Novel
Ненависть
Not translated into English
Ivan Shukhov · 1932
Synopsis
In a steppe village beyond the Urals, at the end of the twenties, the rich peasant Epifan Okatov decides to repent before the whole village of a past that he says was harmful to Soviet power, and to give his six-room house to be made into a school. No one believes in his sincerity, neither the farmhand Fechka, nor the Kazakh Ablai, nor the former shepherd Roman. Around them arise a large grain sovkhoz and a small kolkhoz of poor peasants, which come up against open and hidden enemies.
Context
The novel appeared in 1932 in the Roman-gazeta, in two issues, almost at the same time as another novel by the author; Adebiportal dates it to 1931. Gorky welcomed these two books, saying of their author that he seemed to have seen and lived through all the events he recounted. The story follows the founding and early successes of a sovkhoz and a kolkhoz, and the hostilities aroused by the Soviet transformation of the countryside; Argumenty i Fakty sees in it a book about the difficulties of the Siberian Cossack world. The BnF holds an edition of 1957, of 540 pages.
Who it is for
A novel of collectivisation, to be read as testimony of Soviet literature of the thirties.
Prizes and reception
Noticed by Gorky as soon as it appeared, the novel was adapted for the screen in 1935, according to Fantlab.