The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (134 page)

Babel returns to the Soviet Union (August) and travels, with Antonina Pirozhkova, to the Kiev region and on to Odessa. After returning to Moscow, Babel and Pirozhkova establish a household.

Ilya Ehrenburg, on a visit to Moscow from Paris, queries Babel about the mounting repression and the purges of the old Bolshevik intellectuals from the leadership. Babel attributes the changes to the preparations for war, which calls for a more decisive, military-style government and a kind of art that could best serve the goals of total mobilization of society.

Babel collaborates with Sergei Eisenstein on the film Bezhin Meadow, about a young peasant Communist who is murdered for denouncing his father as a kulak (winter 1935-36).

1936 Attack on Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (January) inaugurates the “Campaign against Formalism,” a purge in the cultural sphere.

Together with Andre and Roland Malraux, Babel visits Gorky in the Crimea and, along with Mikhail Koltsov, serves as Malraux’s interpreter (March). Afterward Gorky complains to Stalin that the “Campaign against Formalism” represents a harmful cultural policy.

Babel spends time with Andre Gide in Moscow and occasionally interprets for him.

Maxim Gorky dies on June 18.

As one of the leading figures in the Writers’ Union, Babel receives a country house (dacha) in Peredelkino.

Spanish Civil War begins in July.

The trial of Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, and other famous party and military leaders, including several Civil War heroes (some friends of Babel’s) takes place in August. The accused are sentenced to death.

Nikolay Yezhov (now the husband of E. Khaiutina) replaces Genrikh Yagoda in September as the head of the NKVD (Stalins secret police).

According to an NKVD informer, Babel is critical of the trials, saying that the prosecution failed to make a convincing case against the accused.

*Ilya Ehrenburg, Memoirs: 1914-1941, translated by Tatyana Shebunina (NY: Grosset 6c

Dunlap, 1966), p. 317.

1937    Daughter Lydia is born to Babel and Antonina Pirozhkova (January).

Babel publishes stories “Sulak,” “Di Grasso” (thematically, part of the childhood story cycle), and “The Kiss” (a new concluding story of Red Cavalry).

Show trials of political and military leaders continue.

1938    In a meeting with Ilya Ehrenburg, Babel recounts how banned books are pulped in a Moscow factory. Ehrenburg, who has just been recalled to Moscow from Spain, suggests to Babel that if Fascism wins in Spain, the repressive USSR would be the only place left for people like Babel and himself, and “so much the worse for us.”
³

Last meeting with Ehrenburg (May).

Yezhov is replaced by Lavrenty Beria as the head of the NKVD and is soon afterward arrested. He gives evidence against Babel.

Babel publishes a story “The Trial” (August).

Collaborates on scripts for the film version of Gorkys autobiographical trilogy (he is chiefly responsible for the script of the volume My Universities, released in 1939-40).

Signs a contract for an edition of his collected works.

1939 Babel completes a film script for a military-industrial spy thriller, Number 4 Staraya Square (the title referring to the address of the Communist Party Central Committee Headquarters in Moscow).

Babel is arrested on May 15 and is soon charged with spying for France and Austria. The accusation is based, in part, on the evidence provided by Yezhov and Babels fellow writers Boris Pilnyak and Mikhail Koltsov, who had been arrested earlier.

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is signed in Moscow in August. In September, the armies of Germany and the Soviet Union invade and partition Poland.

1940    Babel is executed in the Lubyanka prison on January 27.

1941    Germany invades the Soviet Union on June 22.

1948    Rumors circulate about Babel’s imminent release from prison.

1953    Stalin dies (March 5).

1954    Babel is officially exonerated on December 23. The death certificate misleadingly states that he died under unknown circumstances on March 17, 1941.

1955    Collected Stories by Isaac Babel' with an introduction by Lionel Trilling, is published in New York.

1956    Nikita Khrushchev denounces Stalin at the 20th Party Congress (February).

1957    A volume of selected stories is published in Moscow with the introduction by Ilya Ehrenburg, at last opening the way for subsequent editions, albeit censored and incomplete.

1964    Isaac Babel, The Lonely Years: 1925-1939: Unpublished Stories and

Correspondence, edited and introduced by Nathalie Babel. Revised edition published in 1995.

1966    You Must Know Everything, edited by Nathalie Babel, published in New

York.

1989    Vospominania o Babele {Babel Remembered), edited by Antonina Pirozhkova, is published in Moscow, including Pirozhkovas essay “Years Spent Together (1932-1939).”

1990    The two-volume Sochineniia {Works) edition is published in Moscow, the most comprehensive uncensored edition of Babel to date, albeit incomplete.

Details of Babels interrogation and death begin to reach Soviet press (publications by Arkady Vaksberg and Vitaly Shentalinsky based on their research in the KGB archives).

1994    The centenary of Babels birth is marked by international conferences in

Russia and the United States.

1996    Pirozhkova publishes At His Side: The Last Years of Isaac Babel\ translated by

Anne Frydman and Robert L. Busch (Royalton, Vermont).

Gregory Freidin

o36o

1

Ukrainian Cossacks shaved their heads, leaving only a forelock, known as a chub.

2

Tanya Parrain is the daughter of Brice Parrain, French writer and philosopher, and also a specialist in Russian and Soviet literature. Her maternal grandfather, George Chelpanov, was well-known founder of the Institute of Psychology in Moscow.

3

S. Povartsov, Prichina smerti—rasstrel (Cause of Death: Execution by the Firing Squad), M.

1966, p. 130.

I. Early Stories

OLD SHLOYME

Original title: “Starii Shloyme”. First published in Ogni 6, 1913.

AT GRANDMOTHER’S

Original title: “Detstvo. Ubabushku First published in Literaturnoye Nasledstvo, Nauka, 1965, dated: Saratov, November 12,1915.

ELYA ISAAKOVICH AND MARGARITA PROKOFIEVNA

Original title: “Elya Isaakovich i Margarita Prokofievna.” First published in Letopis 11,

1916.

MAMA, RIMMA, AND ALLA

Original title: “Mama, Rimma,, iAlla.” First published in Letopis 11,1916.

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Original title: “Publichnaya biblioteka.” First published in Zhurnal zhurnalov 48, 1916, under the heading “My Notes.” Signed Bab-El.

NINE

Original title: “Devyat.” First published in Zhurnal zhurnalov 48,1916, under the heading “My Notes.” Signed Bab-El.

ODESSA

Original title: “Odessa.” First published in Zhurnal zhurnalov 51,1916, under the heading “My Notes.” Signed Bat-El.

THE AROMA OF ODESSA

Original title:
^u
Listki ob Odesse” First published in Vechernyaya zvezda, March 8, 1918. INSPIRATION

Original title: “ Vdokhnovenie.” First published in Zhurnal zhurnalov 7, 1917, under the heading “My Notes.” Signed Bab-El.

DOUDOU

Original title: “Doudou.” First published in Svobodniye mysli 2, March 13, 1917, under the heading “My Notes.”

SHABOS-NAKHAMU

Original title: “Shabos-Nakhamu.” First published in Vechernyaya zvezda, March 16, 1918, under the subheading “From the Hershele Cycle.” Babel was working on a series of stories on Hershele, a trickster figure in Jewish lore, who was also reputed to be the court jester Reb Borukhl Tulchiner, the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism. The manuscripts of these stories, however, have not survived.

In the Red Cavalry story “Rabbi,” the narrator tells the rabbi, “ ‘I am putting the adventures of Hershele of Ostropol into verse.’ A great task,’ the rabbi whispered, and closed his eyelids.”

See also 1920 Diary entry for July 23.

ON THE FIELD OF HONOR

Original title: “Napole chesti.” First published in Lava 1,1920.

THE DESERTER

Original title: “Dezertir.” First published in Lava 1,1920.

PAPA MARESCOT’S FAMILY

Original title: “Semeistvo papashi Maresko.” First published in Lava 1, 1920.

THE QUAKER

Original title: “Kvaker.” First published in Lava 1, 1920.

THE SIN OF JESUS

Original title: “Iisusov grekhi” First published in Na khleb, August 29, 1921.

AN EVENING WITH THE EMPRESS

Original title: “ Vecher u imperatritsy.” First published in Siluety 1,1922, under the heading “From the Petersburg Diary.”

CHINK

Original title: “Khodya.” First published in Siluety 6-7,1923, under the heading “From the Petersburg Diary.”

A TALE ABOUT A WOMAN

Original title: “Skazkapro babu.” First published in Siluety 8-9, 1923. The story is an earlier version of “The Sin of Jesus.”

THE BATHROOM WINDOW

Original title: “V shchelochku.” First published in Siluety 12, 1923, with the subtitle “From the Book OfortyT See also its earlier version, “A Story,” in the section Variations and Manuscripts.

BAGRAT-OGLY AND THE EYES OF HIS BULL

Original title: “Bagrat-Ogly i glaza ego bykaFirst published in Siluety 12, 1923, with the subtitle “From the Book Oforty

LINE AND COLOR

Original title:
^u
Liniya i tsvet” First published in Krasnaya nov 7, 1923, with the subtitle “A True Occurrence.”

YOU MISSED THE BOAT, CAPTAIN!

Original title: “Ty promorgal\ kapitanP First published in Izvestiya Odesskogo Gubispolkoma, February 9, 1924. Signed Bab-El.

THE END OF ST. HYPATIUS

Original title: “Konets sv. Ipatiya.” First published in Pravda, August 3,1924, under the heading “From My Diary.”

II. The Odessa Stories

THE KING

Original title: “Korol.” First published in Moryak, June 23, 1921, with the subtitle “From the Odessa Stories.”

JUSTICE IN PARENTHESES

Original title: “Spravedlivost v skobkakh.” First published in Na pomoshch!, August 15, 1921, with the subtitle “From the Odessa Stories.”

HOW THINGS WERE DONE IN ODESSA

Original title: “Kak eto delalos v Odesse.” First published in Izvestiya Odesskogo Gubispolkoma, May 5, 1923.

LYUBKA THE COSSACK

Original title: “Lyubka Kazak" First published in Krasnaya nov 5, 1924, with the subtitle “From the Odessa Stories.”

THE FATHER

Original title: “Otets” First published in Krasnaya nov 5,1924, with the subtitle “From the Odessa Stories.”

FROIM GRACH

Original title: “Froim Grach” First published in Vozdushnye puti
_y
Volume 3, New York, 1963.

THE END OF THE ALMSHOUSE

Original title: “Konets bogadelni.” First published in 30 Dnei 1, 1932, with the subtitle “From the Odessa Stories,” dated 1920-1930.

SUNSET

Original title: “Zakat.” First published in Literaturnaya Rossiya, November 20, 1964. The last page of the manuscript was missing.

III. The Red Cavalry Stories

The stories are presented in the order in which they appeared in the first edition of the book Konarmiya (Red Cavalry), May 1926, by which time all the stories had been published in magazines and newspapers as indicated below.

CROSSING THE RIVER ZBRUCZ

Original title: Perekhod cherez Zbruch. First published in Pravda, August 3,1924. Dated Novograd-Volynsk, July 1920.

Savitsky: The altered name Babel used in his later editions of the Red Cavalry stories for Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko, 1895-1970, the commander of the Sixth Division of the Red Cavalry. He was later to become a Marshal of the Soviet Union and Commissar of Defense. He appears as Savitsky in the Red Cavalry stories “My First Goose,” “The Commander of the Second Brigade,” “The Story of a

Horse,” and “The Continuation of the Story of a Horse,” and as Timoshenko throughout the 1920 Diary. In the original publication of the stories, Babel used Timoshenko’s name.

THE CHURCH IN NOVOGRAD

Original title: “ Kostel v Novograde” First published in Izvestiya Odesskovo Gubispolkoma, February 18,1923.

See also 1920 Diary entry for July 15.

A LETTER

Original title: “Pismo.” First published in Izvestiya Odesskovo Gubispolkoma, February

11.1923. Dated Novograd-Volynsk, June 1920.

See also 1920 Diary entry of August 9,1920.

Pavlichenko: The altered name of Iosif Rodionovich Apanasenko, 1890-1943, who took over the command of Division Six after Timoshenko. Mentioned throughout the 1920 Diary and in the Red Cavalry stories “The Life of Matvey Rodionovich Pavlichenko” and “Czesniki.” In the original publication of the stories, Babel used Apanasenko’s name.

THE RESERVE CAVALRY COMMANDER

First published in Lef 4, 1923. Babel changed the original title “Dyakov” to “Nachalnik konzapasa” (“The Reserve-Cavalry Commander”) in later story editions. Dated Belyov, July 1920.

See also 1920 Diary entries for July 13,14, and 16.

PAN APOLEK

Original title: “Pan Apolek.” First published in Krasnaya nov 7,1923.

ITALIAN SUN

First published in Krasnaya nov 3, 1923. Babel changed the original title “Sidorov” to “Solntse Italii (“Italian Sun”) in later story editions. Dated Novograd-Volynsk, July 1920.

GEDALI

Original title: “Gedali” First published in Krasnaya nov 4,1924. Dated Zhitomir, June 1920.

See also 1920 Diary entries for June 6 and July 7.

MY FIRST GOOSE

Original title: “Moipervii gus” First published in Izvestiya Odesskovo Gubispolkoma, May 4, 1924. Dated July 1920.

See also 1920 Diary entry for August 9.

THE RABBI

Original title: “Rabbi” First published in Krasnaya nov 1,1924.

See also 1920 Diary entry for June 3.

THE ROAD TO BRODY

Original title: “Put v Brody.” First published in Izvestiya Odesskovo Gubispolkoma, June