Victor Serge | |
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| Born | December 30, 1890 Brussels, Belgium |
| Died | November 17, 1947 (aged 56) Mexico City, Mexico |
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| Spouse | Liuba Russakova |
| Partner | Laurette Séjourné |
| Children | 2, including Vlady |
Victor Serge (French: [viktɔʁ sɛʁʒ]; December 30, 1890 – November 17, 1947), born Victor Lvovich Kibalchich (Russian: Ви́ктор Льво́вич Киба́льчич), was a Russian revolutionary Marxist, novelist, poet 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. He is best remembered for his Memoirs of a Revolutionary and series of seven "witness-novels" chronicling the lives of Soviet people and revolutionaries and of the first half of the 20th century.
Viktor Kibalchich was born in Brussels into a family of emigrants from Russia . Victor’s parents “in search of their daily bread and good libraries wandered between London, Paris, Switzerland and Belgium” . In 1905, the parents separated.
Viktor Kibalchich became a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party , but soon left it to join the anarchists . He wrote articles for the anarchist newspapers Le Révolté. In 1908, he settled in Paris , where he collaborated with the anarchist newspaper L'Anarchie, and later became its editor.
In 1913, Kibalchich was sentenced to five years in prison in the case of the anarchist " Bonnot Gang ", famous for its high-tech bank robberies. In 1915 he was released and went to Spain . In February 1917 he returned to France and tried to travel to Russia, but was arrested. In 1919, the French government exchanged him for a French officer detained by the Petrograd Cheka, and he went to Russia.
In the USSR, Kibalchich joined the CPSU(b) , worked in the Third International , which was then headed by G. Zinoviev . Since 1923, he joined the anti-Stalinist Left Opposition , for which he was expelled from the party in 1928. In 1933, he was briefly arrested and subsequently exiled to Orenburg . Thanks to the intercession of foreign socialists and intellectuals, in particular Romain Rolland and André Malraux , Stalin allowed Kibalchich to leave the USSR in 1936.
Despite all the efforts of the embassy employee K.V. Antonov , the French government did not allow Victor Serge to enter France. Later, when Antonov became an adviser to the USSR embassy in Belgium, he managed, thanks to the help of Emile Vandervelde , to obtain permission for Victor Serge to enter and live in Belgium . In Orenburg, Serge wrote the novels “The Doomed” and “The Storm”, and a book of poems “Resistance”, but when leaving the USSR, all manuscripts were confiscated; He could only reconstruct poems from memory.
In 1940, Serge, along with his son Vladimir, fled from the German occupation to Marseille , and then to Mexico , where he continued his literary activities. Died in Mexico City on November 17, 1947 .
Works available in English
Fiction
- 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
- Resistance (1989) Translator: James Brooks; San Francisco: City Lights. Translation of Résistance, Paris 1938.
Non-fiction: books
- 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
- 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
- Kronstadt '21 (1975) Translator: not named; London: Solidarity.
Sources: British Library Catalogue and Catalog of the Library of Congress.
See also
- Anarchism in France
- Anti-Stalinist left
- Transatlantic (portrayal in 2023 TV series)
Sources
- 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
- Fitzpatrick, Sheila (August 17, 2012). "Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge – review". The Guardian.
- Gorkin, Julián (1994). "The Last Years of Victor Serge, 1941–1947". Revolutionary History. 5 (3).
- Greeman, Richard (1993). "The return of Comrade Tulayev: Victor Serge and the tragic vision of Stalinism". International Socialism (58).
- Sedgwick, Peter (1978) [1963]. "Introduction". In Serge, Victor (ed.). Memoirs of a Revolutionary. Oxford University Press. pp. ix–xxiv. ISBN 0-19-281037-5.
- Sedgwick, Peter (1984). "The Unhappy Elitist: Victor Serge's Early Bolshevism". History Workshop Journal. 17 (17): 150–156. doi:10.1093/hwj/17.1.150.
- Weissman, Susan (ed.). "Introduction". Critique. 28/29. Archived from the original on February 12, 2005. Retrieved March 14, 2007.
- Weissman, Susan (2013). Victor Serge. A Political Biography (2nd ed.). London: Verso Books. ISBN 9781844678877.
External links
- Victor Serge Internet Archive in the Marxists Internet Archive
- Bulletin of the Russian Opposition: "Victor Serge and the IVth International". Statement criticising Serge by the editors of the Bulletin of the Russian Opposition, writing in Quatrième Internationale, April 1939. Source: Victor Serge & Leon Trotsky, La Lutte Contre le Stalinisme. Maspero, Paris, 1977. Translated for Marxist Internet Archive by Mitch Abidor in 2005. Retrieved April 28, 2005.
- Victor Serge Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
- An essay on Serge by Ben Lerner in The New York Review of Books