About:
Dust and Ashes, the final book in the Arbat trilogy by Anatoli Rybakov, portrays the characters enduring the Second World War with no holds barred, making for jarring and brutal reading. The plot develops with a sense of urgency to give readers a sense of the crisis the war presented to Soviet citizens at the time. The book ends mid-way through the war, at the battle of Kursk, highlighting the tragic nature of the entire trilogy.
Bearing in mind the devastating impact of the Second World War on the USSR, Rybakov spares no sentimentality as characters struggle, suffer, and die. The overarching message of the book is the pointless waste of the war, largely the result of Stalin's policies. Rybakov's portrayal of Stalin as a brutish, paranoid monster reflects the tragedy that was the Soviet Union for most of the 20th century, emphasizing the betrayal of the ideals of the 1917 revolution by Stalin and his followers.
From The Publisher:
The epic sequel to the best-selling Children of the Arbat follows the experiences of a Soviet tank commander in World War II as he fights his way from Siberia to Stalingrad and onward to Berlin.
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