In this contemporary Russian classic, a samizdat document arrives at a Soviet newspaper headquarters with unimaginable consequences.
Angels on the Head of a Pin is set in Moscow in the late 1960s, at a time when Khrushchev-era liberalization is being threatened by the return to personality cult and repression following the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. The editor-in-chief of the organ of the Communist Party collapses with a heart attack outside the Central Committee building. This is partly brought on by the appearance of a samizdat manuscript on his desk that leads to his anguishing over who left it there and what to do with it to avoid falling victim to the malevolence its content is likely to unleash. The solution lies with Yakov Rappoport, an ageing and cynical Jewish veteran of the war and two spells in the Gulag, the author of not only the obnoxious popular campaigns sponsored by the newspaper (and all its letters to the editor) but of every speech that gets made in public by the principals of the regime as well. His efforts to help his stricken editor, as well as the novel's star-crossed lovers, lead to a hallucinatory climax.

Angels on the Head of a Pin: A Novel (UNESCO Collection of Representative Works)

Literature & Fiction

Druzhnikov, Yuri

Literary

Peter Owen Publishers

A moving and ambitious novel, this story concerns an exiled Soviet musician who finds himself back in his homeland and drawn to his hometownand the secret of his father’s disappearance during World War II. Gifted young violinist Oleg Nemets' rural life is overturned in the storm of the Second World War and the repressive regime that succeeds it. Blown far away from his home and a father who never returned from the front, Oleg lands in San Francisco as a violinist in the symphony orchestra. But years later, when the orchestra tours the Soviet Union, a series of events and clues from his past lead him back to his old town, the story of his father's disappearance and the Russia he left behind.

Passport to Yesterday

In this book, the author constructs a new scholarly version of Pushkin as an artist profoundly at odds not only with his society, but also with himself. While investigating the last and unhappy period of Pushkin's biography (1830-1837), e.g. 'the end of Pushkin's life,' the author restores paradoxical circumstances that eventually led to the poet's death.

The Life And Death of Alexander Pushkin: A Genius at Odds with Himself

Biographies & Memoirs

Druzhnikov, Iurii

Professionals & Academics

Edwin Mellen Pr

This text looks at Russian literature and history of the 19th and 20th centuries in search of the myths that all Russians take for granted from childhood. The treatment includes forays into the political circumstances as well as an analysis of the state of Soviet and post-Soviet literary studies.

Contemporary Russian Myths: A Skeptical View of the Literary Past (Studies in Slavic Language & Literature)

History & Criticism

As the central figure in Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin (1799û1837) has been claimed by nearly every political faction, right and left, in Russian cultural politics over the past two centuries, culminating in his official canonization under the Soviet regime. In Prisoner of Russia, Yuri Druzhnikov analyzes the distortions and misrepresentations of Pushkin's cultural appropriation by focusing on Pushkin's attempts at emigration and his attitudes toward Russia and Western Europe.Druzhnikov's semi-biographical narrative concentrates on Pushkin's attempts to leave Russia after his graduation from the Lyceum, through his period of exile, until his early death in a duel in 1837. The matter of emigration from Russia was a politically charged issue well before 1917; witness the hostile reception of all of Turgenev's novels from Fathers and Sons on. The emigrÚ artist's cultural context is often used to assess his authenticity and stature as seen in the Western examples of Henry James, T.S. Eliot, or James Joyce. Druzhnikov sharply criticizes the omnipresent and reductive tendency in Russia (and the West) to define Russian cultural figures in terms of absolute essences and ideologies and to ignore the ambivalences that in fact help to define a writer's singularity. In the larger view, he argues, it is these that explain the variety and complexity of Russian culture.Druzhnikov's multidisciplinary approach combines literary and political history, with critical commentary arranged in chronological sequence. His interpretive apparatus ranges widely through nineteenth- and twentieth-century history, and provides the necessary intellectual context for nonspecialist readers. He also avoids the massive accumulation of trivial detail characteristic of so much Pushkinology. This accessible, valuable exercise in cultural history will be of interest to Slavic scholars and students, cultural historians, and general readers interested in Russian literature and culture.

Prisoner of Russia

Historical

Routledge

Informer 001: The Myth of Pavlik Morozov

When Russia was in the throes of Joseph Stalin’s campaign for the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, a young boy named Pavlik Morozov informed the OGPU (later called the KGB) that his father was an enemy of the regime. As a result, Pavlik’s father was arrested and disappeared in a Soviet concentration camp. Enemies of the party later killed the boy, whereupon people proclaimed him a hero. After that, Pavlik Morozov’s glory surpassed the fame of many Russian heroes. Hundreds of works have been published about the boy in various genres; his portrait has graced galleries, postcards, and postage stamps; ships and libraries have been dedicated in his honor. Informer 001 is the first independent study of the Morozov affair. Yuri Druzhnikov examined documents, visited museums, and interviewed everyone who knew Morozov during his short lifetime. In book after book, he discovered inconsistencies in every fact, from where Morozov was born to how old he was at the time of his death. As Druzhnikov pieced together the story about Morozov’s life, death, and legacy, it became clear that the campaign to keep Morozov a hero was centrally directed. Informer hero number 001 remained a fearful reminder to all; to those who inform, and those who become the victims of denunciations. Informer 001 offers Western readers a unique glimpse into the behind-the-scenes operations of Soviet political history and will be fascinating for the general public, as well as for sociologists, historians, and Russian studies specialists.

History

Russia

As the central figure in Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin (1799û1837) has been claimed by nearly every political faction, right and left, in Russian cultural politics over the past two centuries, culminating in his official canonization under the Soviet regime. In Prisoner of Russia, Yuri Druzhnikov analyzes the distortions and misrepresentations of Pushkin's cultural appropriation by focusing on Pushkin's attempts at emigration and his attitudes toward Russia and Western Europe.  Druzhnikov's semi-biographical narrative concentrates on Pushkin's attempts to leave Russia after his graduation from the Lyceum, through his period of exile, until his early death in a duel in 1837. The matter of emigration from Russia was a politically charged issue well before 1917; witness the hostile reception of all of Turgenev's novels from Fathers and Sons on. The emigrÚ artist's cultural context is often used to assess his authenticity and stature as seen in the Western examples of Henry James, T.S. Eliot, or James Joyce. Druzhnikov sharply criticizes the omnipresent and reductive tendency in Russia (and the West) to define Russian cultural figures in terms of absolute essences and ideologies and to ignore the ambivalences that in fact help to define a writer's singularity. In the larger view, he argues, it is these that explain the variety and complexity of Russian culture.  Druzhnikov's multidisciplinary approach combines literary and political history, with critical commentary arranged in chronological sequence. His interpretive apparatus ranges widely through nineteenth- and twentieth-century history, and provides the necessary intellectual context for nonspecialist readers. He also avoids the massive accumulation of trivial detail characteristic of so much Pushkinology. This accessible, valuable exercise in cultural history will be of interest to Slavic scholars and students, cultural historians, and general readers interested in Russian literature and culture.

Prisoner of Russia: Alexander Pushkin and the Political Uses of Nationalism

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Druzhnikov, Yuri. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Druzhnikov, Yuri