Concise History of the Russian Revolution

Pipes, Richard

ISBN 10: 1860460836 / ISBN 13: 9781860460838

Published by Harvill Press, London, UK, 1995

About this Item

1st UK edition. xx, 432pp, lightly illustrated, including maps. Quarter-bound in brown cloth under red cloth-covered boards. 8vo. Volume very slightly rubbed on corners, else neat, clean and bright throughout. In its original glossy, illustrated dust jacket, light bumped at spine tips. A careful abridgment of two of Pipes' earlier works on the Russian Revolution led by Lenin.

Seller Inventory # 022740

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Concise History of the Russian Revolution
• Publisher: Harvill Press, London, UK
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1860460836
• ISBN 13: 9781860460838
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • History - Europe

About this title

Synopsis

Heart of a Dog (Sobachye serdtse) is a novella by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. A biting satire of Bolshevism, it was written in 1925 at the height of the NEP period, when communism appeared to be relaxing in the Soviet Union. It is generally interpreted as an allegory of the Communist revolution and "the revolution's misguided attempt to radically transform mankind." Its publication was initially prohibited in the Soviet Union, but it circulated in samizdat until it was officially released in the country in 1987. It was almost immediately turned into a TV movie, which was aired in late 1988 on First Programme (First Channel) of Soviet Television, gained almost universal acclaim and attracted many readers to the original Bulgakov text. Since then, the novella has become a cultural phenomenon in Russia, known and discussed by people "from schoolchildren to politicians." It has become a subject of critical argument, was filmed in Russian and Italian-language versions, and was adapted in English as a play and an opera. (wikipedia.org)

Review

This early novella from Mikhail Bulgakov, published in 1925, already shows the surreal comic genius that later produced The Master and Margarita, the writer's masterpiece. A kind of Frankenstein parable, Heart of a Dog is the story of a stray dog that gains a human intelligence after a prominent Moscow professor transplants human glands into the unfortunate canine's body.