The gates of November
Language: English
20th Century Biography & Autobiography Communism & Socialism Dissenters Europe Family Fiction General Historical Historical - General History History - General History History Of Jews Holocaust Jewish Jewish Studies Jewish communists Jewish communists - Soviet Union - Biography Jews Jews - Soviet Union - Biography Judaism Political Ideologies Political Science Refuseniks Refuseniks - Biography Religion Russia & the Former Soviet Union Slepak family Slepak; Mariya Slepak; Solomon Slepak; Solomon - Family Slepak; Vladimir Social Science Soviet Union
Publisher: New York : Knopf : 1996.
Published: Oct 15, 1996
Description:
SUMMARY: From the author of The Chosen and My Name Is Asher Lev comes an epic work of nonfiction chronicling the stormy lives of a Jewish father and son whose stories span the entire history of the Soviet Union. Solomon Slepak, an inflexible old-guard Bolshevik - military commander, diplomat, propagandist - not only miraculously survived the murderous purges of the thirties and late forties, despite his high visibility and his Jewish origins, but retained to the last his unwavering faith in the Communist Party. His son, Volodya, was raised as a true believer and easily entered the elite Moscow world of scientists and engineers - until, choosing the path of dissent, he became an internationally renowned "refusenik" hero. For eighteen years he and his wife, Masha, were the objects of government persecution for the "crime" of attempting to leave the Soviet Union - five of those years lost in Siberia as punishment for hanging a banner from the balcony of their Moscow apartment which read "Let us go to our son in Israel". The circumstances that shaped Solomon and Volodya Slepak - their personal and public histories and the clash of their ideologies - form the substance of this remarkable account of a family and a nation. Chaim Potok, who first met the younger Slepaks when they were still under siege in Moscow, tells their story with deep understanding and empathy.