Testimony: from the literary memoirs of Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin

The Jewish, Odesa-born poet, Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin (1911-2003), was a central figure in modern Russian literature, although until recently, he was best known in the West for his role in preserving the manuscript of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate from the KGB.

As a Soviet journalist in WW2, he witnessed and wrote about the horrors of Stalingrad, which led the Nobel Laureate Josef Brodsky to refer to him as 'Russia's war poet'.

Later, during the years of Stalin's deportation of ethnic groups, Lipkin translated and preserved the language and writings of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Tatars and, in doing so, became a living repository of their culture for which he risked censure and arrest from the Soviet authorities.

In this memoir, Lipkin's humanity, civic courage, and friendship with many important Russian writers - Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Andrei Platonov, and of course, Grossman himself - shine through the reports of terror and oppression that characterized this most turbulent period of Russian history.

Author: Yvonne Green
Publisher: Hendon Press
Published: 02/28/2023
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.58lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.47d
ISBN: 9781739778514

About the Author
Makarov, Sergei: - Doorstop, including; The Assay, Honoured and Jam & Jerusalem. Her volume After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin was a Poetry Book Society's Translation Choice in 2011.Rayfield, Donald: - Son-in-Law of Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin.Green, Yvonne: - Yvonne Green is a poet descended from Boukharian Jews. Her pamphlet, Boukhara (2007), won The Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition. She has published four full-length collections with SmithDoorstop, including; The Assay, Honoured and Jam & Jerusalem. Her volume After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin was a Poetry Book Society's Translation Choice in 2011.