Vasily Grossman quotes
Vasily Grossman was a Soviet writer and journalist, acclaimed for his powerful novels about World War II and totalitarianism. His most famous work, "Life and Fate," explores the moral complexities of life under Stalinism and Nazism. He contributed significantly to literature and the understanding of twentieth-century history. Here are 24 of his quotes:
We are restoring the Leninist norms of democracy. But Leninist norms are not the same as the bourgeois norms of democracy. You know yourself: when Gorky-affected by traumatic impressions, deprivation, hunger and housing difficulties in the first years after October-abandoned his revolutionary position, Lenin did not hesitate to close down his newspaper Novaia zhizn'.
Vasily Grossman
You know what enormous harm we have been dealt by the publication of Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. Everybody who has read your book, everybody who has seen the reviews are convinced that the potential harm from your "Life and Fate” would be far more dangerous than that of Doctor Zhivago.
Vasily Grossman
Your book contains direct analogies between us and the Hitlerite fascists. You book incorrectly describes our people, communists. Could we have won the war with the kind of people you describe? In your book you say positive things about religion, God, Catholicism. Your book defends Trotsky. You book is full of doubts about the legitimacy of our Soviet system.
Vasily Grossman
You believe that we have violated the principle of freedom in your case. Yes, this is so if one understands freedom in the bourgeois sense of the term. But we have a different conception of freedom. Our understanding of freedom is not identical to the one in the capitalist world-as the right to do anything without taking into account the interests of society. Only the imperialists and millionaires need this kind of freedom.
Vasily Grossman
Everyone who has read your book are unanimous in their judgment. They all think it is politically harmful for us. There is no point in giving it for an evaluation to the writers Fedin, Leonov, Ehrenburg, etc. The reviewers could have made a mistake in their aesthetic judgment but they were unanimous in their political judgment, and I have no doubt that their political judgment is absolutely correct.
Vasily Grossman
In autumn 2011 on BBC Radio 4 BBC produced a 13-episode radio play based on the novel "Life and Fate" which became a bestseller in the U.K. In Russia in 2012, the novel was filmed as a television series that aired nationally. Its premiere was successful of the audience: according to research firm TNS Russia, bringing in about 20 percent of Moscow viewers 18 and over.
Vasily Grossman
Vasily Grossman
Occupation: Russian Writer
Born: November 29, 1905
Died: September 14, 1964
Quotes count: 24
Wikipedia: Vasily Grossman
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