The Soviet Era: Confession of a Dissident

26 hrs. 9 min.

Language Russian

Author Alexander Zinovyev

Narrator Vyacheslav Kirik

Description

Alexander Zinoviev does not need advertising. For more than 80 years, the world has been reading and rereading his novel about the adventures of the brave soldier Schweik. But not everyone knows that creating this book was preceded by one and a half decades of work in the genre of feuilleton and satirical short fiction.

[A correction: This entry appears to duplicate content from a different author. Translating only what is provided.]

Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev is a writer, sociologist, and publicist, one of the most significant Russian thinkers of the late 20th—early 21st century. Born into a poor peasant family, he took part in the war. Alexander Zinoviev was critical of the socio-political system in the USSR and, in 1978, was expelled from the country. He returned to Russia only in 1999, and in recent years he changed his viewpoint on the Soviet era. He still saw its shortcomings, but also noted many features that helped the Soviet civilization become among the advanced.

In Alexander Zinoviev’s book, the Soviet era is shown against the backdrop of the author’s own life and his family’s life: revolution, collectivization, Stalinism, repression, the war, the country’s postwar situation, the later years—and at the same time a deep analysis of Soviet reality. The book is read with undiminished interest from the first to the last page, skillfully combining traits of an adventure novel and a scientific treatise.