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Children of the Volga, a novel by Guzel Yakhina (2018)
German rights are handled by Christina Links:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 8th Lu Xun Literature Award (2022, China)
Meilleur livre étranger 2021 (France)
Finalist of the Prix Médicis 2021 (France)
Longlisted for the European Literature Prize 2021 (Netherlands)
Winner of the 2020 Georg Dehio-Buchpreis (Germany)
Winner of THE GRAND PRIZE IVO ANDRIĆ 2019 (Serbia)
Winner of the 2019 Big Book Award (Russia, third prize)
Winner of the 2018 Made In Russia award by SNOB project (Russia)Rights sold: Azerbaijan - QUANUN, Bulgaria - COLIBRI, China - Beijing Publishing Group, Croatia - HENA, Czech Republic - PROSTOR, France - NOIR SUR BLANC, Germany - AUFBAU, Hungary - HELICON, Iran - NILOOFAR, Italy - SALANI, S.Korea - EUNHAENG NAMU PUBLISHING, Lithuania - ALMA LITTERA, Macedonia - ANTOLOG, Netherlands - QUERIDO, Poland - NOIR SUR BLANC, Romania - HUMANITAS, Russia - AST, Serbia - SAMIZDAT, LAGUNA, Spain - ACANTILADO, Turkey - ALFA, Ukraine - BookChef, World Arabic - DAR ALMADA, World English - EUROPA EDITIONS UK/USA
In 18th century, Russian empress Catherine the Great invited Europeans to immigrate and become Russian citizens and farm Russian lands while maintaining their language and culture. The settlers came mainly from Germany. In Russia, they retained their German language and culture. Following the Russian Revolution, the Volga German Soviet Republic was established in 1924, and it lasted until 1941. Shortly after the German invasion, the Republic was officially abolished, and at the end of September 1941 all Volga Germans were deported. The number sent to Siberia and Kazakhstan totaled approximately 500,000.
Schulmeister (schoolmaster) Jacob Bach's existence was to match that of his native colony, Gnadenthal: slow-running, measured, and boring. His quiet and humble life changed in 1916, when the teacher fell in love with lovely Clara. Expelled from Gnadenthal, a loving couple run away and settled in a secluded hamlet hidden deep in woods at the other bank of river Volga. After Clara was raped by a bunch of bandits, and died nine months later in childbirth. As a result of trauma Bach was stricken by a conversion disorder and became mute. He raised his baby daughter Anche alone. A need to get food for the girl forced Bach to start composing fairy tales for a local German newspaper; his writings became widely known and popular; and gradually, the tide of life in all German colonies along Volga began to develop in line with Bach's writings. Nevertheless, Bach kept living a life of hermit with his daughter in the woods, protecting her by loneliness and silence, and his fears continued to haunt him. And not in vain: cruel life destroyed his illusions, and his fairy tales turned into horror stories. His worst fears came true when his daughter left Bach alone.
Jacob Bach's story is tragic, it's full of losses and failures: he could not save those he loved, his tales did not change the world, and he himself died. However, Bach's true trajectory is a path of overcoming one's own self, it's a story of a humble person growing up into a giant with no fear whatsoever, as powerful as the great river Volga. What is more, his tenderness and creativity did not disappear, they sprouted into a Kazakh boy, his stepson Vas'ka. Thus, the circle has been closed: the boy grew up and became a teacher.
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Sergei Prokofiev, a biography, by Igor Vishnevetsky (2009, NF)
Rights sold: Russia - Molodaya Gvardia, World English - GLAGOSLAV
“A classical composer is a mad person composing music, which is not clear to his own generation”, the brilliant Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, whose 120th birth anniversary will be marked on April 23rd, used to say. However, the date itself is Prokofiev’s imagination, as the author of his biography that was published in 2009 in the Life of Remarkable People series, Igor Vishnevetsky, who is a poet, a prose-writer and a culturologist, says.
Read more..."Officially, we celebrate Prokofiev’s birthday, which is the product of his imagination, on April 23rd, while according to the official documents, it should be celebrated on April 27th. Igor Vishnevetsky said in an interview with the Voice of Russia."
One of the old myths was that Sergei Prokofiev was a person, who was seriously interested in nothing at all in his life, except music and his literary work. Let’s add chess to that list too. Meanwhile, Prokofiev kept well abreast of politics. And, which you might find surprising enough, though he was a representative of the avant-garde trend in music and a composer who was committed to radical left views regarding the art, as a politician, he was not a left-winger. Shortly after the 1917 revolution in Russia, Prokofiev left it and settled at first in the USA and then in France. Altogether, he spent 18 years abroad. True, parallel with his performances in America, Japan and Europe, he visited Russia with concerts 3 times. Saying that avangardism implies left-wing politics, Igor Vishnevetsky presents the following proofs.
"Prokofiev’s position on the 1917 to 18 events in Russia was clear-cut. He strongly disapproved of what occurred in Russia and regarded the revolutionary events in the country as a catastrophe of cosmic proportions. In an interview with an American newspaper he said that he was strongly positive about the intervention in the Russian Civil War. The knowledge of the above-mentioned destroys the customary image of Prokofiev and at the same time throws light on the circumstances he was guided by when he returned to Russia. Besides, what he said in the interview provides us food to understand why he wrote such music - that very music he wrote after his return to Russia."
The terms for the return of Sergei Prokofiev to Russia were, firstly, his expressing official regret for the interview to the foreign press during the Civil War and of course , his promise not to do anything of the kind in the future. Prokofiev was sure that he would be more in place and more popular at home. And he proved to be right. The great pianist and the brilliant performer of Prokofiev’s works, Svyatoslav Richter, describing Sergei Prokofiev who returned to Russia in 1936 to begin a new life there, says: “Once I saw him walking on the Arbat Street, and there was a challenging force in him.”
The “new life” of Sergei Prokofiev, the laureate of several Stalin prizes, was not cloudless in Russia. There’re still some blank spots in his biography. Of course, his 8 operas, including “War and Peace”, based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel, are well known. His 8 ballets, including “Romeo and Juliet” that was staged many times are well known as well. All his 7 symphonies and all his 9 instrumental concerts, and also his cantatas and numerous chamber pieces are often performed today. “And still, there’s something in Prokofiev’s biography we know nothing about”, Igor Vishnevetsky says.
(с) text: VOR
Table of contents
Part I. FACING THE EAST. 1891-1927
1. Childhood in Ukraine: the Scythian Wakes Up (1891-1905)
2. The 'enfant terrible' in St.Petersburg Conservatory of Music and After It (1905-1917)
3. Beginning of Odissey, or Road Towards the Sun (1918-1921)
4. Years of Wanderings. Art as Magic (1922-1927)
Part II. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. 1927-1945
1. Between the Land of Bolsheviks and Eurasia (1927-1930)
2. Russian Parisian at Home and Abroad (1931-1935)
3. Experimenting within Limits: Prokofiev and Soviet Music (1936-1940)
4. The War (1941-1945)
Part III. IN CAPTIVITY. (1946-1953)
1. After-War Euphoria (1946-1947)
2. Catastrophe: 1948
3. Years of Isolation (1949-1953)
4. Epilogue: After Prokofiev
Appendix I. Chronological table of Sergei Prokofiev's life and art.
Appendix II. Bibliography.