The Stalin Epigram: A Novel [Hardcover]

Robert Littell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 2009

Moscow, 1934. As thousands of peasant famers starve under Stalin's regime of collectivisation, Osip Mandelstam, perhaps the greatest Russian poet of the twentieth century, defies the Kremlin with a few short, audacious lines of verse - a searing indictment of Stalin secretly recited to a handful of friends and fellow artists. When a transcript of the work falls into the hands of the secret police, the poet is taken from his home to Lubyanka prison under accusations of counter-revolutionary activities that carry the highest penalty, and his fate - as well as the fates of those close to him - is cast into bleak uncertainty. A fictional portrait based on a riveting historical episode, The Stalin Epigram is narrated in turn by Mandelstam himself, his devoted wife and his great friends, the poets Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova, amongst other vividly imagined characters. A gripping and memorable achievement of rigorous research and extraordinary empathy, bestselling author Robert Littell's latest novel is a compelling testament to human courage and endurance.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Veteran espionage novelist Littell (Vicious Circle; The Company; etc.) trades cold war spies for interwar Russian poets in his wonderful new novel. In 1934, real-life poet Osip Mandelstam struggles to get published in the totalitarian state. A battered idealist who has witnessed his share of Stalin-orchestrated horrors, Mandelstam feels writers have an abiding responsibility to be truth tellers in this wasteland of lies. Much to the despair of his fellow poets, Osip writes an epigram likening Stalin to a ruthless killer, leading to Osip's arrest, brutal interrogation and exile. The robust narrative employs an array of narrators, including Osip's devoted wife, Nadezhda; his disloyal lover, actress Zinaida Zaitseva-Antonova; and Stalin's personal bodyguard, Nikolai Vlasik. The most intriguing voice heard is that of Fikrit Shotman, a weightlifter turned circus strongman who shares a cell with Osip and whose journey from Moscow prison to Siberian gold mine perfectly captures the absurdity of life under tyranny. Littell is unflinching in his portrayal of Osip's tragic arc, bringing a troubled era of Russian history to rich, magnificent life. (May)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Critics agree that The Stalin Epigram is a powerful novel. Littell, who met with Osip’s wife in 1979 and recorded the story of his imprisonment and death, tells a harrowing, almost absurdist tale of imprisonment, exile, and death in the Soviet state. Turning from his Soviet spy thrillers, Littell provides an impeccably researched historical backdrop, and his multiple perspectives offer a full picture of the era’s emotional and physical horrors. The strength of the book lies in Littell’s command of the brutalities of Stalin’s regime.
Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416598642
• ISBN-13: 978-1416598640
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #772,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bestselling author Robert Littell has been ranked amongst John Le Carre and Graham Greene for his masterful spy fiction. A Newsweek journalist in a previous incarnation, Littell has been writing about the Soviet Union and Russians since his first novel, the espionage classic The Defection of A.J.Lewinter. Among his numerous critically acclaimed novels are The October Circle, Mother Russia, The Debriefing, The Sisters, The Revolutionist, The Once and Future Spy, An Agent in Place, The Visiting Professor, the New York Times bestselling The Company (adapted for a TNT mini-series), and Legends (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Best Thriller of 2005) and For the Future of Israel, a book of conversations with Shimon Peres. Littell is an American who makes his home in France.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Littell Turns from the Cold War to Stalinist Repression, May 25, 2009

By 

Douglas S. Wood "Vicarious Life" (Monona, WI) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Stalin Epigram: A Novel (Hardcover)

In the Stalin Epigram, Littell departs from Cold war spies and turns to Stalinist era poets. The book is based on historical people and events. Littell explores Stalinist repression in the 1930's. His primary focus follows Osip Mandelstam, a formerly renowned poet whose work by 1934 has been suppressed by Stalin's government. He also tells the story of circus strongman and former Soviet champion weightlifter Fikrit Shotman. For a brief time, the two men are unlikely cell mates in Lubyanka.

Mandelstam is an ardent communist and idealist. In his despair at both his personal situation, the general state of the Revolution, and particularly the famines caused by Stalin's forced collectivization, Mandelstam produces a sixteen line ode to Stalin - rather not the kind that Stalin was accustomed to, however, as it included a description of Stalin as "the murderer and peasant slayer". His jailing at least seems to have some rational end.

Shotman's fate, on the other hand, demonstrates the capriciousness of a system that encouraged people to accuse others of anti-Soviet activities. His initial crime was having a sticker of the Eiffel Tower on his suit case.

Littell employs an interesting tool by using numerous narrative voices to weave his tales - Mandelstam, his wife Nadezhda, their bisexual lover Zinaida Zaitseva-Antonova, their poet friends Boris Pasternak and Anna Andreyevna Akhmatova, and Stalin's personal bodyguard, Nikolai Vlasik. Stalin himself also plays a prominent role.

Littell's descriptions of interrogation, psychological manipulation, and torture inside Lubyanka rivals Darkness at Noon: A Novel, but constitute only a portion of the book's focus. Littell also follows the victims of repression after their trials and sentences. With his strongman's body, simple mind, and unquestioning faith in Stalin, Shotman is far better equipped to resist the impact of his ordeal than Mandelstam. Littell details Mandelstam's downward slide with insight and empathy. Highly recommended.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Survives on the strength of its writing, June 26, 2009

By 

Daniel Berger (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Stalin Epigram: A Novel (Hardcover)

What fascinates me about Robert Littell is how different his books are from one another. "The Company" was a spy saga, the best spy novel ever written. "Walking Back the Cat" was completely different, shorter and lighter. "The Once and Future Spy" had an entire story-within-a-story about Nathan Hale.

With "The Stalin Epigram", Littell leaves the espionage genre. This might be a historical novel, but I really think it's just a novel - one above genre, one that survives on the strength of its writing rather than by following any formula.

The novel is based on a true incident. Leading Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, already out of favor with Stalin's Communist regime and scraping to survive, wrote a 16-line poem, or epigram, directly attacking Stalin in 1933, after having seen, from a train passing through the countryside, the effects of the collectivization famine-genocide the Bolsheviks had visited upon the Ukraine.

The poem was essentially his death sentence. He escaped initially with four years internal exile which, along with his interrogation, broke his health and sanity, but was rearrested shortly thereafter and sentenced to a Siberian labor camp which proved to be the death sentence intended. He died in 1939.

I was initially wary of a book about poets, but Littell keeps it moving and I flew through the pages. Littell uses an unusual structure to bring to life this episode, which deserves to be better known in the West than it is. Each chapter is seen through the eyes of a different character close to it - Mandelstam himself; his wife Nadezhda; his friend and fellow poet Anna Akhmatova; an actress and mistress who turns Mandelstam in out of fear; Stalin's bodyguard; a weightlifter imprisoned at the same time who becomes Mandelstam's cellmate; and the like. Littell does well with the different voices - the peasant simplicity of the weightlifter, the poetic sensibility of Akhmatova and Mandelstam, the warmth and trepidation of friend and writer Boris Pasternak; their Slavic romanticism; and the political fear that pervades them all as the Communist terror grows. A mordant humor present in many of them keeps the book from being too overwhelmingly depressing, although the subject matter otherwise would and should be.

And Stalin himself: we see him justifying the terror as an advance purge of potential Fifth Columnists who might aid the Germans in the event Hitler invades, and holding in contempt what he sees as the weakness of the intellectual faction dominating the Old Bolsheviks - people too weak, in his mind, to do the dirty work a thorough social revolution entails. (Unlike someone of peasant roots like himself.)

The bones of the story are factual, mostly. Littell does a grand job imagining the conversations and providing the mood and detail - how people go into exile, how interrogations worked, and what life was like in the labor camps of Siberia.

Stalin's terror ought to be revisited by fiction writers again and again, particularly now, as so many records and memoirs have been released granting foreigners and latter-day observers far better factual information. Littell has done a grand and principled job in writing this book.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book, June 5, 2009

By 

vespasian "james" (fl,usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Stalin Epigram: A Novel (Hardcover)

After reading a glowing review of Littells latest novel I purchased this book and am about 20 pages shy of finishing it. The facts of the book are above.Littell gives the reader a taste of what it must have been like to live in Soviet Russia under Stalin in the thirties. The book has a frightening effect on the reader. Ive read several biographies of stalin and Littell paints his brutal picture true. I would have wanted to read this book straght through but became tired. It is that gripping. I recommend it to anyone interested in the period in russia and mavelous literature. James e. Vigiletti J.D.