1947 · Paris
by Vlasov, Andrei
Paris: Editions Univers, 1947. Very good. First trade edition; 7 x 4 3/4; pp. [5], 8-251, [5]; textured beige wraps, printed in red and black; a bit of dust-dulling to wraps; glue showing at hinges (text block solidly attached); penciled-in note to ffep; some spotting mostly to last few leaves; overall in very good- condition.According to Paul Blackstock in "Books for Idiots: False Soviet Memoirs" - the current work was written, under the pseudonym Cyril Kalinov, by Grigorii Bessedovskii - attache at the Soviet Embassy in Paris and one of the earliest Russian defectors in 1929. He and his followers, the so called "Bessedovskii School," wrote a remarkably-large number of false Soviet memoirs and biographies, starting with the current one - that of General Andrei Vlasov (1901 - 1946), the Soviet Commander, who collaborated with the Nazis and led an army on the German side during WWII, only to be captured and turned to the Soviets by the American Occupational Forces. (Blackstock, P. (1966). Books for Idiots: False Soviet Memoirs. The Russian Review, 25(3), 285–296.) (Inventory #: 003047)