The Diary of Vikenty Angarov

by Victor Muravin

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0882252542
• ISBN13: 9780882252544
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Prentice-Hall of Canada
• Length: 349 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 1.0" x 1.0"

Customer Reviews

Stupid name for a good novel

The Russian name of the novel is Aurora Borealis, a weather phenomenon whose name I learned 55 years ago in grammar school in exotic New Jersey. The editors, however, felt that title was far too advanced for the American public and perceptively gave it the utterly non-alluring title, The Diary of Vikenty Angarov. The normal person would react: Who the hell is Angarov and why should I care? And that's about what happened to its sales. Frozen in the tundra. Lost in Siberia. I haven't read this in 25 years, but I lost my copy in a move and wanted to re-read it, so I purchased this. It's something of a thriller as well as strong political commentary, and if you have the slightest interest in the experience of an average person exiled to Siberia under the late unlamented Stalinist/Soviet system, the book is certainly worth your time. A smart publisher might pick up the rights and re-publish, doing it the right way this time under the right title.

This is my all time favorite book

I have never read a book like this in my life. This book takes you inside the Russian Gulag like none other. Only Solzenitzen's work comes close, and only because it is true. Vikenty is a survivor. A survivor of the Stalinisic purges, of the Gulag's horrors, of hunger, strife and the sea's fury. It is powerful. It is poignant. And I think it is above all true to the light of the human spirit..to survive at all costs, in the face of death and insurmountable odds. Vikenty Angarov is a compilation of friends of the author, Victor Muravin. And the power of his words are as powerful as the blizzards that fall on the frozen stretches that seek to blanket out the lives condemned there.

Unrestrained cruelty - the Russian Disease

Anyone who was puzzled by the Russians' refusing aid from the West for the crew of the Kursk class boat should read 3 books. The first would be any authentic history of Ivan the Terrible (not the nonsense produced under the Soviets), and the second would be Figes "The Russian Revolution: 1890 - 1924."The third must be this work of fiction. Angarov is a sea captain who is persuaded after the civil war to return from the safety of Harbin to lend his skills to the development of Mother Russia. Through some whimsy, which he never understands, but which is utterly justifiable in the morality both of Ivan and of Communism (they are the same), Angarov begins his true journey in life - through the gulag. Muravin's account of Angarov's life is stark but understated. Indeed, its very understatement underlines the terror, the hopelessness and the helplessness which consumed, not seconds and not minutes, but a whole lifetime; not for one, or for a few, but for countless millions.The reader comes away knowing why it is that even the so-called democratic Russian Federation has never prosecuted a single one of those responsible for a terror that existed from Lenin to Gorbachev and why it is that the crew of the Kursk were sacrificed. That reason is lies in the characteristic Russian mindset that has always regarded not only the high interests of the state, but even its "pride" as of more value than the life of a human being.Ask not what you can do for your country, but what it can do for you - for you are the state's master and it is your servant. Follow JFK's aphorism, accept that you are the state's servant, and you are on the road to Angarov's fate. Don't then complain.