The People of the Book in the World of Books is a Russian bimonthly publication for serious readers with Jewish interests. Our English website includes only the summaries of the published articles. To access the complete text of them, please visit the Russian version of this website.


31

February 2001

This issue of the magazine includes:


• Interview: Boris Frezinsky, an Expert on Erenburg's Artistic Heritage


The 110th anniversary of the birth of Ilya Erenburg (1891–1967), prose writer and poet, publicist and journalist, was celebrated in January. His famous memoirs, People. Years. Life, became a handbook for many Soviet intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s. For several generations of Soviet Jews his name was a symbol of the Jewish nation. It can be said with confidence that in the Kremlin he was considered a plenipotentiary of Soviet Jewry as well. Arguments about this controversial personality still continue even today. The magazine discusses Ilya Erenburg's life and works with St. Petersburg literary scholar Boris Frezinsky, compiler and editor of many of the writer's books.


Synopses: Ilya Erenburg's Poetry


The magazine presents a brief review of the new volume of Ilya Erenburg's poetry, just published in St. Petersburg. The volume includes a virtually complete collection of Erenburg's poems for the period 1910–1966.


Review: Mister Commissar Boris Slutsky


The fate of the artistic heritage of famous Soviet poet Boris Slutsky (1919–1986) is unusual. During recent years many new texts from his archive were published, radically changing our understanding of his views and the scale of his poetic power. Slutsky's prose work, War Memoirs, was written in 1945 but not published until 2000. The magazine's article analyzes this new publication and points out that Slutsky managed to record some very important features of the "Soviet experience." The key parts of the book are dedicated to Jewish participation in the World War II.


Looking Through Russian Literary Magazines: Novels and Articles of Jewish Interest


Jewish Calendar of Significant Dates: March–April 2001


Bibliography: 50 New Books