Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Russia Washed in Blood, first published in full in 1932, is the longest and best-known work by Nikolai Kochkurov (1899–1938), who wrote under the pen-name Artyom Vesyoly. The novel, more a series of extended episodes than a connected narrative with a plot and a hero, is a vivid fictionalised account of the events from the viewpoint of the ordinary soldier. The title of the novel came to symbolise the tragic history of Russia in the 20th century.
Born in Samara, on the banks of the Volga, the son of a waterside worker, Artyom Vesyoly was the first member of his family to learn to read and write. He took part in the Civil War of 1918–1921 on the Red side, and at its conclusion began a prolific literary career. Vesyoly took as his main theme the horrific events he had witnessed and participated in during the fierce fighting in Southern Russia between the contending forces – Red, White, Cossack, anarchist and others – and the effects of these on the participants and unfortunate civilians caught between them.
‘Artyom Vesyoly’s harrowing novel belongs on the shelf beside the works of Isaac Babel, Mikhail Bulgakov and other modernist masters of the early Soviet period. Translator Kevin Windle’s flawless command of idiom and sensitivity to the slightest nuances of tone impresses on every page.’ — Boris Dralyuk, Executive Editor, Los Angeles Review of Books
Artyom Vesyoly (1899–1938) was a prominent Russian writer of the early Soviet period, executed in the Great Purge for his ‘incorrect’ depiction of the revolution and civil war, and posthumously rehabilitated in 1956.
Kevin Windle is an emeritus fellow at the Australian National University, translator, and historian of the early Russian community in Australia.
Elena Govor, granddaughter of Artyom Vesyoly, is an Australian historian specialising in the history of Russian-Australian contacts.