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Children of the Volga, a novel by Guzel Yakhina (2018)
German rights are handled by Christina Links:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 8th Lu Xun Literature Award (2022, China)
Meilleur livre étranger 2021 (France)
Finalist of the Prix Médicis 2021 (France)
Longlisted for the European Literature Prize 2021 (Netherlands)
Winner of the 2020 Georg Dehio-Buchpreis (Germany)
Winner of THE GRAND PRIZE IVO ANDRIĆ 2019 (Serbia)
Winner of the 2019 Big Book Award (Russia, third prize)
Winner of the 2018 Made In Russia award by SNOB project (Russia)Rights sold: Azerbaijan - QUANUN, Bulgaria - COLIBRI, China - Beijing Publishing Group, Croatia - HENA, Czech Republic - PROSTOR, France - NOIR SUR BLANC, Germany - AUFBAU, Hungary - HELICON, Iran - NILOOFAR, Italy - SALANI, S.Korea - EUNHAENG NAMU PUBLISHING, Lithuania - ALMA LITTERA, Macedonia - ANTOLOG, Netherlands - QUERIDO, Poland - NOIR SUR BLANC, Romania - HUMANITAS, Russia - AST, Serbia - SAMIZDAT, LAGUNA, Spain - ACANTILADO, Turkey - ALFA, Ukraine - BookChef, World Arabic - DAR ALMADA, World English - EUROPA EDITIONS UK/USA
In 18th century, Russian empress Catherine the Great invited Europeans to immigrate and become Russian citizens and farm Russian lands while maintaining their language and culture. The settlers came mainly from Germany. In Russia, they retained their German language and culture. Following the Russian Revolution, the Volga German Soviet Republic was established in 1924, and it lasted until 1941. Shortly after the German invasion, the Republic was officially abolished, and at the end of September 1941 all Volga Germans were deported. The number sent to Siberia and Kazakhstan totaled approximately 500,000.
Schulmeister (schoolmaster) Jacob Bach's existence was to match that of his native colony, Gnadenthal: slow-running, measured, and boring. His quiet and humble life changed in 1916, when the teacher fell in love with lovely Clara. Expelled from Gnadenthal, a loving couple run away and settled in a secluded hamlet hidden deep in woods at the other bank of river Volga. After Clara was raped by a bunch of bandits, and died nine months later in childbirth. As a result of trauma Bach was stricken by a conversion disorder and became mute. He raised his baby daughter Anche alone. A need to get food for the girl forced Bach to start composing fairy tales for a local German newspaper; his writings became widely known and popular; and gradually, the tide of life in all German colonies along Volga began to develop in line with Bach's writings. Nevertheless, Bach kept living a life of hermit with his daughter in the woods, protecting her by loneliness and silence, and his fears continued to haunt him. And not in vain: cruel life destroyed his illusions, and his fairy tales turned into horror stories. His worst fears came true when his daughter left Bach alone.
Jacob Bach's story is tragic, it's full of losses and failures: he could not save those he loved, his tales did not change the world, and he himself died. However, Bach's true trajectory is a path of overcoming one's own self, it's a story of a humble person growing up into a giant with no fear whatsoever, as powerful as the great river Volga. What is more, his tenderness and creativity did not disappear, they sprouted into a Kazakh boy, his stepson Vas'ka. Thus, the circle has been closed: the boy grew up and became a teacher.
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Agnessa, by Mira Yakovenko (NF)
Rights sold: Czech Republic - MARATON, Poland - ZNAK
The recorded oral memories of Agnes Mironova (1903-1982) is a must book for anybody who wants to know what was a personal life like under Stalinism. For the first time ever, Agnes’s notes open the secret door into living rooms and boudoirs of Stalin's "hangmen", top-ranked Soviet secret police officers during the purges of 1930-40ies. However, anyone who reads this book with the intention to better understand the past, will also discover an outstanding female character, a gorgeous bitch, a proud predator, who reveals all truths about herself frankly and without keeping anything back. A life story of this unique woman, so beautiful and repulsive at once, has developed during the most terrible and bloody period of modern history.
She has always shaped her own destiny in line with XIXth-century model of aggressive female personality in search of perfect husband. Her acumen and self-centeredness are reminiscent of the strong character and high degree of self-interest of Scarlett O'Hara, the heroine of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. There’s no bigotry or hypocrisy in Agnes’s life ideology, she is too proud and self-assured in her own attractiveness and her feminine power over men. At certain moments of her life, she demonstrates a highest degree of determination mixed with filibusterism.
One of Agnes’s husbands, ‘the main love of her life’ as she dubbed him, was ambitious and energetic NKVD officer Sergei Mironov. Thanks to his extremely fast and successful career, Agnes got to the very top society of the Stalin era. Later, after Mironov was arrested and executed, Agnes began a new life with a new husband. We follow the amazing trajectory of her life full of most drastic contrasts: first she talks with Stalin at the New Year celebration party in Kremlin, and next freezes in some Gulag camp lost in cold Kazakh steppes; first she lives alone with her husband in a huge mansion once belonging to the royal governor of Siberia, and next in a miserable pigeonhole in communal apartment in Moscow; first she travels in a luxury saloon cars and limos, and next is a prisoner of the NKVD jail.
Aged Agnes has shared her life story with a younger friend; she definitely wasn’t trying to elicit sympathy or compassion, but rather to revive the memories of the bright and happy days when she was so victorious, beloved, beautiful, and nicely-dressed.
The memories of Agnes Mironova is more than just an interesting biography with rich historical background; it’s a fascinating text with exactly grasped conversational tone that conveys something that no archive document can revive: everyday life, ordinary characters, ideas, and finally, the mythology of the past.
Oral memories of Agnes Mironova recorded by Mira Yakovenko were first published in 2008 by Memorial Society. In 2012, Irina Sherbakova, the head of Moscow Memorial Society, has prepared an extensive commentary, a preface to Agnes’s book, and the index of all historical figures mentioned in the book. Available also a collection of photos from Agnes’s personal archive.
Technical details: 89.837 words, 499.782 symbols with spaces in the translated manuscript + 8.317 words, 56.953 symbols with spaces in the introductory article + аcollection of photos from family album
- There are many fine works that offer harrowing accounts of the fate of Stalin's innocent victims. This book is different. Agnessa was the beautiful, strong-willed, frivolous, and loving wife of a regional boss of Stalin's secret police who shut her eyes to the murderous activities of her husband. She offers a unique account of what it was like to be the wife of a high-ranking member of the Soviet elite, enjoying fine food, high fashion, 'ladies-in-waiting,' and lavish holidays at a time when millions were starving or being worked to death. Her gripping story provides insight into the thuggish world of cronyism, backstabbing, and intrigue that typified the Stalinist elite, a world in which the guilty feared they would meet the same sticky end as that to which they had condemned millions of innocent people. Agnessa's life would be marked by tragedy, and she would rise to its challenges. But it is her partial complicity in the world of which she is a part, the fact that she is a very flawed heroine, that makes her account so compelling.--S.A. Smith, All Souls College, Oxford
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