Apricot Jam: And Other Stories (63 page)

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glossary

Akhmatova, Anna
(1889-1966): major Russian poet. Her apolitical poems of the postrevolutionary years were harshly criticized by Marxists, and she was forced into silence for some years.

Antonov, Aleksandr
(1888-1922): member of the
SR
Party who headed the peasant uprising in Tambov Province in 1920-1921. He was killed in battle.

Bagramyan, Ivan
(1897-1982): marshal, participant in most of the major Soviet battles in World War II. He served for a time under Georgi Zhukov.

Bedny
, Demyan
(pseudonym of Yefim
Pridvorov
, 1883-1945): poet, satirist, and propagandist for the Communist Party.

Belinsky,
Vissarion
(1811-1948): influential nineteenth-century critic. His approach to literature was later adapted to form one of the central components of the official Marxist-Leninist socialist realist aesthetic.

Beria,
Lavrenty
(1899-1953): from 1938 to 1946, the powerful minister of the interior, who controlled the security forces and administered the labor camps. After Stalin
’
s death he was appointed as first deputy prime minister and reappointed to head the
MVD
.
He was arrested on June 26, 1953 by Khrushchev and others within the leadership and, after a secret trial, was executed on December 23 of the same year.

Beskin
,
Osip
(1892-1969): art critic and journalist.

Bezymensky
, Aleksandr
(1898-1973): poet and early proponent of proletarian literature, active in
RAPP
and
Litfront
.

Blyukher
(
Bl
ϋ
cher
),
Vasily
(1889-1938): Civil War hero and military commander arrested in 1938 during Stalin
’
s purge of Red Army commanders. He died in prison.

Bruski
:
novel by Fyodor
Panfyorov
(1896-1960), which tells of peasant life during the time of collectivization.

Budyonny, Semyon
(1883-1973): commander of the 1st Cavalry Army during the Civil War. As commander-in-chief of the southern and southwestern fronts in World War II, he was blamed for the Battle of Kiev, the worst disaster ever suffered by the Red Army. Nevertheless, he continued to enjoy Stalin
’
s favor.

Bulganin, Nikolai
(1895-1975): political officer and, with Khrushchev, member of the collective leadership after Stalin
’
s death.

Cement
(
Tsement
):
1925 novel by Fyodor
Gladkov
(1883-1958). The novel deals with the restoration of a cement plant by a communist activist and set the pattern for later
“
production novels.
”

Cheka
:
an abbreviation from the Russian Extraordinary Commission
(
Chrezvychainaia
komissiia
), formed in December 1917 as the military and security agency of the Bolshevik government. In 1922 it was replaced by the GPU (State Political Administration), a department of the NKVD (People
’
s Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the Russian Republic), but in 1923 it became subordinate to the Council of People
’
s Commissars of the USSR as the OGPU (All-Union State Political Administration). Subsequent administrative reorganizations brought new names for the security services: the NKGB, the MGB,
the
MVD and, from 1954 to 1991, the KGB. Despite the name changes, those who served in the
“
organs
”
often referred to themselves as Chekists.

Chernyshevsky
, Nikolai
(1828-1889): literary critic, novelist,
revolutionary,
and nineteenth-century Russia
’
s most prominent radical journalist. His ideas helped shape Soviet approaches to literature and art.

Chubar
,
Vlas
(1891-1939): Soviet politician and party official. From 1923 to 1934 he was prime minister of the Soviet Ukrainian Republic.

Chuykov (Chuikov),
Vasily
(1900-1982): commander of the 62nd Army that defended Stalingrad; he later commanded Soviet occupation forces in Germany.

Czechoslovak Legions:
After the Russian Revolution and Russia
’
s abandonment of the war in 1917, a force of 40,000 to 50,000 Czechs and Slovaks, former prisoners of war, were to be evacuated via the Trans-Siberian Railway to fight with the Allies on the western front. As they traveled eastward, they became involved in the Russian Civil War, often fighting against the Bolsheviks and taking control of large sections of the railway.

The Death of Ivan the Terrible
(
Smert
’
Ivana
Groznogo
): 1866 play by Aleksei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1875); with
Tsar Fyodor (Tsar
’
Fedor
Ioannovich
, 1868), it forms part of his historical trilogy.

Denikin, Anton
(1872-1947): former tsarist general; from 1918 to 1920 he commanded the White Army forces in southern Russia.

desyatina
:
a traditional unit of land measure, 2.7 acres, used until Russia adopted the metric system in 1924.

Dobroliubov
, Nikolai
(1836-1861): influential radical journalist and literary critic. His 1859 article
“
The Dark Kingdom
”
viewed the plays of
Aleksandr
Ostrovsky
as social documents revealing the oppressive nature of the world of Moscow merchants and, by implication, of Russia itself. In his
“
Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom
”
(1860), he claimed to find a symbol of revolution in another
Ostrovsky
play.

Extraordinary Commission:
see
Cheka
.

Fellow Travelers
(
poputcbiki
): Soviet writers of non-proletarian origin who accepted the 1917 Revolution while practicing an art largely independent of Marxist ideas.

Forward, Time
!:
1932 novel by Valentin
Kataev
(1897-1986). The novel deals with the construction of a metallurgical plant during the first five-year plan and has become a classic of socialist realism.

Friche
, Vladimir
(1870-1929): literary scholar and theoretician of the sociological method. His books of the 1920s set forth an uncompromisingly materialist view of the history of literature and art.

Frunze, Mikhail
(1885-1925): outstanding commander of Bolshevik forces during the Civil War. He died on the operating table under mysterious circumstances.

Futurists
:
a diverse group of poets and artists who rebelled against the art of the past and found inspiration in urban and technological themes. In the years before World War I, they practiced experimental, avant-garde art. Many futurists tried to adapt themselves to the new Soviet order (see
Lef
),
but by 1930 futurism had ended.

Golikov,
Filipp
(1900-1980): political officer, later marshal. After some successes in high military commands, he suffered a significant defeat near Voronezh and lost control of his troops. General Zhukov was called in to repair the situation.

GPU
:
see
Cheka
.

Grechko, Andrei
(1903-1976): marshal, minister of defense from 1967 to 1976.

How the Steel Was
Tempered
(
Kak
zakalialas
’
stal
’,
1932-34): fictionalized autobiography by Nikolai
Ostrovsky
(1904-36); regarded as a classic of socialist realism.

Industrial Party:
a group of prominent engineers and industrial planners accused of
“
wrecking
”
and counterrevolutionary activity. Their trial, in November-December 1930, was one of the first of the show trials of the 1930s.

The Iron Flood
(
Zheleznyi
potok
):
1924 novel by Aleksandr Serafimovich (1863-1949) depicting the transformation of a disorganized mass into an effective fighting force by a Bolshevik leader.

Kaganovich, Lazar
(1893-1991): Soviet political figure and Communist Party official; a close associate of Stalin. In 1957, he,
Molotov
,
and
Bulganin
participated in a failed coup against Khrushchev. He was forced to resign his posts and in 1961 was expelled from the party.

Kerensky, Alexander
(1881-1970): Russian political leader, active before and during the 1917 Revolution. He headed Russia
’
s Provisional Government from July to November 1917.

Khalkhin Gol:
river in Outer Mongolia on which Soviet and Mongol troops fought off fierce attacks by the Japanese between June and September 1939.

Kikvidze
, Vasily
(1895-1919): commander of a Red Army unit active in suppressing the Tambov uprising; killed in battle.

Kirponos
, Mikhail
(1892-1941): colonel general who succeeded Zhukov in commanding the Kiev Military District. He attempted to repulse the German advance on Kiev but found himself surrounded. Stalin refused him permission to withdraw his forces, and
Kirponos
was either killed or committed suicide.

Kirshon
, Vladimir
(1902-1938): dramatist. His play
The Rails Are Humming (
Rel
’
sy
gudyat
, 1925) deals with industrialization. His best-known play,
Bread
(
Khleb
, 1930) looks at collectivization and the liquidation of the
kulaks
.

Kogan
, Pyotr
(1872-1932): Marxist critic and literary historian; proponent of a rigidly sociological view of art.

Kolesnikov, Ivan
(1860-1920): former tsarist officer who commanded a Cossack force against the Reds in the Civil War.

Koltsov
, Aleksei
(1809-1842): poet best known for his lyrical verse on peasant life and the Russian countryside.

Komsomol
:
abbreviation for the Communist Union of Youth
(
Kommunisticheskii
soiuz
molodezhi
), the youth division of the Communist Party. Young people between the ages of fourteen and twenty-eight were eligible for membership.

Konev, Ivan
(1897-1973): marshal; he led Soviet troops in the liberation of much of Eastern Europe.

Kotovsky, Grigory
(1881-1925): noted Red Army cavalry commander in the Civil War.