The Great Van. The Black Captain

19 hrs. 1 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Nikolay Baykov

Narrator Olga Belyaeva

Description

The first collected works of writer and naturalist Nikolai Apollonovich Baykov (1872–1958) will include his novels, novellas, essays, memoirs, and diaries. Widely published in Japan and other countries, author of the famous “Great Van” and counterpart of V. K. Arsenyev in Manchuria, N. Baykov—who lived for half a century in China and was buried in Australia—was known in his homeland only to a narrow circle of readers and specialists. The book includes the writer’s most well-known works: the novella "Great Van" and the novel "The Black Captain".

Beginning in 1992, when the famous novella by N. Baykov, "Great Van," was published in the first issue of an almanac, the writer’s works have been constantly published in Vladivostok in the Pacific almanac "Rubezh".

For the first collected edition we conceived and began preparing many years ago—together with the writer’s daughter, Natalia Nikolaevna Dmitrovskaya-Baykova, who lives in Australia, and her son Nikolay Dmitrovsky. Later, this work was joined by Elena Kim, who prepared the introductory article and the Comments.

All texts by Nikolai Baykov are published according to the first editions that were published in China and Australia under the author’s editorship.

…In 1936 Baykov’s novella "Great Van" is published. The reader faces the story of a tiger—the ruler of Manchurian forests—from birth to death. A tiger of no ordinary kind, but the Great Van. "On his broad forehead and on his nape, the hieroglyphs ‘De’ and ‘Van’ were marked—meaning ‘Great Prince.’"

The novel "The Black Captain" tells of the life of the Zaurams (people of that region/settlement) guarding the Chinese Eastern Railway from 1901 to 1910.

"Great Van" brought Baykov fame. For Russian and Western European readers, "Great Van" was an opening of a new continent—with its marvelous nature and ancient legends. But the book by Baykov was also an opening for Eastern readers. None of the Far Eastern writers depicted the life of the Manchurian taiga so vividly and romantically—it was quite near.

The novella was translated into many languages of East Asia. In Chinese it was published in 1942 (translated from Japanese). Two years earlier, in 1940, the newspaper "Maneyu niti niti simbum" (“Daily Manchurian Gazette”), issued in Port Arthur in Japanese, printed Baykov’s novella from issue to issue.

Baykov gained fame in Japan right away. In 1941, "Great Van" appears as a separate book. 100,000 copies sold out—much to the surprise of the publishers—very quickly. In the post-war years, the book was reissued many times. In 1952 it was released at once by three of Japan’s largest publishing houses, with three different translations. In Korea the novella first appears in 1993 at the Camons publishing house (Seoul). "Great Van" continues to be reissued in Japan and Korea to this day.