Isaak Babelʹ

A collection of interlinking short stories, first published in the 1920s, draws on the author's own experiences as a journalist and propagandist with the Red Army during the war against Poland to capture the turbulent, violent era of early Soviet history, in a volume that contains the complete Red Cavalry cycle, Babel's original 1920 diary of the period, and his preliminary sketches for the story. Original.

Red Cavalry

Bryan Alexander

A fine edition of a 20th-century Russian classic about a forgotten war.

Red Cavalry is a brilliant account of part of the Polish-Soviet War. This grew out of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, as Bolshevik leaders sought to expand their territory, while aiming to provoke revolution in Germany by driving through Poland.

A very young Isaac Babel rode with the titular cavalry forces, jotting down his impressions while doing administrative work and trying to get along with Cossacks. Shortly afterward he turned his notes into splendid short stories. They show the chaos of war, the cruelty of soldiers crashing into civilians, the turmoil of a region wracked by multiple invasions and revolts. Stories mix horror with comedy and penetrating descriptions.

Red Cavalry also offers a complex narrative voice. The character - one part Babel, one part invention - is Russian and also pro-Soviet, Jewish yet ambivalent about his people. He struggles to understand and describe the revolution. He loves and despises the Jewish communities he comes across. He loves history with a young antiquarian's eye yet fervently wishes the young Soviet power to undo a heritage of oppression. And he fears, loves, is fascinated by, and removed from the Cossacks with whom he rides.

I'm fascinated by the stories' mad turns of phrase:Everything has been killed by the silence, and only the moon, clasping its round, shining, carefree head in its blue hands,
 loiters beneath my window. (39)
Like all cooks he scorns mankind. (114)
"The International, Comrade, you have no idea how to swallow it!"
"With gunpowder," I tell the old man, "and seasoned with the best blood." (65)
The orange sun is rolling across the sky like a severed head.(39)
He knows the meaning of authority, the Germans taught him that. (223)
I waited with anxious soul for Romeo to descend from the clouds, a satin Romeo singing of love,
 while backstage a dejected electrician waits with his finger on the button to turn off the moon.(61)
Night came galloping toward me on swift steeds. The wailing of the transport carts deafened the universe; on the earth enveloped by screams the roads faded away. Stars slithered out of the cool gut of the sky, and on the horizon abandoned villages flared up. (135)
[T]he terrible field sown with hacked-up men, an inhuman cruelty, inconceivable wounds,
 crushed skulls, young, white, naked bodies are gleaming in the sun, notebooks lying around,
 single pages, military booklets, Bibles, bodies in the rye. (246)
As historical record/fiction, Red Cavalry is very rich. Without exposition it sketches out parts of the Russian Civil War. Looming throughout the stories is the colossal wreck of World War One, which Russia lost horribly. Leftover trenches dot the landscape, German technology impresses, and we see traces of a short-lived Polish state. All sides in the Polish war use the tachanka, a horse-drawn or cart-mounted machinegun. Small groups of aircraft - fewer than ten at a time - terrorize ground forces lacking their own air cover or anti-aircraft weapons. One Cossack gets shot in the face by airplanes (!) and keeps on fighting, of course (126). Several Soviet military leaders appear by name, who will go on to become major actors in the 1930s and 40s: Timoshenko, Voroshilov. It's a deep glimpse into the time between the two world wars. 

This edition is unusually rich, in that only one half is the originally published Red Cavalry stories. The book also includes subsequently published tales, along with Babel's fascinating diary and sketches from the time. It includes plentiful notes and useful front matter.

Strongly recommended for anyone with a taste for incandescent writing, the short story form, and/or history.

Red Cavalry

Reviews