bandit bandits, Polish White Army, and Soviet Red Army Cossack cavalry also massacred Jews, and it is not an individual case of Red Army Cossacks. 

In another Soviet literature, Isaac Babek’s "Cavalry Army", the author puts the Cossack cavalry The hatred of the Jews is vividly described, and it also truly reflects the bloodthirsty wildness of the Red Army Cossacks. 

Whether it is the Red Cavalry of the Soviet Russian Cossacks or the "Ukrainian People's Army" fighting for independence, they have never stopped the atrocities and killings of Jews.

"I was assigned to live with a red-haired widow who was full of gossip. Once I was settled, I washed up and went out into the street. 

There was a notice on the lamppost saying that the division political commissar, Vinogradov, would be giving a report tonight. , to convey the spirit of the Second Congress of the Communist International. 

In front of my window, several Cossacks were executing a gray-haired Jewish old man for espionage. The old man suddenly screamed and broke free. It was too late, Soon, a curly-haired young man from the machine gun team grabbed the old man's head and put it under the armpit. 

The Jewish old man stopped talking and split his legs. Curly pulled out the dagger with his right hand, and moved lightly He killed the old man carefully, to keep the blood from splashing. When he was done, he knocked on a closed window.

"If anyone is interested," he said, "come out and collect the body. There is this freedom..."

["Cavalry Army" People's Literature Publishing House, a small town of Berestechko]

Babek's description annoyed Budyonny, the commander of the 1st Cavalry Army, and Budyonny accused Babel Carr of slandering the disciplined Red Army and described them as a group of out-and-out "Makhnov gangs". 

Under Gorky's protection, Babek lived safely for several years, but after Gorky's death, Babek lost his protector and died in 1939. 

Arrested on May 15, charged with espionage and subversion of the state, he was secretly executed in January 1940, just like the Cossacks in "Cavalry Army" executed the Jewish old man for espionage, he was killed. (Babek He is also a Jew. In the beginning, he concealed his Jewish identity to experience the Soviet-Polish War in the name of an army reporter, and wrote this "Cavalry Army")

In the novel "How Steel Was Tempered", the Red Army soldier Androschuk told a story: Three scouts of the Soviet Red Army raped Polish women, and they were all shot dead by the company commander. Paul also said that if he abused the prisoners of the Polish White Army, he would be shot.

But in fact, during the Polish-Soviet War, the Red Army of the Soviet Union, especially the Cossack cavalry of the Red Army, was the most notorious at the time for killing people like hemp and bloodthirsty. 

In June 1920, in the small Polish town of Berdyczow, Red Army Cossack cavalry locked more than 600 wounded Polish soldiers and nuns together and burned them alive. 

In the eyes of the Poles, the Soviet Red Army is not the "liberator" who liberated the poor Polish people from the evil bourgeoisie as the Russians claimed, but an out-and-out aggressor. 

On the way to retreat, if a soldier or wounded were left alone, they would often be "greeted" by the Poles with sticks. Ironically, most of the people who did this kind of thing were not landlords and white bandits. Class remnants, but the Polish peasants that the Soviet Red Army wanted to "liberate". 

The Soviet general Todolski once wrote angrily in his diary: "The consciousness of the Polish peasants is so low that their brains are filled with narrow-minded bourgeois nationalism, and they wield guns and sticks at their class brothers.

In the book "Steel", the author described that the defeat of the Soviet Red Army was "because it was far away from the rear base and could not be supplemented with manpower and material resources." How much food do you get?

The Polish-Soviet War, the "last large-scale cavalry battle in human history", was almost invisible in Chinese history textbooks, but it was given the title of "European Defense War" by Western historians. It has a significant history. 

Political significance, in the eyes of the bourgeois countries in the West, if Poland is occupied by Soviet Russia, then Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in Central Europe will be lost, and the whole of Europe will fall into a domino effect, and the whole of Europe will be submerged in the red wave of revolution Among them, PiƂsudski is the hero who saved European civilization from being engulfed by the red wave.

"Mom, I swore that as long as the bourgeoisie in the world is not wiped out, I will not have sex with girls. What, you said it will take a long time? No, Mother, the days of the bourgeoisie will not last long... A republic of the people is about to be established. In the future, you old men and women who have worked all your life will be sent to Italy to retire. That country is warm, right by the sea. There is no winter there, Mother. We will settle you down In the palace where the capitalists lived, let you bask your old bones in the warm sun. We will go to America to eliminate the bourgeoisie." 

in "Steel Is This passage from Paul in the novel "How to Make It" revealed that the Bolsheviks at that time generally had a theory of the success of the world revolution. 

From Lenin to ordinary party members, they all had a kind of incomparable self-confidence, and they firmly believed that they could be "successful" in a short period of time. 

Liberate all mankind", not only can liberate Europe, but America on the other side of the Atlantic is no exception. The failure of the Polish-Soviet War also had a huge impact on Soviet Russia. 

The disastrous defeat of Soviet Russia’s export revolution made Lenin realize that the completion of the socialist revolution did not happen overnight. It is completely impossible to turn the world into socialism all at once. 

It is possible; instead of exporting the revolution recklessly, it is better to eliminate the counter-revolutionary gangs that occupy the territory first, return to the construction of the country, complete the industrialization of the country, make the country strong, compromise with the Western countries for the time being, and change the propaganda to overthrow capitalism all day long. 

The slogan of the communist country, normalize diplomacy between countries and break the Western blockade. This change aroused the hope of Western financial groups to obtain economic benefits in Russia, so the relief food and a large amount of capital investment from the United States poured in.

During the Soviet period, Ukraine developed to a certain extent under the leadership of the Soviet Union. Ukraine, which has developed agriculture, has always been the "granary" of the Soviet Union. There was a great famine. 

In the 1930s, Ukraine became the hardest-hit area of the "Great Cleansing". A large number of Ukrainian cadres and intellectuals were imprisoned and shot, and a large number of Ukrainian people were forced to move to Siberia, a world of ice and snow. 

All these have widened the rift between the Russian and Ukrainian races. So much so that during World War II, the German army invaded, and quite a few Ukrainian women took out their own agricultural products to welcome the arrival of the German army, and regarded the Nazi German army as the "liberator" of the nation. This cannot be said not to make people feel sad.

In addition, the Soviet Union tried its best to interfere with and obstruct Ukrainians' research on their own history and culture and adopted an extreme and oppressive method to eliminate Ukrainian cultural characteristics, which greatly hurt Ukrainian national feelings. 

Professor Zhao Yunzhong of East China Normal University in China recounted in his book Ukraine: Heavy Footsteps of History: "Since the end of the 1920s, the Soviet Union has waged a struggle against "hostile ideologies" in the fields of culture and science. Ukraine Historiography was labeled as “nationalist” and its representatives were branded as “national chauvinists.” 

This type of ideological purge was repeated over the ensuing decades, and many Ukrainian historians were condemned on charges of "Bourgeois nationalism" which actually refers to national separatism. 

The official Ukrainian historiography was established by relying on political coercion, and some obsequious works were regarded as the golden rule, which cannot be disputed or criticized. From one book to another. Thus, in the books of Ukrainian history, there is only one voice, repeating

the same words and phrases that cater to political needs and everything is judged by the attitude towards Russia.” There were bad results. On December 1, 1991, Ukraine held a referendum. More than 37 million Ukrainian voters, 83% of them participated in the vote. 

As a result, more than 90% of people agreed that Ukraine should separate from the Soviet Union and establish an independent country. The vast majority of Ukrainians People have no attachment to the Soviet Union.

I think reading the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered" should be divided into literature and history. In fact, regardless of historical controversies and ideologies, "How Steel Was Tempered" objectively has it's unique cultural connotation and artistic value. 

This book can indeed make readers love life, and it is an inspirational and inspiring work. But now that Ukraine is an independent sovereign country, and the Soviet Union no longer exists, the Chinese know too little about Ukraine’s history, and many Ukrainians are annoyed by the Chinese’s enthusiastic admiration for the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered".

I like Russian and Soviet literature far more than English and American literature. I like "How Steel Was Tempered" and "The Cavalry Army". There are differences in his history, but the emotion and spirit he expresses in the book are true, and his character is noble and respectable. 

As for Isaac Babek, the Jewish genius writer, although his "Cavalry Army" has less influence in China than "Steel", this forbidden and endless "Cavalry Army" is shocking with its novelty and uniqueness. The authenticity of people's hearts is more worthy of savoring.

If Ni Ostrov's early death is a pity of history; then Isaac Babek's unjust murder is a tragedy of history.

"I am innocent, I have never been a spy... I only ask for one thing, let me finish my work." 

This is Babick's last statement before he was shot.

Excerpts from the original text

The most precious thing for man is life. Life belongs to man only once. A person's life should be spent in this way: When he looks back on the past, he will not regret it because of his inaction and wasted years, nor will he feel guilty for being despicable and living a vulgar life. In this way, at the time of his death, he can say: "I have dedicated my whole life and all my energy to the most magnificent cause in the world - to fight for the liberation of mankind .—— Quoted from page 1

Bird Crane summer nights are lovely. In a small town like Shepetovka, the center is the urban area, and the suburbs are the countryside. On quiet summer evenings, young people go outside. The girls and boys sat in groups, in pairs, on the steps of their own houses, in the gardens and yards, in the street, on the lumber piles for the houses. superior. The laughter and singing never stopped.

    The trembling air is filled with a rich fragrance of flowers; the stars are like fireflies, flickering slightly in the depths of the sky; the human voice spreads far, far away... —— — Quoted on page 23

Muhiuddin Alam is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of GeekBookReviews.com. He serves as a consistent contributor to various websites and publications, including Medium, Quora, Reddit, Linkedin, Substack, Vocal, Flipboard, and Amazon KDP. Alam personally read numerous books and, for the past 10 years, has been providing book recommendations and reviews. Find Me: About Me & Google Knowledge Panel.

Do you prefer to listen rather than read? If so, here’s a nice opportunity to try Audible for 30 days.

Need a bookish gift? Give the gift of reading to the book lovers in your life.