Novel
The Badgers
Барсуки
Leonid Leonov · 1924
Synopsis
Egor Brykin returns from Moscow to the village of Vory to find a bride and takes two brothers, Semyon and Pavel, to the city. The first book shows merchant Zaryadye in Moscow in the years of war and revolution. Then the narrative returns to the village, under war communism: requisitions provoke the peasants to revolt, and Semyon takes the lead of insurgents who hide in the forest, in shelters dug underground, which earns them the name of “badgers”. Pavel, for his part, has become a commissar.
Context
The novel appeared in 1924 in the Moscow magazine Krasnaïa nov, in issues 6 to 8; the date of the first edition in book form varies according to the sources. The first major book by its author, it sets the countryside and the city face to face: Semion, shaped by the village, trade and wars, dreams of a peasant republic, while Pavel sides with the city. It was translated into French as early as 1931 by Maurice Parijanine, and into English in 1947 by Hilda Kazanina.
Who it is for
A novel of the Russian countryside, which shows the insurgents without caricature, with their doubts.
Prizes and reception
The book that launched its author, and one of the few Soviet novels of its time to show a peasant revolt against the new power from the inside.
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