Zekameron of the 20th Century

34 hrs. 37 min.

Language Russian

Author Vernon Kress

Narrator Sasha Zhukova

Description

In this novel, the reader is given a broad, most complete and accurate picture of the Kolyma camps and, in part, the Siberian camps of the military and the first postwar years.
The author of the novel, Demant Petr Zygmündovich (pseud. Vernon Cress), is an enlightened European—an Austrian—who, by accident, landed in the Gulag cauldron without torment over the loss of Soviet ideals; he feels like a chronicler, an objective witness. Not turning away from suffering, he is, by nature, an optimist and a romantic, and tries to tell the reader not only how people in the camp died, but also how they survived. No wonder Cress notes in his narration the “spirit of the shveikianade”—bright humor intonations make “Zekameron” akin to “Decameron”; at the same time, the echo of these two titles sounds the bitterest sarcasm—a reminder of the tragic contrast between the Renaissance and the cruel 20th century.

Contents:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE
KOLYMA HUMOR
BOOK 1. UNDER THE RED CROSS (A YEAR WITHOUT A DULL TACKLE)
Old training grounds in the taiga
Gold fever
On the left bank
Forwarding
The separation of the “berlag”
BOOK 2. FROM STAGE TO STAGE (THREE FATES)
Mateych
Batjuta
Perun
BOOK 3. MEETINGS ON THE DNIPROPETROVSK SIDE (FIVE YEARS OF BERLAG)
Berlager’s mine
Under the Northern Camel
Numbers and fates
Winter-summer, winter-summer