Soviet Memorial

Author: Wang Meng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: For the author—youth is revolution, love, literature, and also the Soviet Union. A journey to the Soviet Union was a soul-stirring adventure. Because no other foreign country had evoked so much love, obsession, and yearning in the author's youth, and later, mentioning it had only brought confusion, pain, and even terror. The Soviet Union has collapsed. The rise, fall, prosperity, and decline of the world's th socialist giant, the heroic, absurd, terrifying, and charming yet ultimately unsuccessful experiments carried out by a significant portion of humanity on this vast land; the lessons learned, the loves and enmities, will remain long in people's memories and in the annals of history, warning and enriching human civilization, making humanity wiser and more mature. This book collects firsthand experiences and the author's insights into Soviet literature, music, painting, etc. The most interesting part of the book is the concluding piece, "The Song Sounds Like Bright Spring," which reads like both a novel and prose, narrating the story of a protagonist's love, separation, and reunion with a Soviet expert from the 1950s to the 1990s. A Russian friend once told me: "The Soviet Union appeared in history for failure, not for success, and there is no need to reminisce about it anymore." I have no intention of participating in historical, political, or sociological discussions about the Soviet Union's "party and state collapse." I am not an expert in the history of the international communist movement. I am simply brave enough to face the great neighbor Russia, equally brave in facing the once prosperous, friendly, and later hostile Soviet Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, its global dominance and eventual dissolution—as I face youth, my soul, my experiences, my beauty and ugliness, my goodness and sins, my praise and punishment, my youth and aging. To face, record, and speak—this is the origin of this book, "A Eulogy for the Soviet Union," which is first and foremost my heart's history, a testament of a young man from back then: reflecting the changes of the times, loving the great motherland and neighbor. Dedicated to this book to welcome and commemorate the 90th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution of the Soviet Union in 2007.
A journey to the Soviet Union was a soul-stirring adventure. Because no other foreign country had evoked so much love, obsession, and yearning in my youth, and later, mentioning it had only brought confusion, pain, and even terror. The Soviet Union has collapsed. The rise, fall, prosperity, and decline of the world's th socialist giant, the heroic, absurd, terrifying, and charming yet ultimately unsuccessful experiments carried out by a significant portion of humanity on this vast land; the lessons learned, the loves and enmities, will remain long in people's memories and in the annals of history, warning and enriching human civilization, making humanity wiser and more mature.