Novel
How the Steel Was Tempered
Как закалялась сталь
Nikolai Ostrovsky · 1934
Opening lines
— Кто из вас перед праздником приходил ко мне домой отвечать урок — встаньте!
“Those of you who came to my house before the holiday to recite your lesson, stand up!”
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from ru.wikisource.org
Synopsis
At Shepetovka, in Ukraine, Pavka Korchagin, expelled from school, works from the age of twelve as a dishwasher, then in a power station. There he meets Zhukhrai, a Bolshevik sailor who initiates him into revolutionary ideas and whom he saves from certain death, and falls in love with Tonia Tumanova, the cultured daughter of a forester. Won over to the Bolsheviks, he fights in the civil war and against Poland, where he is wounded. Back in civilian life, he works on the railway, is active in the Komsomol and crosses paths with Rita Ustinovich, a party leader.
Context
The novel appeared in instalments in the magazine Molodaya gvardiya from 1932; the second part was published there in the spring of 1934, and the two parts came out in book form the same year. The author, bedridden and almost blind, dictated much of it to his wife and to those close to him. The book draws on his own life: like his hero, he worked as a child, fought in the ranks of the Red Army and was wounded in battle.
Who it is for
A long novel of apprenticeship, to be read as a testimony to the early years of the Soviet regime in Ukraine.
Prizes and reception
Reissued hundreds of times and translated throughout the world, it ranks among the most widely distributed books in the Russian language.