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Without vodka : adventures in wartime Russia / Aleksander Topolski ; illustrations by Aleksander Topolski.
Van Pelt Library D805.S65 T675 2001
By Request
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Topolski, Aleksander, 1923-2014.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Topolski, Aleksander, 1923-2014.
- Topolski, Aleksander.
- Poland. Armia.
- World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, Russian.
- World War, 1939-1945.
- Prisoners of war--Soviet Union--Biography.
- Prisoners of war.
- Soviet Union.
- Prisoners of war--Poland--Biography.
- Poland.
- Poland. Armia--Biography.
- World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--Poland.
- World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Polish.
- Genre:
- Biographies.
- Personal narratives -- Polish.
- Autobiographies.
- Personal narratives.
- Physical Description:
- xi, 386 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 23 cm
- Edition:
- First U.S. edition.
- Place of Publication:
- South Royalton, Vt. : Steerforth Press, [2001]
- Summary:
- Aleksander Topolski was sixteen when he was called up for military service on the morning of August 24, 1939. In eight days his native Poland would be invaded by the Germans. Shortly thereafter, the Russians rolled in under the Hitler-Stalin pact, and when Topolski tried to sneak across the border into Romania, he was captured by Soviet border guards. Thus began a more than two-year-long ordeal through the Soviet Union's outrageously absurd penal system. Writing with an unexpected sense of humor and irony and an almost superhuman capacity for recalling fascinating details, Topolski recounts his fight for survival in the gulag. Mendacious NKVD officers, whimsical pick-pockets, ruthless youth gang members, wise political prisoners, Polish patriots, unfortunate Uzbechs, and countless other unforgettable characters populate this often raucous odyssey. The perplexing madness of Topolski's ordeal was perhaps summed up by an old Russian saying he heard along the way: "Without vodka you can't figure it out." Ultimately Topolski escapes into Iran to join the Polish Second Corps, assembling there to fight the Germans ... but that's another story.
- Contents:
- Chapter 1 Enter Reds 1
- Chapter 2 Time to Go 23
- Chapter 3 A Jolly Slammer 39
- Chapter 4 One Star Sing Sing 57
- Chapter 5 In Transit 72
- Chapter 6 Orient Express 92
- Chapter 7 Dungeons and Dragons 103
- Chapter 8 Doing Time 118
- Chapter 9 Bad to Worse 139
- Chapter 10 Corrective Labour Colony No. 7 154
- Chapter 11 Cellmates 166
- Chapter 12 Beautiful Zhenya's Entourage 185
- Chapter 13 Arma Virumque Cano 200
- Chapter 14 Vyat-Lag 223
- Chapter 15 Cold Comfort 244
- Chapter 16 Deputy Chief Engineer 259
- Chapter 17 Beyond the Urals 278
- Chapter 18 The Commissar from Farab 299
- Chapter 19 The Rose Tattoo 311
- Chapter 20 Golden Samarkand 320
- Chapter 21 Kolkhoz Kizil Shark 332
- Chapter 22 Making of a Soldier 345
- Chapter 23 Oasis in the Hungry Steppe 366
- Chapter 24 Farewell Unwashed Russia 378.
- Notes:
- Originally published: Without vodka : wartime adventures in Russia. Ottawa : UP Press, 1999.
- ISBN:
- 1586420127
- OCLC:
- 45100379
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