Name Index

7 hrs. 37 min.

Language Russian

Author Natalia Gromova

Narrator Natalya Gromova

Description

Breathtaking archival investigations!

Natalya Gromova is a prose writer and literary historian of the 1920–1950s. Author of documentary books “Node. Poets. Friendship. Breaks,” “Disintegration. The Fate of a Soviet Critic in the 40s–50s,” “Key. The Last Moscow,” “Olga Berggolts: There Were No Deaths and There Aren’t Any,” and others.

In the audiobook “Personal Index,” both gripping archival investigations and personal recollections, as well as records of conversations, are gathered. Natalya Gromova finds out who exactly the Chekist is in the essay by Marina Tsvetaeva “The House by Old Pimen,” and where the house of the Dobrovys was—where Daniil Andreev lived before his arrest; she talks about the playwright Alexander Volodin, the mysterious Italian journalist Malaparte and his acquaintance with Mikhail Bulgakov; she recalls how, in the “Soviet Encyclopedia,” a unique dictionary of Russian writers of the 19th century and the early 20th century was created—“not allowed by circulars, but also not entirely forbidden.”

“It happens that a book is taken in hand only because of one name. And suddenly a reference uncovers a connection between characters who were not supposed to meet either in life or in the book—yet they intersected unexpectedly. A personal index is like a starry sky map where intersections of destinies become visible.”

Natalya Gromova