The Ataman's Star

A new novel by the well-known master of Russian prose.

In newspapers they called him “the hellish ataman.” Journalists rushed to describe his audacious raids and robberies. The police and gendarmes tried their hardest to catch him, but if they managed—he escaped, from both prisons and hard labor.

White Guard and Petliurist, French and German counterintelligence services unsuccessfully tried to find his trail in the Odessa occupied by the interventionists. It seemed as if a special star kept him alive—because no matter what his enemies tried, he remained living and kept throwing in their faces: “I am Kotovsky!”