Narrative
Faithful Ruslan
Верный Руслан
Georgi Vladimov · 1975
Synopsis
In the mid-1950s, the prisoners of a camp are sent home and the gates remain open. Ruslan, a guard dog trained to watch the columns and pursue escapees, does not understand this emptiness. His master takes him out of the camp and, instead of putting him down, lets him go. Ruslan makes his way to the nearby small town, where other guard dogs wait as he does; he hunts mice for food and goes back to the camp every day. He soon attaches himself to a former prisoner, Potorty, whom he believes he has been charged with guarding.
Context
Written from 1963 to 1965, the text circulated in samizdat before appearing in 1975 in the journal Grani, then in volume form at Posev, in Frankfurt. In the Soviet Union, it was published only in 1989, in the journal Znamia. Michael Glenny's English translation appeared in 1979 and was reissued by Melville House in 2011; in French, the book can be read in François Cornillot's translation, at Belfond.
Who it is for
A short narrative, told from a dog's point of view, which reads in one sitting and assumes knowing what the camps were.
Prizes and reception
According to the critic Pierre Ahnne, an oblique but terrifying image of the concentration camp universe, seen through a dog's eyes.
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