The Murder of Cities

7 hrs. 4 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Alexander Prokhanov

Narrator BIGBAG

Description

Alexander Prokhanov’s new novel is a continuation of his multi-volume epic about the suffering of the Russian people.
An epic divided not into volumes, but into stages of Russians finding themselves amid the swirl of world history, in which Russia is a permanent stronghold in the fight against all-consuming evil.

Spoiler

“The Murder of Cities” is in fact two books in one.

The first part (book) tells of the June days of 2014. Everything that happens is seen through the eyes of a not-so-young writer, Kolchugin, in whose image the author’s self-portrait is clearly recognizable. Kolchugin deeply experiences the events in Donbas, calls on the authorities of Russia, even meets with the president in order to convey his view of the situation— and in the end he plans to go to Donbas, to gather material for his new, the most important, book. Prokhanov leaves Kolchugin at the moment when he has already created the hero in his imagination, but his strength is already almost gone.

The second part (book) is a fragment of a modern odyssey of a young writer, Ryabinin (which is exactly what Kolchugin intended to name his hero)—a man who, at the call of his heart, went to fight in the militia of Novorossiya, lived through the horror of the fighting, was captured, and miraculously survived.

The third part, consisting of a single microscopic chapter, tells the reader that… but that’s already a retelling. The novel is structured so that the external storyline conflicts with the internal movement of the images—and at some point the reader realizes: it’s not quite the way it first seems.

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