David Herman
Works of Lev Ozerov
Summary
Lev Ozerov (1914–1996) is one of the lesser-known yet profoundly impactful Soviet Jewish writers, alongside Isaac Babel and Vasily Grossman. Ozerov’s significance lies in his chronicling of Stalinism, the Gulag, and Soviet anti-Semitism through his deceptively simple yet poignant writing. The lecture explores Ozerov’s recognition in Penguin’s anthology of Russian poetry and highlights his ability to capture the essence of historical figures such as Boris Pasternak, Shmuel Halkin, and Varlam Shalamov. His contributions to literature, criticism, and poetry translation underscore his enduring legacy as a voice of conscience in Soviet culture.
David Herman
David Herman is a freelance writer based in London. Over the past 20 years he has written almost a thousand articles, essays, and reviews on Jewish history and literature for publications including the Jewish Chronicle, the Jewish Quarterly, Jewish Renaissance, the Guardian, the New Statesman, and Prospect. He has taught courses on Jewish culture for the London Jewish Cultural Centre and JW3. He is a regular contributor to Jewish Book Week, the Association of Jewish Refugees, and the Insiders/Outsiders Festival on the contribution of Jewish refugees to British culture.
Yes, he did. His only punishment under the regime during the anti-Semitic purges was that he lost his job and he couldn’t be published at all for seven years until Stalin died. Not only not under Stalin, they couldn’t be published under the Soviet regime.
Or outlive them. Out-loud them, perhaps. Let me be optimistic for once and say that I believe these poems will last. Now that he has been translated into English and that he is in the main new anthology of Russian poetry, that I think more and more people will come to discover him.
Pasternak wrote the novel Dr. Zhivago and it was smuggled out to the West. This was at a time after Stalin’s death but it was still impossible to publish a novel like Dr. Zhivago in the Soviet Union. Pasternak was then awarded the Nobel Prize, which was prompted by the best of intentions but with no thought for the consequences for Pasternak. So the Zhivago affair is that after the publication of Zhivago in the West and the Nobel Prize, Pasternak became a non-person in the Soviet Union and could not be published.