Maurice J Casey & Michel Krielaars: Moscow in the Time of Stalin

Historian Maurice Casey reveals the connections and disconnections of a group of forgotten communist activists whose lives collided in 1920s Moscow: a brilliant Irish translator, a maverick author, the rebel daughters of an East London Jewish family, and a family of determined German anti-fascists. The dramatic and interlocking histories of the O’Flahertys, Cohens and Leonhards offer an intimate insight into the legacies of the Russian Revolution from its earliest idealism through to the brutal Stalinist purges and beyond. Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals uncovers a world of forgotten radicals who saw their hopes and dreams crash against reality yet retained their faith in a beautiful future for all. Culminating in a queer love story that saw the daughters of the Cohens and Leonhards create an enduring partnership even as their parents’ political visions crumbled, this is a multi-generational rebel odyssey and a history of international communism, one which looks as much to the future as it does to the past.

When Stalin came to power, making music in Russia became dangerous. Composers now had to create work that served the socialist state, and all artistic production was scrutinized for potential subversion. In The Sound of Utopia: Musicians in the Time of Stalin, Michel Krielaars vividly depicts Soviet musicians and composers struggling to create art in a climate of risk, suspicion and fear. Some successfully toed the ideological line, diluting their work in the process; others ended up facing the Gulag or even death. While some, like Sergei Prokofiev, achieved lasting fame, others were consigned to oblivion, their work still hard to find. As Michel traces the twists and turns of these artists’ fortunes, he paints a fascinating and disturbing portrait of the absurdity of Soviet musical life – and of the people who crafted sublime melodies under the darkest circumstances.

Michel Krielaars’ attendance at West Cork Literary Festival is supported by the Dutch Foundation for Literature/Nederlands Letterenfonds as part of their New Dutch Writing programme