{"product_id":"march-1917-9780268102654","title":"March 1917","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the University of Notre Dame Press is proud to publish Nobel Prize-winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's epic work \u003cem\u003eMarch 1917\u003c\/em\u003e, Node III, Book 1, of \u003cem\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cem\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/em\u003e is Solzhenitsyn's magnum opus about the Russian Revolution.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spent many years in the latter part of his long life working on \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e, a multivolume chronicle of 'the whirlwind of revolution in Russia.' Until now, only two parts of this hugely ambitious work had appeared in English translation, followed by a long hiatus. Now, at last—on the centenary of the Russian Revolution—the first part of another volume has appeared in English, \u003ci\u003eMarch 1917\u003c\/i\u003e, with translations of the remainder of the work promised. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e—like Solzhenitsyn’s life and work taken whole—is a testament to hope married to determination.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe Christian Century\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"The February revolution, in Solzhenitsyn’s considered judgment, was a disaster of the first order and not a welcome, democratic eruption in a country ill-prepared for democracy. A reader of \u003ci\u003eMarch 1917\u003c\/i\u003e(Node III of \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e . . .) would be hard put to quarrel with Solzhenitsyn’s judgment. As this great work of history and literature attests, February indeed was the root of all the evils to come and not a brief shining display of Russian democracy. . . . This action-packed account, beautifully translated by Marian Schwartz, tells the story of one moment in which the failure of good men to act made all the difference in the world.\" —\u003ci\u003eNational Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"[I]n the volume translated by Marian Schwartz, \u003ci\u003eMarch 1917: The Red Wheel, Node III, Book I\u003c\/i\u003e, the wheel turns. The Russian Revolution begins, and the chapters become shorter, the rhythm no longer adagio but staccato. Solzhenitsyn doesn’t much care about the literary modernism of Western Europe, but he does imitate the kinetic pace of 20th century cinema. . . . In \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn produced a masterpiece, and proved himself a worthy companion of Dostoevsky and rival of Tolstoy.\" —\u003ci\u003eLaw and Liberty\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Gulag Archipelago\u003c\/i\u003e have been called Solzhenitsyn’s two 'cathedrals.' You cannot fully understand the horrors of communism and the history of the 20th century without reading them.\" —\u003ci\u003eNew York Journal of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"The latest Solzhenitsyn book to appear in English, \u003ci\u003eMarch 1917\u003c\/i\u003e, focuses on the great turning point of Russian, indeed world, history: the Russian Revolution. . . . Almost moment by moment, we follow historical and fictional characters from March 8 to March 12, 1917, as chaos unfolds. Although the Kadets think that history must fulfill a story known in advance, Solzhenitsyn shows us a mass of discrepant incidents that fit no coherent narrative.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe New Criterion\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eMarch 1917\u003c\/i\u003e, node III, gives a sketch of the events in St. Petersburg that culminated in the overthrow of the Tsar. Most striking in this segment is the ineptitude of Russia’s ruling class. Although a decent man, Tsar Nicholas was slow to make decisions, fearful of talented people, and incapable of resolving difficult issues. The ministers who exercised executive power were appointed by the Tsar and therefore lacked energy or ability. . . . Solzhenitsyn’s art allows readers to grasp one of the pivotal episodes in history.\" —James Pontuso, \u003ci\u003eVictims of Communism Memorial Foundation Blog\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Histories tend to collapse events into a single narrative; Solzhenitsyn insists on plurality. He explodes the Russian Revolution back into myriad voices and parts, disarrayed and chaotic, detailed and tumultuous. Combining historical research with newspaper headlines, street action, cinematic screenplay, and fictional characterization, the book is as immersive as binge-worthy television, no little thanks to this excellent translation that renders its prose as masterful in English as it was in Russian. In \u003ci\u003eMarch 1917\u003c\/i\u003e, Solzhenitsyn attempts the impossible and succeeds, evoking a fully formed world through episodic narratives that insist on the prosaic integrity of every life, from tsars to peasants. What emerges is a rich history that’s truly greater than the sum of its parts.\" —\u003ci\u003eForeword Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e“'Many readers know that Solzhenitsyn was unjustly imprisoned by the communist regime and wrote about the camps, which are the result of the [Russian] revolution, but few know that Solzhenitsyn in fact dedicated his life to studying the revolution itself, and its causes,' said Stephan Solzhenitsyn. 'You might say that he caught the last train of departing memory. He was able to interview some of the last living participants of those fateful days in 1917, and of the Russian civil war that followed.'\" —\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s epic of World War I and the Russian revolution, belongs to the Russian tradition of vast, densely plotted novels of love and war set during a time of social upheaval. An extended act of author-to-nation communication, this multivolume saga poses the question, 'Where did we go wrong?' and answers it in human and political terms, but with a mystical twist that is unlike anything else in Solzhenitsyn. This translation beautifully conveys the distinctive flavor of Solzhenitsyn’s prose, with its preternatural concreteness of description, moments of surreal estrangement, and meticulous detailing of the nuances of human relationships in the shadow of encroaching chaos. The novel’s reliable, unreliable, and even mendacious character voices, its streams-of-consciousness, and its experimental flourishes possess the same vividness and freshness as they do in Russian. Think \u003ci\u003eAnna Karenina\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDoctor Zhivago\u003c\/i\u003e, with Dostoevsky’s \u003ci\u003eDemons\u003c\/i\u003e thrown in for good measure.\" —Richard Tempest, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"In his ambitious multivolume work \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e(\u003ci\u003eKrasnoye Koleso\u003c\/i\u003e), Solzhenitsyn strove to give a partly historical and partly literary picture of the revolutionary year 1917. Several of these volumes have been translated into English, but the present volume appears in English for the first time. The translation is very well done and ought to give the reader a better understanding of the highly complex events that shook Russia exactly a century ago.\" —Richard Pipes, emeritus, Harvard University\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"There is no doubt that \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the masterpieces of world literature, made all the more precious by its relevance to the tragic era through which contemporary history has passed. Moreover, the impulse of revolutionary and apocalyptic violence associated with the age of ideology has still not ebbed. We remain confronted by the fragility of historical existence, in which it is possible for whole societies to choose death rather than life.\" —David Walsh, Catholic University of America\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"As the great Solzhenitsyn scholar Georges Nivat has written, Solzhenitsyn is the author of two great 'literary cathedrals,' \u003ci\u003eThe Gulag Archipelago\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e. The first is the definitive exposé of ideological despotism and all of its murderous works. \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e is the definitive account of how the forces of revolutionary nihilism came to triumph in the first place. It is a sprawling and fascinating mix of philosophical and moral discernment, literary inventiveness, and historical insight that sometimes strains the novelistic form, but is also one of the great works of moral and political instruction of the twentieth century.\" —Daniel J. Mahoney, co-editor of \u003ci\u003eThe Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Progressive historians have whitewashed the Revolution into a 'people’s revolution,' inspired by the benevolent and charismatic Lenin and founded on the humanitarian Marx’s principles of equality. In truth, the Revolution wasn’t even supported by a majority of the proletariat. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s recently translated \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel: March 1917\u003c\/i\u003e . . . [is a] sobering antidote to this naïve view.\" —\u003ci\u003eClaremont Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eMarch 1917\u003c\/i\u003e is a long, difficult, confusing masterpiece. No great work of literature is easy to read, but this third installment of \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel,\u003c\/i\u003e Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's narrative of the events leading to the Russian Revolution, is remarkable in its complexity. The novel presents a polyphonic kaleidoscope of people, places, and events, some real, some fictitious.\" —\u003ci\u003eSociety Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Solzhenitsyn's historical epic \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e, the author's magnum opus, narrates Russia's transition from monarchy to Soviet rule. . . . The present volume, the first book (of four) of the March 1917 node, narrates the events of the Russian Revolution, notably the overthrow of the Tsar's imperial government and the chaos that resulted among opposition leaders unprepared to lead a country in crisis. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e is intimidatingly voluminous, but Solzhenitsyn's stream-of-consciousness style—and the clarity of Schwartz's careful translation—makes for an engaging and dynamic experience, whether reading the novel cover to cover or in individual vignettes.\" —\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Only a great work of art like \u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e can convey the soul of a lawless mob that has lost all sense of measure. . . . This action-packed account, beautifully translated by Marian Schwartz, tells the story of one moment in which the failure of good men to act made all the difference in the world.” –\u003ci\u003eNational Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In the first volume of \u003ci\u003eMarch 1917\u003c\/i\u003e, well translated by Marian Schwartz, many haunting passages can be found, such as Nicholas II's confrontation with the icon of Christ following his tormented abdication.\" —\u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[Solzhenitsyn] lived with the consequences of this cataclysmic historical moment… [\u003ci\u003eThe Red Wheel: March 1917, Node III, Book 2\u003c\/i\u003e] never allows the reader to imagine they have the full story or a definitive answer about everything that happened during the tumultuous few days. Instead it shows the multitudes affected and their immediate, confused, and ignorant responses.” —\u003ci\u003eSoshi’s Book Blog\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"[A] translation of the first of . . . four volumes, focused on the initial five days of snowballing street violence, multiplying labor strikes and military mutinies, as well as on the unrelieved hostility of the Duma to a painfully incompetent regime. The fictional elements of the story pale next to the overwhelming drama of the unfolding real historical events.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe Russian Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Marian Schwartz, a distinguished translator, has rendered Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s \u003ci\u003eMarch 1917 \u003c\/i\u003einto English in its entirety for the first time. . . . [Her] translation makes Solzhenitsyn more straightforward by occasionally dropping the façade of antiquated language, . . . \u003ci\u003eMarch 1917\u003c\/i\u003e is part of Solzhenitsyn’s \u003ci\u003eRed Wheel\u003c\/i\u003e, a book series in which he conveys why he views not only the October Revolution, but also its predecessor from February 1917 as disasters for Russia.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe Slavic Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Notre Dame Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49524687896919,"sku":"9780268102654","price":29.45,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780268102654.jpg?v=1731857756","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/march-1917-9780268102654","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}