Black Stones

10 hrs. 55 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Anatoly Zhigulin

Narrator Vyacheslav Gerasimov

Description

The Russian poet Anatoly Vladimirovich Zhigulin was born in Voronezh in 1930. In 1949 he was arrested and convicted under Article 58 as one of the creators of a youth revolutionary organization called the “Communist Party of Youth” (KPM). He was released in 1954, returned home, and finished a forestry institute. At the same time, he began publishing in local newspapers. In 1959 his first collection of poems was released. Zhigulin gained wide fame thanks to his autobiographical novella “Black Stones” (1988), published at the beginning of Perestroika. The poet is also the author of poetry books “Memory” (1964), “Clear Days” (1970), “Solovetsky Seagull” (1979), “Red Kalina, Black Kalina” (1979), “Life, Unexpected Joy” (1980), “In the Hope of Eternal” (1983), and the poetry cycle “The Burned Notebook” (1987).

The autobiographical novella “Black Stones” by Anatoly Zhigulin is based on a real case of a youth communist organization with an anti-Stalinist orientation that operated in Voronezh in 1948–1949. The organization was uncovered; its members were arrested. The book tells about what was experienced in the Voronezh prison and in Siberian and Kolyma camps.