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Хуррамабад
Действие романа ХУРРАМАБАД (прообразом которого служит реальный Душанбе) разворачивается на протяжении более полувека - с конца двадцатых годов, когда в Среднюю Азию вслед за Советской властью двинулись русские, до наших дней, когда они еще более массово откатились назад в Россию.
Раскол империи и хаос гражданской войны вынудили их бежать, оставляя за спиной все, что было создано и нажито трудом нескольких поколений.
Отдельные судьбы, прослеженные в романе, складываются в колоритную картину, без которой представление о жизни не только Таджикистана, но и современной России было бы неполным, и подтверждают собой ту простую мысль, что страдание, преданность, любовь и надежда не имеют национальной принадлежности.
Раскол империи и хаос гражданской войны вынудили их бежать, оставляя за спиной все, что было создано и нажито трудом нескольких поколений.
Отдельные судьбы, прослеженные в романе, складываются в колоритную картину, без которой представление о жизни не только Таджикистана, но и современной России было бы неполным, и подтверждают собой ту простую мысль, что страдание, преданность, любовь и надежда не имеют национальной принадлежности.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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About the author
Andrei Volos
15 books4 followers"Andrei Volos became widely known among Russian readers only after he was awarded the prestigious Italian literary prize “Moscow-Penne” for his series of interrelated stories entitled Khurramabad Trilogy (Хуррамабадскую трилогию) in 1998. (Previous winners of this prize included Valentin Rasputin, Fazil Iskander, Liudmila Petrushevskaia, and Liudmila Ulitskaia). A year later Andrei Volos won an even more prestigious literary prize, the “Anti-Booker.” And he won it on the basis of the manuscript for the then still unpublished novel, Khurramabad. Just a year and a half later Volos published Khurramabad in book form (in 1999 the novel had been published in the journal Novy mir).
Khurramabad takes place in or is linked with Tadjikistan and the fictional city of Khurramabad, whose real-life prototype is Dushanbe. Its protagonist is a man who becomes a stranger in his own country. With the collapse of the USSR this Russian, who has remained in Tadzhikistan, begins to question the meaning of the word “Motherland.” Formerly, his native land included all the broad expanses of the USSR, and Tadzhikistan was his homeland. But now the Tadzhiks do not acknowledge the Russians and hold them responsible for all their problems. And the Russians find it very painful to abandon the land that has given them shelter. Yet he has no choice. But in Russia, too, he is regarded as a stranger. He's a stranger everywhere.
Khurramabad became one of the most readable books of contemporary Russian prose, and in 2001 Andrei Volos was awarded a State Prize of the Russian Federation.
Not long thereafter Volos published his new novel, Real Estate (Nedvizhimost'). It is set in Moscow, and its hero is a realtor who sells apartments, a man given to reflection but with the capacity to adapt to the new circumstances. Choosing such a protagonist allowed the author to construct an unusually dynamic plot, to describe a broad range of vivid psychological types, and to reproduce the feverish tempo of today's Russian life, a milieu that oftentimes seems only a senseless bustle. In this novel Volos has found the golden mean between the “bestseller” with an exciting plot and serious “confessional” literature; in so doing he has created a genuinely contemporary novel that continues the traditions of Russian literature.
Volos himself believes that there are specific echoes of Khurramabad in this novel. Its characters seem to speak different languages and do not manage to connect with each other; or, to put it another way, they are “communicatively challenged.”" (Toronto Slavic Quarterly)
Khurramabad takes place in or is linked with Tadjikistan and the fictional city of Khurramabad, whose real-life prototype is Dushanbe. Its protagonist is a man who becomes a stranger in his own country. With the collapse of the USSR this Russian, who has remained in Tadzhikistan, begins to question the meaning of the word “Motherland.” Formerly, his native land included all the broad expanses of the USSR, and Tadzhikistan was his homeland. But now the Tadzhiks do not acknowledge the Russians and hold them responsible for all their problems. And the Russians find it very painful to abandon the land that has given them shelter. Yet he has no choice. But in Russia, too, he is regarded as a stranger. He's a stranger everywhere.
Khurramabad became one of the most readable books of contemporary Russian prose, and in 2001 Andrei Volos was awarded a State Prize of the Russian Federation.
Not long thereafter Volos published his new novel, Real Estate (Nedvizhimost'). It is set in Moscow, and its hero is a realtor who sells apartments, a man given to reflection but with the capacity to adapt to the new circumstances. Choosing such a protagonist allowed the author to construct an unusually dynamic plot, to describe a broad range of vivid psychological types, and to reproduce the feverish tempo of today's Russian life, a milieu that oftentimes seems only a senseless bustle. In this novel Volos has found the golden mean between the “bestseller” with an exciting plot and serious “confessional” literature; in so doing he has created a genuinely contemporary novel that continues the traditions of Russian literature.
Volos himself believes that there are specific echoes of Khurramabad in this novel. Its characters seem to speak different languages and do not manage to connect with each other; or, to put it another way, they are “communicatively challenged.”" (Toronto Slavic Quarterly)
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 20, 2015
Hurramabad is a collection of short stories set in Tajikistan after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The original, Russian-language version contains 13 stories, of which 7 are translated into English in this volume. Hurramabad is also the name of the fictional city in Tajikistan where most of the stories take place.
This is a grim collection: the stories are set during a civil war, and most of the protagonists are ethnic Russians who now find themselves unwelcome in the country they consider home. But despite its obscurity, it is a perfectly good collection. The stories are interesting and well-structured, and, while it may take a couple of pages for readers to orient themselves, the translation is quite readable. Little is explicitly spelled out for the reader, but there is a sense of the culture and the historical period.
And yet, for me, the stories work better individually than in concert. There’s a great deal of similarity among them: all are set in the same time and place; all deal with death and displacement; five of the seven feature men moving in a society of men, in which few strong bonds between characters exist. And the individual characters are too similar to be memorable. Ultimately, the stories begin to feel repetitive (even though the plotlines and specific scenarios are different) rather than complementing or building on one another.
Again, this is not bad writing, and if you are interested in the setting, you should give it a try. But while interesting enough, it is not a book that inspired much response from me.
This is a grim collection: the stories are set during a civil war, and most of the protagonists are ethnic Russians who now find themselves unwelcome in the country they consider home. But despite its obscurity, it is a perfectly good collection. The stories are interesting and well-structured, and, while it may take a couple of pages for readers to orient themselves, the translation is quite readable. Little is explicitly spelled out for the reader, but there is a sense of the culture and the historical period.
And yet, for me, the stories work better individually than in concert. There’s a great deal of similarity among them: all are set in the same time and place; all deal with death and displacement; five of the seven feature men moving in a society of men, in which few strong bonds between characters exist. And the individual characters are too similar to be memorable. Ultimately, the stories begin to feel repetitive (even though the plotlines and specific scenarios are different) rather than complementing or building on one another.
Again, this is not bad writing, and if you are interested in the setting, you should give it a try. But while interesting enough, it is not a book that inspired much response from me.
June 8, 2024
"یا امپراتوری شر. اصطلاحی بود که اولین بار توسط رونالد ریگان، رئیس جمهور آمریکا در ژوئن سال ۱۹۸۲ برای نام بردن از اتحاد جماهیر شوروی استفاده شد این سخن دور جدیدی از رقابت ها را میان دو بلوک آغاز کرد و به جنگ سرد شدت بخشید. این اصطلاح در اواخر جنگ سرد نقش مهمی داشت. با پایان جنگ سرد و فروپاشی شوروی از این اصطلاح استفاده های دیگری هم شده است."
August 28, 2011
Most view the fall of the Soviet Union as an unmitigated good. It certainly was an opportunity for the apparatchiks who exchanged their Communist Party cards for nationalist ones. Andrei Volos, in this winner of the short-lived Anti-Booker Prize, takes a look at the dislocation suffered in Tajikistan (the must unstable of the Central Asian countries after the collapse) by both ethnic Russians and Tajiks. A Russian who identifies with the Tajiks to the point of marrying one is brutally rejected when war breaks one; another wonders what to do with his nice house when one of the local gangsters says he will take it; a poor Tajik ransoms a kidnapped daughter with a weapon; in the least successful story, some international journalists are caught in the local chaos and expose their ignorance. About half of the original stories were translated for this edition. Hauntingly, two deal with the search for graves - an old woman walks a long way to find her husband's; a man seeks a monument-maker for his father's only to find out that the one he is looking for was killed. We like to think that regime change offers hope. In these days of the Arab Spring, it is worth remembering Volos' testimony that it is often painful and vicious.
July 7, 2024
Creo que es un libro muy bueno, pero me ha resultado difícil de leer. Es una traducción del ruso al inglés y en fin...
Tiene relatos muuuuy interesantes y la atmósfera en general resulta tan lejana y exótica que a veces parece casi fantástica. No lo es y los relatos son muy realistas y duros a veces. Habrá reseña en el canal de Youtube porque es mi segunda lectura del reto Leerme el mundo.
Tiene relatos muuuuy interesantes y la atmósfera en general resulta tan lejana y exótica que a veces parece casi fantástica. No lo es y los relatos son muy realistas y duros a veces. Habrá reseña en el canal de Youtube porque es mi segunda lectura del reto Leerme el mundo.
October 6, 2024
Ann Morgan’s blog is the reason I read this book and I can’t better her description of it: https://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/20...
Life is harsh in Hurramabad, but the writing sparkles.
Life is harsh in Hurramabad, but the writing sparkles.
August 29, 2016
This book is amazing! Written as a series of stories about the people of a town called Hurramabad in Tajikistan, it takes the reader into the daily lives, thoughts and troubles of a few specific characters. When I finished the chapter called "A House On The River", I said Wow aloud to my living room. All of the stories are about leaving in one way or another, arriving at the message that we are foreigners wherever we are. I recommend this book to everyone.
February 8, 2019
Людская ненависть неискоренима. Было бы из-за чего ненавидеть, как за пролитием крови дело не станет. Ярчайшее представление об этом – картина в прошедших через развал Союза советских республиках, чьё население вступило в острую конфронтацию по принципу свой-чужой. Ни в чём не уступало происходящему и ситуация в Таджикистане – особом регионе, толком самостоятельно никогда прежде не существовавшем, ставшем единым под властью коммунистической идеологии. Пусть исторические предпосылки вносили коррективы, однако приходилось считаться с действительностью – так к Узбекистану отошли близкие к персидской культуре Самарканд и Бухара. Что до таджиков, то они говорили на отличающем их от всего Союза языке – на таджикском, который скорее определяется в качестве окающего диалекта персидского. В результате народного недовольства в Таджикистане пострадать пришлось не только русским – под удар попали армяне и турки-месхетинцы.
(c) Trounin
(c) Trounin
May 31, 2017
[#69 Tajikistan] 3.5/5 This book is a collection of short stories, which were globally all interesting without blowing my mind. It took time at the beginning of each to get into the story, I'm not sure whether the translation or the writing style is to blame. All of them dealt with themes quite similar and perhaps one or two female characters would have been refreshing, since none of the male characters really stood out. Yet it was interesting to read stories which take place at the crossroad between Central Asia and Russia.
November 29, 2022
A fascinating albeit somewhat difficult read shedding light on the repurcussions of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the outbreak of the Civil War in Tajikistan. Be prepared to read about murders, violence, tortures and other atrocities. Some short stories are lighter though, and full of interesting observations and funny conversations about the Tajik life and culture.
October 6, 2017
Ganske interessant novellesamling om behandlingen af det russiske mindretal i Tadsjikistan under borgerkrigen 1992-97.
Læs anmeldelsen på K's bognoter: http://bognoter.dk/2017/10/06/andrei-...
Læs anmeldelsen på K's bognoter: http://bognoter.dk/2017/10/06/andrei-...
February 17, 2019
Decent collection of short stories for my AtW challenge (Tajikistan).
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March 29, 2022Tajikistan
April 12, 2023
Tajikistan - Round the World reading challenge. A collection of short stories, covers civil war.
May 18, 2016
Andrei Volos’s « Hurramabad » a collection of seven novellas translated from Russian is set at the confluence of the Russian and Tajik heritages. But the cohabitation is not, or rather is not anymore, harmonious. Volos is a Russian writer born in Dushanbe, a city that was called Stalinabad at that time. After studying in Moscow, he came back to Tajikistan and translated Tajik poetry. His short stories, very elegantly written in Chekhov’s tradition, tell the wrench and the nostalgia in the Russian community in Tajikistan after the independence and the civil war which followed in the 90s.
The first story, « The Ascent », describes one grand-son and his grand-mother climbing towards the grand-father’s tomb. The ascent is steep and at each pause, the grand-mother remembers her arrival from Russia in the 30s to be reunited with her husband posted with the Soviet army on the Afghan border along the Amur-Daria River. In « A Local Man », a young Russian scientist is sent on mission to a research institute in Tajikistan. Contrary to his colleagues who are only dreaming of coming back to Moscow, he starts loving the country, learns the language, marries a Tajik girl and asks to remain in this position. But mocked by his Tajik colleagues, his transfer is rejected. He doesn’t care, and remains in Hurramabad where, perfectly happy, he will end up slicing vegetables and preparing pies on the market.
« The House by the River » tells the story of Yamninov, a Russian who just finished to build with his own hands his dream house by the river. But the house attracts interest and during the civil war, one of the country’s new masters, an arrogant warlord, takes him to the notary and forces him to sell his property for a ridiculously low price. Yamninov uses the money to buy a machine-gun and awaits the usurper without fear, ready to die defending his house…
To read more:
http://www.travelreadings.org/2016/05...
The first story, « The Ascent », describes one grand-son and his grand-mother climbing towards the grand-father’s tomb. The ascent is steep and at each pause, the grand-mother remembers her arrival from Russia in the 30s to be reunited with her husband posted with the Soviet army on the Afghan border along the Amur-Daria River. In « A Local Man », a young Russian scientist is sent on mission to a research institute in Tajikistan. Contrary to his colleagues who are only dreaming of coming back to Moscow, he starts loving the country, learns the language, marries a Tajik girl and asks to remain in this position. But mocked by his Tajik colleagues, his transfer is rejected. He doesn’t care, and remains in Hurramabad where, perfectly happy, he will end up slicing vegetables and preparing pies on the market.
« The House by the River » tells the story of Yamninov, a Russian who just finished to build with his own hands his dream house by the river. But the house attracts interest and during the civil war, one of the country’s new masters, an arrogant warlord, takes him to the notary and forces him to sell his property for a ridiculously low price. Yamninov uses the money to buy a machine-gun and awaits the usurper without fear, ready to die defending his house…
To read more:
http://www.travelreadings.org/2016/05...
July 27, 2016
There are thirteen related short stories in "Hurramabad", seven of them are translated and published in this volume and I now want to find the other six.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a bloody civil war broke out in Tajikistan. This collection shows the effects of the war by telling the stories of individuals caught up in it. Some of the people at the heart of the stories are ethnic Russians, other ethnic Tajik. It gives a good picture of the traditional way of life, education and development under the Soviet banner and also the descent into anarchy and the rule of powerful warlords which sprang from the war. It is generally sympathetic to the Russian Tajiks, but also shows the authors love of his country and its traditions.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a bloody civil war broke out in Tajikistan. This collection shows the effects of the war by telling the stories of individuals caught up in it. Some of the people at the heart of the stories are ethnic Russians, other ethnic Tajik. It gives a good picture of the traditional way of life, education and development under the Soviet banner and also the descent into anarchy and the rule of powerful warlords which sprang from the war. It is generally sympathetic to the Russian Tajiks, but also shows the authors love of his country and its traditions.
June 4, 2015
This is my international book club's last book for this year from former Soviet Union countries. It included seven novellas about people living in Tajikistan after the breakup of the Soviet Union. I know little about this country or the effects of the breakup. This book is beautifully written as it tells the stories of their lives. My emotions ran the gamut from joy, sadness, anger, and frustration for how cruel individuals can create such horrible conditions for people to exist in. Such dominance and power can be so harmful to people who just want to be left alone and life a good and decent life. This is a sad commentary on humanity in so many different ways.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews