Ordeal (The Sisters, 1918, and Bleak Morning)

1953, Alexei Tolstoy's momumental epic complete in three volumes

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First edition thus. Three hardbacks (complete), each bound in brown cloth with gilt titling to spine and upper board. Each 20 × 13cm. 382pp, 414pp & 514pp.

Alexei Tolstoy’s Ordeal (also known as The Road to Calvary) is a monumental Socialist Realist epic following the Russian intelligentsia through the collapse of Tsarist Russia, World War I, the 1917 Revolution, and the Russian Civil War.

1. The Sisters: Opens in the decadence of pre-war Saint Petersburg, dominated by avant-garde art salons and intellectual disillusionment. Dasha and Katya navigate romantic entanglements and personal unhappiness. World War I breaks out, shattering their comfortable world as Telegin and Roshchin go off to the front, forcing the characters to confront physical hardship and moral collapse.

2. 1918: The double trauma of the 1917 February and October Revolutions tears the family apart physically and ideologically. The country dissolves into Civil War. Telegin embraces the Red Army, aligning himself with the Bolshevik cause. Roshchin, horrified by the chaos, initially joins the anti-Bolshevik White Army. Dasha and Katya are separated, wandering through torn cities and countryside.

3. Bleak Morning: Set during the height of the Civil War across the Volga, the South of Russia, and the steppes. Roshchin becomes disillusioned with the corruption and cruelty of the White movement, ultimately shifting his allegiances toward the Reds. After years of separation, trauma, near-death encounters, and ideological reckonings, both couples are reunited in Moscow as the Soviet state stabilizes, accepting their place in the new order.

Condition

A good set but with some wear. The head of volume three is bumped, with minor rubbing to the boards. Each book has some moderate foxing and tanning but the three books remain in strong readable condition. The books have a slightly perfumed odour.