Iurasov, Sergei

Vasilii Terkin posle voiny [Vasilii Terkin After the War]

New York, NY: Chekhov Publishing House, 1953. Item #1412

189 pages. 20 cm. Original publisher’s wrappers. Wrappers lightly worn and creased, but internally clean and tight.

In this imaginative prose continuation of the legendary Soviet poetic figure, émigré writer Vladimir Ivanovich Zhabinsky (1914–1996), writing under the pseudonym Sergei Iurasov, reinterprets Vasilii Terkin—not as the valiant Red Army soldier from Aleksandr Tvardovskii’s canonical Kniga pro boitsa (1942–45), but as an embodiment of the Russian national character, now facing the postwar realities of Soviet life. While Tvardovskii’s Terkin was a model of wartime valor and good-natured stoicism, Iurasov’s postwar Terkin becomes a vehicle for critique, disillusionment, and reflection on Soviet reality from the émigré perspective. Written in exile, this fictional sequel takes the form of satirical and philosophical meditations, blending humor with pointed political commentary. Iurasov does not attempt a stylistic imitation of Tvardovskii’s poem, but instead reinvents Terkin in prose form as a cultural and ideological counterpoint to the Soviet ideal.

Price: $100.00