Customer Reviews

Ordeal

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The famed Belorussian writer Vasily Bykov has been awarded the title of Master of Soviet Literature. Michael Glenny, translator of Solzhenitsyn, gives further praise: "From the start it is clear that Bykov is a considerable master of both language and form." The Ordeal, formerly published in Noviy Mir as Sotnikov, is a powerful novel, considered one of the most realistic pictures of the Great Patriotic War to emerge from the USSR. Two Partisans, Ribak and Sotnikov, are captured by local politsai (as Belorussian collaborators with the occupying German army were called). Soknikov is badly wounded. After enduring brutal interrogation, they are imprisoned along with a village woman who had reluctantly sheltered them, an old man, and a Jewish girl. As it becomes clear that they are all to be executed, the captives display individual courage, despair, and cowardice. There is no happy ending, but Bykov's writing is a moving tribute to the higher power of the human spirit. Vasily Bykov, who died earlier this year, was deservedly lauded for his novels, which also include "Pack of Wolves" and "Sign of Misfortune". Ironically, his first published story, "The Dead Feel no Pain" had been criticized in 1966 by Soviet generals for "slandering" the Red Army.