Cavalry Corps (Illustrated Edition)

Author: Isaac Babel
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: The Cossacks is a masterpiece by the renowned Russian writer Isaac Babel. This extraordinary book, which has been passed down for eighty years, is a literary treasure forged from the iron and flowers of youth. The author is Isaac Babel, a genius of 20th-century Russian literature. In 1920, at the age of twenty-six, he traveled as a war correspondent with the Soviet Red Army cavalry under the command of Budenny to attack Poland. The war lasted three months. Babel witnessed the last large-scale, unprecedentedly brutal cavalry battle in European history, and indeed in human history. From 1923 to 1924, he wrote a series of more than thirty concise and powerful articles based on this campaign, including battlefield sketches and military stories—this is The Cossacks. This finale of the Russo-Polish War, which once shook the world and sold well in Europe and America, is both a record of a glasses-wearing Jewish student on civilization, violence, conquest, and resistance, and a chronicle of the fierce, heroic, and rugged Cossack cavalry soldiers. The entire book is written in the form of thirty-five vignettes, documenting the stories of the Soviet cavalry in Poland during the 1920s Russo-Polish War. With the premise that the cavalry soldiers devoted themselves to the revolutionary cause, it vividly portrays the human side of the soldiers, faithfully recreating the little-known aspects and revelations of the cavalry under Budenny. The descriptions of the brutal battlefield scenes and the true portrayal of the ordinary Cossacks—both brave and passive—caused great controversy in the former Soviet Union. Babel was one of the most notable writers of the 1920s and 1930s in the former Soviet Union. Gorky called him the most outstanding contemporary writer in Russia. Babel's works possess immense vitality. In 1975, The Cossacks was republished and was eventually translated into more than twenty languages, shocking the literary circles of Europe and America. In 1986, The European magazine selected the top 100 best novelists in the world, and Babel was ranked among them. As an admirable master of the short story, Babel was highly praised by many renowned writers: Hemingway thought his work was more concise than his own; Boles?aw Herz thought it was as beautiful as poetry; Cynthia Ozick considered him an excellent writer on par with Kafka. This is an extraordinary book that has been passed down for eighty years, and a literary treasure forged from the iron and flowers of youth. The author is Isaac Babel, a genius of 20th-century Russian literature. In 1920, at the age of twenty-six, he traveled as a war correspondent with the Soviet Red Army cavalry under the command of Budenny to attack Poland. The war lasted three months. Babel witnessed the last large-scale, unprecedentedly brutal cavalry battle in European history, and indeed in human history. From 1923 to 1924, he wrote a series of more than thirty concise and powerful articles based on this campaign, including battlefield sketches and military stories—this is The Cossacks. This finale of the Russo-Polish War, which once shook the world and sold well in Europe and America, is both a record of a glasses-wearing Jewish student on civilization, violence, conquest, and resistance, and a chronicle of the fierce, heroic, and rugged Cossack cavalry soldiers.