1920 Diary

This diary by the famed twentieth-century Russian writer-now available in English for the first time-recounts Babel`s experiences with the Cossack cavalry during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1920. The basis for Red Cavalry, Babel`s best-known work, it records the devastation of the war, the extreme cruelty of the Polish and Red armies alike toward the Jewish population in the Ukraine and eastern Poland, and Babel`s own conflicted role as both Soviet revolutionary and Jew.