A Gloom Is Cast Upon the Ancient Steps
20 hrs. 23 min.
Language
Russian
Author
Alexander Chudakov
Author
Alexander Chudakov
Narrator
Fyodor Stepanov
Narrator
Fyodor Stepanov
Description
Aleksandr Pavlovich Chudakov (1938–2005) was a Russian philologist, literary scholar, and writer, the husband of academician Marietta Chudakova. His only major piece of fiction was the historical-philosophical novel “Darkness Falls on Old Steps,” which was awarded the “Russian Booker” prize in 2011 as the best book of the decade.
The work is autobiographical; the action takes place from the end of the Great Patriotic War to the middle of the 1980s. Under the fictional name Chebachinsk, a completely real city, Shchuchinsk, located in Northern Kazakhstan, is shown. At that time, that small town was a place of exile for many. Its residents included old intelligentsia, dispossessed peasants, deported Chechens, exiled Germans, and the remnants of the Russian aristocracy.
The novel has two main protagonists. Anton Stremoukhоv, a young historian, a native of Chebachinsk, arrives in the city of his childhood in the late 1960s. He wanders through familiar streets, recalls episodes from the past—school, friends, neighbors...
The second central character is Anton’s grandfather: the book begins with his appearance and ends with a story of how he died.
The whole book is a sequence of stories flowing smoothly into one another. They are different—funny, dramatic, sometimes tragic, widely known and known only to a few. Some novellas (for example, recollections of eyewitnesses) are based on real facts, while others were invented by the author. But most importantly are their interpretations—sometimes very original... Listen to the audio version of one of the most notable books of recent Russian literature.
The work is autobiographical; the action takes place from the end of the Great Patriotic War to the middle of the 1980s. Under the fictional name Chebachinsk, a completely real city, Shchuchinsk, located in Northern Kazakhstan, is shown. At that time, that small town was a place of exile for many. Its residents included old intelligentsia, dispossessed peasants, deported Chechens, exiled Germans, and the remnants of the Russian aristocracy.
The novel has two main protagonists. Anton Stremoukhоv, a young historian, a native of Chebachinsk, arrives in the city of his childhood in the late 1960s. He wanders through familiar streets, recalls episodes from the past—school, friends, neighbors...
The second central character is Anton’s grandfather: the book begins with his appearance and ends with a story of how he died.
The whole book is a sequence of stories flowing smoothly into one another. They are different—funny, dramatic, sometimes tragic, widely known and known only to a few. Some novellas (for example, recollections of eyewitnesses) are based on real facts, while others were invented by the author. But most importantly are their interpretations—sometimes very original... Listen to the audio version of one of the most notable books of recent Russian literature.
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