A summary of Boris Vasiliev’s "An Extraordinary Century"

This autobiographical memoir, written in 2003, candidly recounts the writer’s life, from his family’s pre-revolutionary roots to his literary acclaim at the end of the 20th century. This book is an honest discussion of the tragic pages of Russian history, seen through the eyes of an ordinary participant. The harsh trials of war are closely intertwined with a touching love story.

Roots and Growing Up

The narrative opens with the story of his ancestors. The writer’s maternal grandfather, nobleman Ivan Alekseyev, once traveled to America to build a commune. His brother Vasily was friends with Leo Tolstoy and saved the manuscript of Tolstoy’s "Gospel" from destruction. His grandfather’s family life was rife with drama: his beautiful half-Greek wife repeatedly ran off with lovers. Left alone, Ivan Ivanovich raised his daughters alone, among whom was Elena Nikolaevna, the writer’s future mother. His grandfather gave his lands to the peasants without compensation, in exchange for which they left his Vysokoye estate untouched after the Revolution.

Boris’s father, Lev Alexandrovich Vasiliev, served as a career officer in the Tsarist army. During World War I, he survived German gas attacks, and in 1917, along with the soldiers of his company, he joined the Red Army. Having narrowly escaped execution during Stalin’s three purges of the officer corps, his father retained his composure and love of manual labor. He knew how to mend boots, build stoves, and assemble televisions.

Boris spent his childhood in the multinational city of Smolensk. The city seemed like a huge life raft to the boy. The author lovingly describes the old streets of Smolensk, the ancient fortress with its secret passages, and the famous Lopatinsky Garden. The family huddled in cramped apartments and survived the terrible famine of the 1930s. Boris developed an early passion for adventure novels. The young man twice tried to run away from home: first to Italy, to Mount Vesuvius, and then to Tbilisi, to become an actor at a film studio.

His father instilled in his son a love of technology. He founded the first auto club in Smolensk, restoring three decommissioned pre-revolutionary automobiles. Boris spent days in the garage, helping his father repair these finicky machines. One day, a broken kerosene lamp started a fire in the garage. His father nearly burned to death while pushing a flaming barrel of gasoline outside to save the house from exploding.

Encirclement and frontline testing

Peaceful life ended in the summer of 1941 in Voronezh. At 17, Boris volunteered for a fighter battalion. On July 3, the new recruits listened to Stalin’s famous radio address at the train station, after which the train departed for the front lines. The young men were armed with Tokarev self-loading rifles and sent to take up defensive positions near the town of Krasny.

On July 12, German tanks ravaged the Soviet positions. A detachment of boys came under intense machine-gun fire. Boris led a handful of surviving boys into the thicket. They began an exhausting trek through the forests, hoping to outflank the German army’s right flank. The encircled soldiers ate hare’s cabbage, raw dandelion leaves, and unripe strawberries. One day, Boris caught a grass snake and roasted it over coals, which saved the exhausted commanders from fainting from hunger.

The small group constantly teetered on the brink of death. While crossing country roads, they lay for hours in ditches, letting columns of German armored cars and motorcyclists pass. At the Solovyova crossing, Vasilyev watched in horror as enemy dive bombers methodically strafed retreating medical convoys. In the forest, the young man had to pry open the frozen fingers of a dead Soviet major who had committed suicide to retrieve a pistol.

Army life and injury

In October 1941, Boris led his comrades to the Soviet trenches. After a filtration camp, he insisted on being sent to the regimental cavalry school. Soon, German aircraft bombed the riding school and stables. Vasiliev was transferred to the machine gun school, where he rose to the rank of senior sergeant and became assistant platoon commander. A conflict with an inspecting officer over a hand-to-hand combat assessment led to Boris’s dismissal to the reserves.

Thus, Vasiliev joined an airborne regiment. At the base in Monino, he trained as a parachute jumper, earning the respect of seasoned soldiers. On March 16, 1943, the regiment was alerted. A night combat airdrop took place near Vyazma. Having barely landed on the icy riverbank, Boris tripped a mine. The explosion caused a severe concussion, permanently depriving the young man of hearing and sight.

He was treated in a Kostroma hospital. While recovering, Boris met the wounded Captain Drozdov. The officer advised the sergeant to prepare for admission to the Military Academy of Armored Troops. A local resident, Sofia Vladimirovna, let Boris live in her kitchen for free. The young man spent nights studying his textbooks by the light of an oil wick. During the entrance exams, Vasiliev captivated the committee with a passionate account of the war of 1812 and was accepted into the first year.

Academy and starting a family

The engineering and tank department was attended by female veterans of the war. Boris noticed a strict, straight-A student named Zorya Polyak. When Vasiliev failed physics, Zorya publicly vouched for him at a Komsomol meeting. Their long, shared studies brought the young people closer. They attended open lectures at the university, wrote poetry to each other in class, and soon married.

The young family took in Zorka Malenkaya, the wife’s sister, whose parents had perished in Stalin’s camps. The Vasilievs’ room on Khoroshevskoye Highway was bustling with life. A cheerful group of students, former front-line soldiers, played charades, read banned novels, and heatedly debated the country’s future. Their sincere belief in ideals saved them from repression when it was discovered that one of their frequent guests was a secret informant for state security.

After defending his diploma, Vasiliev worked as a military representative at the Uralmash plant, then transferred to the Gorky automobile plant. He oversaw the testing of new armored personnel carriers. Zorya’s parents, the wise physician Albert Lvovich and nurse Vera Ivanovna, moved to Gorky. Life seemed stable: Boris became a candidate for party membership and enjoyed field testing of prototype vehicles.

Anti-Semitic campaign

The catastrophe erupted in January 1953 with the publication of newspaper articles about a conspiracy of "killer doctors." State-sponsored anti-Semitism permeated all spheres of life. Lines boiled with anger, patients were afraid to enter Albert Lvovich’s office, and Zorka Malenkaya was nearly torn to pieces by a mob of street hooligans. A relative of Boris’s insistently advised him to immediately divorce his Jewish wife to save his career.

The party leadership tasked Vasiliev with delivering a public report exposing Jews. Boris categorically refused to participate in the persecution. He was immediately removed from testing secret technology and expelled from the party. The officers’ meeting accused Vasiliev of contempt for the common people, and a neighbor produced a notebook containing detailed denunciations of all the Vasilievs’ domestic conversations. The court of honor demanded that the engineer be stripped of his military rank.

Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, saved Vasiliev from arrest. The situation in the country changed dramatically. The anti-Semitic campaign was curtailed, and the accusations against the doctors were deemed false. The district party committee quietly rescinded Vasiliev’s expulsion, limiting itself to a verbal warning. His former persecutors averted their eyes in embarrassment.

The Path to Literature

The injustice he experienced awakened in Vasiliev a need to speak out. He began writing the play "Tankers" right there on the factory floor. After sending the manuscript to the Theater of the Soviet Army, Boris received an invitation from director Alexei Popov. Taking advantage of the announced reduction in the armed forces, Vasiliev secured a discharge from the reserve. Due to the censorship ban on the completed play, Boris Lvovich joined the scriptwriting workshop of the Main Cinematography Directorate.

His years in film became a rigorous literary school for him. The Vasilievs earned their living by writing for documentary film magazines. Boris Lvovich associated with prominent filmmakers, including the former millionaire Nikolai Sliozberg and the renowned director Vladimir Petrov. His time as a sailor on a tugboat formed the basis for his first story, "Mutiny on Ivan’s Boat." The manuscript was long rejected for its dark tone, until it was finally accepted by the magazine "Novy Mir."

A real breakthrough came in 1969. Vasiliev submitted a new war story to Yunost magazine. Editor-in-chief Boris Polevoy came up with the brilliant title "The Dawns Here Are Quiet…" right there in his office. The work brought the author nationwide fame. Soon, the novels "Not on the Lists" and "Don’t Shoot the White Swans" were published. The story "Tomorrow Was the War" languished in a drawer for a long time due to ideological obstacles, but later conquered the theater stages of Moscow and London.

The book concludes with poignant lines from the aging master. He calmly accepts his age, feeling like a rich man. The writer cites his devoted love for his wife Zora and his loyalty to the moral ideals that helped him navigate the storms of an extraordinary century with dignity as his greatest treasure.