---
product_id: 50990807
title: "Life and Fate: The WW2 Russian classic from the bestselling author of Stalingrad"
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---

# Published after 20 years' KGB ban Epic 162-character cast Authentic Stalingrad war chronicle Life and Fate: The WW2 Russian classic from the bestselling author of Stalingrad

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## Summary

> ⚡️ Unlock the untold epic of war, courage & humanity — before everyone else does!

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- **What is this?** Life and Fate: The WW2 Russian classic from the bestselling author of Stalingrad
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## Key Features

- • **A sweeping saga of 20th-century Russia:** Dive deep into the lives of the Shaposhnikov family amid ideological tyranny and war.
- • **Enduring relevance and critical acclaim:** Join thousands who rate it 4.6 stars and call it the ‘War and Peace’ of the 20th century.
- • **Visceral realism of the Battle of Stalingrad:** Feel the raw intensity of the pivotal WWII battle through authentic, near-verbatim accounts.
- • **Rich, multi-layered narrative with 162 characters:** Engage with a vast cast spanning scientists, soldiers, prisoners, and political elites.
- • **Uncensored masterpiece smuggled from Soviet Russia:** Experience a banned novel that defied the KGB and reshaped historical fiction.

## Overview

Life and Fate is Vasily Grossman’s magnum opus, a monumental WWII novel banned for 20 years by the KGB and later smuggled to the West. It chronicles the intertwined fates of 162 characters during the Battle of Stalingrad, blending political intrigue, scientific ambition, and raw human endurance. Praised as one of the finest Russian novels of the 20th century, it offers a visceral, unfiltered look at Soviet society under Stalinism and remains a must-read for history and literary enthusiasts alike.

## Description

Life and Fate is an epic tale of twentieth-century Russia told through the fate of a single family, the Shaposhnikovs, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Stalingrad . As the battle of Stalingrad looms, Grossman's characters must work out their destinies in a world torn by ideological tyranny and war. Completed in 1960 and then confiscated by the KGB, this sweeping panorama of Soviet Society remained unpublished until it was smuggled into the West in 1980, where it was hailed as a masterpiece. 'One of the finest Russian novels of the 20th century' Daily Telegraph 'Compelling... Grossman's portrait is timelessly relevant... Life and Fate is worth all the audience it can find' The Times

Review: One of the outstanding books of the 20th century. - Grossman's book is a stunning effort. He might lack Tolstoy's gift for character, but his magnum opus, smuggled to the west by Andrei Sakharov and other dissidents, is a brilliant novelised record of the Stalingrad conflict which shaped, and continues to shape, the modern world. He really needed an editor but as he had to write this in secret, he can be forgiven for his occasional repetitions and diversions. When Grossman asked for his novel to be published in Russia in the late 1950's the censor replied that he should be prepared to wait "for 200 to 300 years". It is an accessible and devastating attack on Stalinism and the way in which all authoritarian regimes, of both left and right, erode humanity and moral courage. BBC Radio 4 recently adapted this novel using an all-star cast. (Kenneth Branagh, Greta Scacchi and Ellie Kendrick). It was a good and honourable effort but necessarily so abbreviated it was never likely to be a substitute for the book itself. For example, the Radio 4 version began on page 134 of the book, leaving out some key scenes describing the political debates between Russian PoW's in the German concentration camp. The radio adaptation concentrates on relationships, whereas the book blends relationships, political ideas and military strategy. `Life and Fate' has sometimes been described as the `War and Peace' of the 20th century. It invokes the experience of a vast cast of 162 characters, Russians, Germans and Ukrainians in the main, who come together in the Second World War, between late 1941 and the spring of 1943, when the Russians first resisted, then drove back, the might of Germany's sixth army. This key battle was the fulcrum of the Second World War. The conflict is always present and is described graphically, often with visceral realism, as any authentic account of war demands. Grossman focuses our interest on a few key `players' who represent four broad groups: 1) The comfortable Russian middle-class scientific intelligentsia, (Vicktor Shtrum, his wife Lyudmila and their daughter Nadya. Viktor's colleagues). 2) The favoured, yet precarious, Russian political class, here represented by the Commissars, their families and their lovers. (Krymov, Getmanov). 3) The Russian military (Novikov, tank corps; Viktorov, airforce) 4) Perhaps the most poignant group comprises the defeated and despairing Russians. Some are held in Nazi concentration camps (Sofya Levinton, Mikhail Mostovskoy, the "Old Bolshevik", and Ikkonikov, the "Tolstoyan"). Others have been sent to the Lubyanka, as prisoners of Stalin, repeatedly enduring brutal three-day interrogations which eventually end in false confessions. Grossman's characters are made to face the awful moral quandaries he confronted in his own life as a writer and journalist. So the dilemma faced by his central character, Viktor Shtrum, who is urged to make false denunciations of innocent colleagues, is probably autobiographical. Both Grossman's and Shtrum's mothers were murdered early in the war. Both Shtrum and Grossman felt guilty that they could have done more to save them). The author, who had been a mining engineer and a chemist, volunteered for the Army but failed the medical. Having already published some articles and a novel, he was invited to work for Krasnya Zvezda (Red Star), the Army newspaper. He was attached to a branch of the journalist corps which stayed in Stalingrad throughout several months of constant battle, on a vast scale. Although he was not a communist, Grossman's reporting was soon popular and trusted both by the ordinary soldiers and by Stalin and the elite. He was favoured and allowed long interviews with top Russian generals and front-line soldiers, alike. Many incidents described in the novel are near-verbatim accounts of real events committed to his war journals. (See Anthony Beevor ,2006, "A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945". Pimlico). As a Jew, Grossman was acutely aware of Stalin's growing paranoia about Jewish intellectual influence in the USSR. Our central character Viktor Pavlovich Shtrum, a theoretical physicist, declares that he had never even `felt Jewish' until he realised that many of his colleagues, who were no longer being promoted or recognised, were also Jews. Grossman shares Tolstoy's faith in the natural decency of the Russian peasant. There are touching scenes when an old Russian widow shares her meagre food with an escaped Russian prisoner who immediately vomits it up, because of weeks of starvation. Hunger, and its psychological effects, especially on soldiers and prisoners of both sides, is dealt with powerfully and at length. Grossman is not particularly convincing when writing about women. Too often his female characters are simple, slightly sentimentalised `saints' (Sofya, Marya Ivanova), although Shtrum's teenage daughter Nadya is a notable and delightfully `sassy' exception. When Shtrum is trying to work out his place in the hierarchy of Soviet science, he discovers that his rival, Sokolov, is getting 25 eggs per week, when he is only getting 24 (the average Russian saw none, of course). It takes his daughter to explain why. School gossip ensures that Nadya's classmates all know exactly who is `up' and who `down' in the Institute's rankings. Some of the most interesting and believable dialogue, full-blown political debate, occurs between the Old Bolshevik, Mikhail Mostovskoy, and his fellow prisoners in the German concentration camp. Later, when Mostovskoy is interrogated by the sinister, yet plausible, Obersturmbannfuhrer Liss, there is a sense that each knows his imminent fate, as Liss attempts to explain to the old Communist that Hitlerism and Stalinism share a similarly cynical view of man. The best writing is left to last, in chapter 60 of part three. Here, a few months after the German retreat, Stepan Spiridonov, the Stalingrad power station manager, is seen leaving the vast works, the power plant he has managed throughout the city's violent siege of daily aerial bombardment. He leaves demoted, because of a brief period of unofficial absence. When he takes leave of his old colleagues, who have suffered so much hardship and danger with him, there is great warmth. Before he is sent to the East, he presses his cheek against the huge flywheel of the electric turbine he had kept running throughout the worst of the war. We can all empathise with his outrage at the injustice of his exile. Such a long book with so many characters requires concentration. The writer assumes that the reader knows something of post-revolution Russian history and the basic distinctions between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. It will help if you know the reasons for Trotsky's murder in exile and why the Soviet `terror trials' of 1937 took place. If these events are unfamiliar, the following books might help: Simon Sebag Montefiore (2007) "The Young Stalin". Orion (final chapters) Martin Sixsmith (2011) "Russia, a 1000 year chronicle of the Wild East". Pages 119-211. BBC Books So, all in all, a major work demanding considerable attention. Was it worth it? You bet.
Review: An experience for a lifetime - It is impossible to do justice to this book, which is Grossman's masterpiece and one of the great books of all time . Vasily Grossman was a Ukrainian scientist and writer, who reported on the Battle of Stalingrad for the Red Army journal. He spent the most savage days of the second world war in the center of a city under siege. Hitler was determined to conquer Stalingrad, which was not essential to his attack on Russia, because of the prestigious name of the city. Stalin was equally determined he wasn't. Between them they dispatched vast quantities of destructive power against each other there and destroyed the city. Grossman was there throughout and his reports were read at all levels of the Red Army and Kremlin. He did not interview or take notes. He worked along side soldiers and recalled his conversations with them later. He scarcely mentioned the high command in his reports, rather he concentrated on the ground troops shared their lives and reported on their bravery and patriotism. After the War he wrote this astounding novel, which moves between the Ukrainian town of his upbringing, research labs in and around Moscow, meetings of commissars, senior party and scientific research chiefs, the KGB prisons in Moscow and Siberia, German occupation prisons and extermination camps all linked by an extended family of Ukrainian Jews, who regard themselves as Russians and Soviet citizens. This is a broad canvass with a host of characters, whom the reader gets to know well. Some are historical figures like Stalin and Paulinus, the German General in charge of the siege of Stalingrad. There is no real way to describe a book of this magnitude and brilliance. It has to be read. It is an experience not to be missed. In spite the terror and horror the reader experiences along with the characters it remains a positive statement, not only of human endurance but of rapture and delight too. Clearly this is not a casual comfort read. It is for real, really is an experience one feels honored to have been allowed to share in. It takes several days to read and will effect the rest of your life.

## Features

- Warning:Not suitable for children under 10 months.
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- Mint Condition
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## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | 18,024 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) 262 in Political Fiction (Books) 513 in War Story Fiction 2,197 in Historical Fiction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 2,676 Reviews |

## Images

![Life and Fate: The WW2 Russian classic from the bestselling author of Stalingrad - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81sWnWX+GaL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ One of the outstanding books of the 20th century.
*by R***R on 6 November 2011*

Grossman's book is a stunning effort. He might lack Tolstoy's gift for character, but his magnum opus, smuggled to the west by Andrei Sakharov and other dissidents, is a brilliant novelised record of the Stalingrad conflict which shaped, and continues to shape, the modern world. He really needed an editor but as he had to write this in secret, he can be forgiven for his occasional repetitions and diversions. When Grossman asked for his novel to be published in Russia in the late 1950's the censor replied that he should be prepared to wait "for 200 to 300 years". It is an accessible and devastating attack on Stalinism and the way in which all authoritarian regimes, of both left and right, erode humanity and moral courage. BBC Radio 4 recently adapted this novel using an all-star cast. (Kenneth Branagh, Greta Scacchi and Ellie Kendrick). It was a good and honourable effort but necessarily so abbreviated it was never likely to be a substitute for the book itself. For example, the Radio 4 version began on page 134 of the book, leaving out some key scenes describing the political debates between Russian PoW's in the German concentration camp. The radio adaptation concentrates on relationships, whereas the book blends relationships, political ideas and military strategy. `Life and Fate' has sometimes been described as the `War and Peace' of the 20th century. It invokes the experience of a vast cast of 162 characters, Russians, Germans and Ukrainians in the main, who come together in the Second World War, between late 1941 and the spring of 1943, when the Russians first resisted, then drove back, the might of Germany's sixth army. This key battle was the fulcrum of the Second World War. The conflict is always present and is described graphically, often with visceral realism, as any authentic account of war demands. Grossman focuses our interest on a few key `players' who represent four broad groups: 1) The comfortable Russian middle-class scientific intelligentsia, (Vicktor Shtrum, his wife Lyudmila and their daughter Nadya. Viktor's colleagues). 2) The favoured, yet precarious, Russian political class, here represented by the Commissars, their families and their lovers. (Krymov, Getmanov). 3) The Russian military (Novikov, tank corps; Viktorov, airforce) 4) Perhaps the most poignant group comprises the defeated and despairing Russians. Some are held in Nazi concentration camps (Sofya Levinton, Mikhail Mostovskoy, the "Old Bolshevik", and Ikkonikov, the "Tolstoyan"). Others have been sent to the Lubyanka, as prisoners of Stalin, repeatedly enduring brutal three-day interrogations which eventually end in false confessions. Grossman's characters are made to face the awful moral quandaries he confronted in his own life as a writer and journalist. So the dilemma faced by his central character, Viktor Shtrum, who is urged to make false denunciations of innocent colleagues, is probably autobiographical. Both Grossman's and Shtrum's mothers were murdered early in the war. Both Shtrum and Grossman felt guilty that they could have done more to save them). The author, who had been a mining engineer and a chemist, volunteered for the Army but failed the medical. Having already published some articles and a novel, he was invited to work for Krasnya Zvezda (Red Star), the Army newspaper. He was attached to a branch of the journalist corps which stayed in Stalingrad throughout several months of constant battle, on a vast scale. Although he was not a communist, Grossman's reporting was soon popular and trusted both by the ordinary soldiers and by Stalin and the elite. He was favoured and allowed long interviews with top Russian generals and front-line soldiers, alike. Many incidents described in the novel are near-verbatim accounts of real events committed to his war journals. (See Anthony Beevor ,2006, "A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945". Pimlico). As a Jew, Grossman was acutely aware of Stalin's growing paranoia about Jewish intellectual influence in the USSR. Our central character Viktor Pavlovich Shtrum, a theoretical physicist, declares that he had never even `felt Jewish' until he realised that many of his colleagues, who were no longer being promoted or recognised, were also Jews. Grossman shares Tolstoy's faith in the natural decency of the Russian peasant. There are touching scenes when an old Russian widow shares her meagre food with an escaped Russian prisoner who immediately vomits it up, because of weeks of starvation. Hunger, and its psychological effects, especially on soldiers and prisoners of both sides, is dealt with powerfully and at length. Grossman is not particularly convincing when writing about women. Too often his female characters are simple, slightly sentimentalised `saints' (Sofya, Marya Ivanova), although Shtrum's teenage daughter Nadya is a notable and delightfully `sassy' exception. When Shtrum is trying to work out his place in the hierarchy of Soviet science, he discovers that his rival, Sokolov, is getting 25 eggs per week, when he is only getting 24 (the average Russian saw none, of course). It takes his daughter to explain why. School gossip ensures that Nadya's classmates all know exactly who is `up' and who `down' in the Institute's rankings. Some of the most interesting and believable dialogue, full-blown political debate, occurs between the Old Bolshevik, Mikhail Mostovskoy, and his fellow prisoners in the German concentration camp. Later, when Mostovskoy is interrogated by the sinister, yet plausible, Obersturmbannfuhrer Liss, there is a sense that each knows his imminent fate, as Liss attempts to explain to the old Communist that Hitlerism and Stalinism share a similarly cynical view of man. The best writing is left to last, in chapter 60 of part three. Here, a few months after the German retreat, Stepan Spiridonov, the Stalingrad power station manager, is seen leaving the vast works, the power plant he has managed throughout the city's violent siege of daily aerial bombardment. He leaves demoted, because of a brief period of unofficial absence. When he takes leave of his old colleagues, who have suffered so much hardship and danger with him, there is great warmth. Before he is sent to the East, he presses his cheek against the huge flywheel of the electric turbine he had kept running throughout the worst of the war. We can all empathise with his outrage at the injustice of his exile. Such a long book with so many characters requires concentration. The writer assumes that the reader knows something of post-revolution Russian history and the basic distinctions between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. It will help if you know the reasons for Trotsky's murder in exile and why the Soviet `terror trials' of 1937 took place. If these events are unfamiliar, the following books might help: Simon Sebag Montefiore (2007) "The Young Stalin". Orion (final chapters) Martin Sixsmith (2011) "Russia, a 1000 year chronicle of the Wild East". Pages 119-211. BBC Books So, all in all, a major work demanding considerable attention. Was it worth it? You bet.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An experience for a lifetime
*by M***K on 8 January 2016*

It is impossible to do justice to this book, which is Grossman's masterpiece and one of the great books of all time . Vasily Grossman was a Ukrainian scientist and writer, who reported on the Battle of Stalingrad for the Red Army journal. He spent the most savage days of the second world war in the center of a city under siege. Hitler was determined to conquer Stalingrad, which was not essential to his attack on Russia, because of the prestigious name of the city. Stalin was equally determined he wasn't. Between them they dispatched vast quantities of destructive power against each other there and destroyed the city. Grossman was there throughout and his reports were read at all levels of the Red Army and Kremlin. He did not interview or take notes. He worked along side soldiers and recalled his conversations with them later. He scarcely mentioned the high command in his reports, rather he concentrated on the ground troops shared their lives and reported on their bravery and patriotism. After the War he wrote this astounding novel, which moves between the Ukrainian town of his upbringing, research labs in and around Moscow, meetings of commissars, senior party and scientific research chiefs, the KGB prisons in Moscow and Siberia, German occupation prisons and extermination camps all linked by an extended family of Ukrainian Jews, who regard themselves as Russians and Soviet citizens. This is a broad canvass with a host of characters, whom the reader gets to know well. Some are historical figures like Stalin and Paulinus, the German General in charge of the siege of Stalingrad. There is no real way to describe a book of this magnitude and brilliance. It has to be read. It is an experience not to be missed. In spite the terror and horror the reader experiences along with the characters it remains a positive statement, not only of human endurance but of rapture and delight too. Clearly this is not a casual comfort read. It is for real, really is an experience one feels honored to have been allowed to share in. It takes several days to read and will effect the rest of your life.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ An Interesting Read
*by H***D on 31 August 2012*

Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman is a huge, sprawling novel that is ambitious in its aim to give insight into the conditions or the life and fate of a vast array of characters set in the context of the battle of Stalingrad during the second world war. It is a realist novel grounded in the reality of the German invasion of Russia and the impact of that invasion. Yet at the same time the novel displays some modernist tendencies in so far as there is not clear linear plot but instead the reader is subjected to a series of subplots and character vignettes. Along with the vast amount of characters, structuring the novel around subplots command a careful and well concentrated read. Life and Fate is also a novel that aims to analyse two forms of totalitarianism: the Nazi regime under Hitler and communism under Stalin. From this perspective a broad sweep of early twentieth century history is conveyed but interestingly as the narrative moves back and fort in time Grossman manages to create an illusion that the novel is static focusing on the battle of Stalingrad. So what holds this sprawling novel together? A number of approached is at work in the novel. First, the novel focuses on a family, the Shaposhnikovs, with Viktor Pavlovich Shtrum as its head and Lyudmila Nikolaevna Shaposhnikova, Viktor's wife, as a matriarchal figure. Along with this central family and their acquaintances, Grossman shapes his narrative by moving around a number of settings - for example, a German concentration camp, a Russian labour camp and of course some of the action around the battle of Stalingrad. There is no doubt that it is Grossman himself telling the story because at times he stands back from the main story line and injects his own philosophical mussing a la Tolstoy in War and Peace. One of the things I enjoyed and that kept me reading through this long novel is Grossman's philosophical mussing. In pastiche fashion, as if in homage to Tolstoy, Grossman's mussing are profound and thought provoking. Here is an example, seen through the eyes of the central character Viktor where Grossman reflects on the relationship between fascism and humans: "Man and Fascism cannot co-exist. If Fascism conquers, man will cease to exist and there will remain only man-like creatures that have undergone an internal transformation. But if man, man who is endowed with reason and kindness, should conquer, then Fascism must perish, and those who have submitted to it will once again become people." The novel is littered with many thought provoking reflections as the one above. Life and Fate depicts a great understanding of what it means to be a human being. The scope of human issues covered is broad, and Grossman handles them with great deftness and due attention. He has the ability to shift from a moving account of Jews going to their deaths in the gas chambers to an unemotional account of Viktor Pavlovich Shtrum's success as a physicist. Then there are passages of shear brilliance for example where Grossman imagines Hitler's psychological state when he learnt of the defeat of German forces during the battle of Stalingrad. Perhaps above all Life and Fate is a novel about war. Grossman's grasp and understanding of the chaos and mishaps of military planning and war is profound and rendered clearly. He is certainly no romantic but a hard nose realist. This is how he describes the failure of an attack on the Germans after all the careful preparations: "This is when the madness of war becomes most obvious ... An hour later there is nothing to show for all your work except some broken-down, burning tanks with twisted guns and torn tracks. Where are the hard months of training now? What has become of the patient, diligent work of the mechanics and electricians?" Another strength of the novel is to be found in Grossman's depiction of love between two people or the ménage a trios between Viktor, his wife Lydia and Marya Ivanovna. Grossman's analysis of Yevgenia love for her former husband Krymov reveals the intensity of her feelings brilliantly. In one passage he tells the reader: "the thoughts and feelings she had repressed, the secret pain and anxiety from the time she and Krymov had separated, the tenderness she still felt for him, the way she still felt somehow accustomed to him - everything had flared up with renewed intensity during these last weeks". Or in the case of Viktor's love for two women as the impact upon the lives of those involved is described the writing is quite simply profound: "It was only by renouncing his love that he could deliver himself, Lyudmila and Marya Ivanovana from these lies. But when he realised this was what he had to do, he was dissuaded by a treacherous fear that clouded his judgement: `This lie isn't so very terrible'. After all the praise, this is not a novel that I enjoyed reading as much as I had anticipated. One is easily lost among the huge amount of characters and some the detailed description of manoeuvrings became a little tedious. Furthermore, central to the novel is obviously a realistic depiction of the life and fate of a broad range of characters against the backdrop of the Germany's invasion of Russia during the second world war. However, my experience of reading the novel suggests that, as a realist novel, it lacked a cohesive thread that could easily weave the reader into its large canvas. Tribute must be paid to Robert Chandler for his insightful introduction and what appears to be a consistent translation. If you think you have the patience and time then read the novel and you might experience a good fictionalised and humane account of the lives of some characters who experienced the battle of Stalingrad.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Life and Fate
- Stalingrad

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