Talk:Vasily Grossman

Biography

Grossman's autobiography should be included. Its details are:

Writer at war : Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945 Author: Grossman, Vasily.

An amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375424075/104-2841250-2013536?v=glance&n=283155

It is not an autobio strictly speaking. I've added it, thanks! ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 06:28, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Propaganda writer

The article says, but very gingerly, that he was a Russian propaganda writer. Couldn't you be a little clearer on that? {unsigned}

Tracking this down from Treblinka etc - I was surprised to see a known propaganda writer's article used at the Nuremberg trials. The citation to the article is in Russian - not much help to me/most. Any English translation available to what should be a very interesting article for the prosecution.159.105.80.141 (talk) 18:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

He was not a propaganda writer though; that he wrote for a Soviet newspaper during the Second World War does not make him a propaganda writer, from 1943 to 1946 he worked for the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. There is not enough space here to discuss this. Read the introduction to his Life and Fate. Some of his works important work in The Black Book on the Holocaust are held at Yad Vashem Jerusalem.--Everlong Day (talk) 22:02, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Added hyperlink to an (as yet inexistent) page about Robert Chandler

Robert Chandler is a literary translator. English readers actually don't read Grossman's words - they read Chandler's words. (The same goes for any author, in translation.)

I think it's high time Wikipedia started recognising translators for the highly skilled and talented (or not, depending on the case) WRITERS, artists of the word, that they are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.142.134.238 (talk) 18:08, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Lets pick a number

On this page and on the page of Life and Fate book there are 3 different time spans quoted by the soviet censor (Suslov) as to when the book would be allowed to be printed. 200 years, 250 years, 300 years. Can we establish a concrete date that is backed up by at least 2 references? Meishern (talk) 04:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Suslov was not the censor but the Party's top ideologist. Robert Chandler, in his introduction to his own translation of Life and Fate, quotes Suslov as saying "two or three hundred years." Unless and until someone can propose a better source, I would suggest this is a pretty solid one. Nandt1 (talk) 01:54, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Antony Beevor says 200 years in A Writer at War, as, indeed, does Chandler in the 1985 introduction to the Life and Fate. I will check further just in case, then change it if there nothing else to contradict it.--Everlong Day (talk) 11:54, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Robert Chandler has come to believe that, the claim about what Suslov said is a myth. In a paper published by Chandler and Yury Bit-Yunan, they say that there is nothing in Grossman's detailed notes of his meeting with Suslov about such a thing having been said. They also note that there is nothing in Suslov's own notes on the meeting, which have since been published, on this. See here. --Samesawed (talk) 15:16, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

eyewitness accounts of conditions in a Nazi extermination camp

No way was it an eyewitness account. The Germans destroyed everything and planted trees long before the Soviets arrived. he may have summarised accounts of eyewitnesses, in which case this should be made clear. But since he was a Soviet propaganda officer I wouldn't give too much credence to them. Channelwatcher (talk) 02:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you read Grossman's account? He spoke to the survivors (there were about 40, in the woods surrounding the site) as well as the "farmers" to whom the Nazis turned over the site after closing down the extermination camp. If you can't get a hold of Треблинский ад in English translation - admittedly a bit difficult - you might want to look at A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, by Antony Beevor and Liuba Vinogradova, which summarizes Grossman's notebooks from the time. Interesting reading, particularly as you seem - what would be the charitable term? - skeptical. MastCell ^Talk 04:27, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Uncertain, rather than sceptical. But the testimony of someone known to be a propaganda officer has to be approached with a degree of reserve. And please leave out the innuendo.

What I expressed concern with was that the paragraph read ambiguously. To me it suggested that Grossman was himself an eyewitness. I have changed the wording to make it clearer. Channelwatcher (talk) 10:32, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Grossman was never at any time, a propaganda officer.--Everlong Day (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Deleting Misleading Account of Chronology from Intro.

The article's Introduction until now said of Life and Fate: "The book remained censored by Nikita Krushchev after Stalin's death". This gets the timing wrong. Stalin died in 1953. Grossman only submitted his manuscript for publication by 1960 (some sources suggest it was actually completed in 1959). So the drama over its possible publication within the USSR all occurred on Kruschev's watch (Grossman actually died a matter of days before Kruschev's fall from power).Nandt1 (talk) 02:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

How to break a brilliant opus

I had to add a comment to the article in spanish wikipedia. So I do here, expecting to help to future Grossman readers. As an old reader, myself, I had never suffered such an astonishing experience as I did when I read "For a just cause". This "novel" was printed in Spain in 2011, four years later than "Life and Faith", by the same publisher (there was and older version of "Life..." in the eighties). I loved to read this one, so I bought and read "For a just cause" in 2011. Almost inmediately I felt fooled: I noticed that them were two parts of the same amazing and vast novel. In fact it is an epic saga which is perfectly introduced in "For a just cause", as the battle of Stalingrad is introduced itself in it. This book has no ending, neither the battle, which is just beginning, so you have to go to "Life and fate" to find what happens to Shapòshnikov family,to Victor, Ana, Zhenia, what to Stalingrad, the war, Russia... It's a tremendous sorrow to check that you began to read the wrong part. If you didn´t read this books yet, but you intend to do it (although I guess there is not an english version for "For a just cause"), please Start with "For a just cause"! you will do yourself a very big favor and you will honor one of the best writers in XX century: Grossman. Excuse my English. --193.152.150.249 (talk) 18:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Angel Heras. Madrid, Spain. angel@herashernanz.com

Treblinka

The article's lead refers to "liberation of Treblinka" -- is this indeed the case? It's my understanding that Treblinka had long been raised to the ground, so there was nothing to "liberate". The statement on Majdanek is correct, as the Red Army overran Lublin before the camp could be fully dismantled and the evidence destroyed. Alexander Werth reported on Majdanek as well. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:59, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

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The Road: Short Fiction and Essays

The version of The Road: Short Fiction and Essays that I have access to is the eBook version which does not have page numbers. The best I can do is give which section of the book I am referencing. Normally it will be the Introduction.--Everlong Day (talk) 11:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Brailsford

In Treblinka, Grossman writes (page 148, MacLehose Press, London, 2012) ‘the Pope himself, and Mr Brailsford, and other such humane defenders of Hitlerism….’ Is this a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._N._Brailsford? In the Wikipedia article there is a reference to Brailsford attacking Stalin. Could this be why Grossman might mock him as a defender of Hitler? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.253.130 (talk) 22:26, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Strange Caveat

‘Grossman's description of a physically unlikely method of killing a living human through tearing-by-hand originated from the 1944 memoir of the Treblinka revolt survivor Jankiel Wiernik, where the phrase to "tear the child in half" appeared for the first time. Wiernik himself never worked in the Auffanglager receiving area of the camp where Hirtreiter served, and so was repeating hearsay. 101 But the narrative repetition reveals that such stories were retold routinely. Wiernik's memoir was published in Warsaw as a clandestine booklet before the war's end, and translated in 1945 as A Year in Treblinka.’

This paragraph seemingly undermines the comment about tearing the child as “physically unlikely… hearsay” based on, according to the paragraph, conjecture. Though the paragraph also refers to “narrative repetition” of these “stories,” not accounts or anecdotes. Is Grossman being accused of lying about these reports, or did multiple witnesses tell him this? Or is this paragraph suggesting witnesses read the account of another witness and were influenced by that to fabricate their testimonies?

On top of that, people were not only murdered in, guards and Nazis did not necessarily remain in, and even prisoners were not necessarily relegated to one static area of each camp.

This phrase has been “repeated” by witnesses, even in Nazi trials (including the documented Eichmann trial), and in descriptions of other genocides and violent attacks. To conclude that this is all a sign of hearsay and copycat narratives as opposed to verification, or if in doubt, a misremembrance of specifics (i.e. a different Nazi or location), is dubious speculation. The entire HOLOCAUST was “physically unlikely,” and thus that is an insufficient reason to doubt these accounts. Elleoneiram (talk) 09:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)