Chukovskaya, Lydia "Going Under"

Chukovskaya, Lydia (Чуковская, Лидия Корнеевна) "Going Under" (Russian: Спуск под воду/Spusk pod vodu) - 1972

I found the translation of this book in a German bookshop. The reason I picked it up at first was the cover picture, a birch forest in winter. (see below). I love birches, they have a certain something.

And since I love Russian literature, I was curious about this author who was completely new to me.

"Going Under" takes place in a Russian sanatorium. The first-person narrator has lost her husband through the Soviet regime and tries to find out what happened to him.

The author must have been really courageous. As a fearless critic of the regime, she couldn't publish her autobiographical book in the USSR but it was done in a New York publishing house years later. This led to a professional ban. Very brave.

If you're interested in history, in Russia, in the Stalin regime, the USSR, this is a story that rings true.

From the back cover:

"In the winter of 1949, Nina Sergeyevna spends weeks in a sanatorium for artists on the countryside. Here everything is focused on forgetting. But she wants to know more about the past, about her own suffering, and that of her fellow human beings.

When she met Bilibin, who was in the same labor camp as her husband, she was looking for his closeness. There is a tender affection between the two, but disappointed, she turns away, as Bilibin seeks not the truth but repression and forgetfulness."