Until today, all Russian republications and all translations of “Stalingrad” have followed the edition first published in 1956 – the best of the editions published in Grossman’s lifetime. Grossman’s editors – who, like all Soviet editors, also played the role of censors – required him to delete them and scholars have been slow to study and publish the wealth of material preserved in his archive. There are many bold, witty, vivid and perceptive passages in his early typescripts that have never been published and have probably only been read by a few dozen people. I too made this lazy assumption for many years.Ī second reason is that none of the published editions of “Stalingrad,” in Russian or any other language, do justice to Grossman’s original vision of the novel. First, we are still in thrall to Cold War thinking people have been unable to conceive that a novel first published while Stalin was still alive might deserve our attention. There are probably two main reasons why “Stalingrad” has been so overshadowed by its sequel. It is less a novel with a message – though I do understand that it is precisely because of its “message” that many readers value “Life and Fate.” Stalingrad presents us with a richer human story “Life and Fate,” in contrast, presents us with a fully articulated statement of a moral and political philosophy. To me, at least, “Stalingrad” now seems a greater novel than “Life and Fate.” It is more varied, more polyphonic, closer to Grossman’s immediate experience of the war. We have titled it Stalingrad – which is what Grossman himself always wanted to call it. Like most tasks relating to Grossman, this has taken a great deal longer than expected, but the novel is at last about to be published. Vasily Grossman’s “Life and Fate” has been hailed as a twentieth-century “War and Peace.” Most readers, however, do not realize that it is only the second half of a two-part work, the first half of which was published in 1952, under the title “For a Just Cause.” During the last three years, my wife and I have been working on a translation of this earlier novel. Robert Chandler provides below an introduction to the novel, Grossman and this edition of “Stalingrad.” It is followed by an excerpt describing Stalingrad’s last hours of peace and the horror of the first strike.

We couldn’t wait to read it, and asked for permission to publish an excerpt in advance of the publication. Edited by Robert Chandler and Yury Bit-Yunan and translated from the Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, it promises to, if not revolutionize readers’ understanding of Vasily Grossman, then at least expand and augment it.

In June a new translation of a new version of Vasily Grossman’s “Stalingrad” is being released.

Stalingrad by vasily grossman