Victor Serge

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Victor Serge
BornDecember 30, 1890 (1890-12-30)
Brussels, Belgium
DiedNovember 17, 1947 (1947-11-18) (aged 56)
Mexico City, Mexico
Nationality
Political party
SpouseLiuba Russakova
PartnerLaurette Séjourné
Children2, including Vlady
Signature

Victor Serge (French: [viktɔʁ sɛʁʒ]; December 30, 1890 – November 17, 1947), born Victor Lvovich Kibalchich (Russian: Ви́ктор Льво́вич Киба́льчич), was a Russian writer, poet, Marxist revolutionary and historian. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks five months after arriving in Petrograd in January 1919 and later worked for the Comintern as a journalist, editor and translator. He was critical of the Stalinist regime and remained a revolutionary Marxist until his death. According to, William Giraldi, Serge's novels may be "read like an alloy of" George Orwell and Franz Kafka: "the uncommon political acuity of Orwell and the absurdist comedy of Kafka, a comedy with the damning squint of satire, except the satire is real."[1] In his studies of Serge, Richard Greeman described him as a Modernist writer influenced by James Joyce, Andrei Bely and Freud; Greenman also believed that Serge, although writing in French, continued the experiments of such Russian Soviet writers as Isaac Babel, Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pilnyak and poets Vladimir Mayakovsky and Sergei Yesenin.[2] He is remembered as the author of novels and other prose works, memoirs (e.g. Memoirs of a Revolutionary) and poetry. Among his novels chronicling the lives of Soviet people and revolutionaries and of the first half of the 20th century, the best-known is The Case of Comrade Tulayev (French: L'affaire Toulaev). Nicholas Lezard calls the novel " of the great 20th-century Russian novels" that follows the traditions of "Gogolian absurdity".[3]

Works available in English[edit]

Fiction[edit]

  • The Long Dusk or Last Times (1946) Translator: Ralph Manheim; New York : The Dial Press. Translation of Les derniers temps, Montreal 1946.
  • The Case of Comrade Tulayev (1967) Translator: Willard R. Trask; New York : New York Review of Books Classics. Translation of L'Affaire Toulaev. Paris 1949.
  • Birth of our Power (1967) Translator: Richard Greeman; New York : Doubleday. Translation of Naissance de notre force, Paris 1931.
  • Men in Prison (1969) Translator: Richard Greeman; Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Translation of Les hommes dans le prison, Paris 1930.
  • Conquered City (1975) Translator: Richard Greeman; Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Translation of: Ville conquise, Paris 1932.
  • Midnight in the Century (1982) Translator: Richard Greeman; London : Readers and Writers. Translation of S'il est minuit dans le siècle, Paris 1939.
  • Unforgiving Years (2008) Translator: Richard Greeman; New York : New York Review of Books Classics. Translation of Les Années sans pardon, Paris 1971.

Poems[edit]

  • Resistance (1989) Translator: James Brooks; San Francisco: City Lights. Translation of Résistance, Paris 1938.

Non-fiction: books[edit]

  • From Lenin to Stalin (1937) Translator: Ralph Manheim; New York: Pioneer Publishers. Translation of De Lénine à Staline, Paris 1937.
  • Russia Twenty Years After (1937) Translator: Max Shachtman; New York: Pioneer Publishers. Translation of Destin d'une révolution, Paris 1937. Also published as Destiny of a Revolution.
  • Memoirs of a Revolutionary, 1901–1941 (2012) Translator: Peter Sedgwick with George Paizis; New York: New York Review of Books Classics. Translation of Mémoires d'un révolutionnaire, 1901–1941, Paris 1951.
  • Year One of the Russian Revolution (1972) Translator: Peter Sedgwick; London: Allen Lane. Translation of L'An 1 de la révolution russe, Paris 1930.
  • The Life and Death of Leon Trotsky (1973) (with Natalia Sedova Trotsky) Translator: Arnold J. Pomerans; Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Translation of: Vie et mort de Leon Trotsky, Paris 1951.
  • What Everyone Should Know About State Repression (1979) Translator: Judith White; London: New Park Publications. Translation of Les Coulisses d'une Sûreté générale. Ce que tout révolutionnaire devrait savoir sur la répression, Paris 1926.
  • Notebooks 1936-1947 (2019) Translators: Mitchell Abidor and Richard Greeman; New York: New York Review of Books.

Non-fiction: collections of essays and articles[edit]

  • The Century of the Unexpected – Essays on Revolution and Counter-Revolution (1994) Editor: Al Richardson; special issue of Revolutionary History, Vol.5 No.3.
  • The Serge-Trotsky Papers (1994) Editor: D.J. Cotterill; London: Pluto.
  • Revolution in Danger – Writings from Russia 1919–1921 (1997) Translator: Ian Birchall; London: Redwords.
  • The Ideas of Victor Serge: A Life as a Work of Art (1997), Edited by Susan Weissman, London: Merlin Press.
  • Witness to the German Revolution (2000) Translator: Ian Birchall; London: Redwords.
  • Collected Writings on Literature and Revolution (2004) Translator and editor: Al Richardson; London: Francis Boutle.

Non-fiction: pamphlet[edit]

  • Kronstadt '21 (1975) Translator: not named; London: Solidarity.

Sources: British Library Catalogue and Catalog of the Library of Congress.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Victor Serge, the Unconquered". May 25, 2015.
  2. ^ Greeman, Richard (1980). "Victor Serge's The Case of Comrade Tulayev". Minnesota Review. 15 (1): 61–79. Project MUSE 427121.
  3. ^ Lezard, Nicholas (September 18, 2004). "Run over by history". The Guardian.

Sources[edit]

  • Weissman, Susan (2001). Victor Serge: The Course is Set on Hope. London: Verso Books.
  • Adam Hochschild Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels (Syracuse University Press, 1997), "Two Russians," pp. 65–87.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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