Vchera (Russian Edition)

As of yet Russian novelists failed to produce a substantial account of the crucial period in USSR history - the decade long rule of Nikita Khrushchev (1954 - 1964). This novel's protagonist is inventive in his ultimately succesful quest for his own place in a hostile world, for all that he espouses an open aversion to communist dogma. At the same time he is not a dissident (in a political sense), but rather a simple, naive, imprudent, spontaneous "man of the 1960's" consiously going against the inhumane totalitarian laws of the all-powerful System, and, surprisingly, succeeding, at least in his personal life. However, a significant portion of the book is devoted to the 30's and 40's of the Twentieth century - the apogee of Stalinism and a precursor to the Khrushchev's Thaw.