Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel
"Red Cavalry" (or "Konarmiia") is a collection of short stories by Isaac Babel, centered around the tumultuous period of the Soviet Union's birth during the Russian Civil War. The term "konarmiia" combines words for "horse" and "army," reflecting a shift from the aristocratic cavalry associations of the past. The stories are narrated by Kiril Lyutov, who embarks on a journey through war-torn territories, where he encounters Cossacks, Poles, and Jews, often amid violent and intense situations. Each vignette captures Lyutov's gradual acclimation to the brutal realities of life among the fierce Cossack horsemen, illustrating a complex relationship between him and the illiterate soldiers, who depend on him for reading and writing even as they criticize his intellectual background.
Themes of violence, survival, and cultural adaptation permeate the work, highlighting a curious symbiosis between Lyutov's outsider perspective and the Cossacks' callous understanding of warfare. Through experiences marked by raw energy and vivid imagery, the collection transcends mere episodic storytelling, forming a cohesive narrative that reflects both realism and a hint of idealism reminiscent of the Romantic notion of the Noble Savage. Ultimately, "Red Cavalry" offers a profound exploration of humanity's relationship with violence and the harsh realities of conflict, making it a significant work in understanding the complexities of this historical moment.
Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published:Konarmiia, 1926 (English translation, 1929)
Type of work: Short stories
The Work
Red Cavalry (or Konarmiia in Russian) is a collection of short stories firmly planted in the birth trauma of the Soviet Union. To the Russian reader of the 1920’s, Red Cavalry had the sound of the new language of the new regime. The very word konarmiia was a coinage of the Russian Civil War, a joining of the Russian words for “horse” and “army,” and was used to replace the old word for cavalry, with its associations of elite regiments staffed by aristocrats. However, the English translator did not attempt to capture that sense, instead choosing the more descriptive title Red Cavalry. Even in translation, however, Red Cavalry loses little of the raw energy of the original Russian.
This collection of short stories begins with a bang in “Perekhod cherez Zbruch” (“Crossing into Poland”), with the news that Novograd-Volynsk has been captured. The narrator describes how he crosses the Zbruch River, followed by an encounter with a Jewish family in the house where he is to be billeted for the night. Each of the stories follows a similar pattern, with the first-person narrator, Kiril Lyutov, having various encounters with the Cossacks and with the Poles and Jews in the territories through which the army rides. Almost all the encounters are violent, and each is vividly limned with strong, active words.
Although there is no obvious continuing between the chapters and each story can be read as a stand-alone tale or vignette, together the stories add up to a plot line that is more than the sum of its parts, making the book resemble a novel rather than merely a collection of unrelated short stories. The overall theme of the book is Lyutov’s acclimation to life among the fierce and wild Cossack horsemen. Through rough and often bitter experience he learns to accept violence with an approximation of the casualness with which the Cossacks approach it. When he goes into battle with an unloaded weapon and his deception is discovered, the Cossacks curse him as a coward, venting their disgust at cowardly, bespectacled intellectuals in general. Yet at the same time they depend upon him to read them their unit newspaper and to write letters home to their families, for they are almost entirely illiterate. It is a curious and awkward symbiosis, but Lyutov begins to adapt, until in “Moi pervyi gus’’(“My First Goose”) he is able to appropriate and kill a gander he finds waddling about the barnyard of an old woman with whom he argued over recompense for quartering. For the first time he gains a measure of real respect from the Cossacks because he has proven himself capable of the same sort of unthinking violence they practice so casually. His experience also gives him new insight into the values of the Cossacks, as can be seen in the story of the death of Commander Trunov. This fearless Cossack, knowing full well that he will die in taking on an enemy aircraft, hands over his boots so some other soldier can use them, since they still have plenty of wear in them.
Yet even in the final story, Lyutov remains a man apart, never able to see the world in the casual manner of the Cossacks, who view life as a green meadow upon which women and horses walk. In this final image, Red Cavalry, which is meant to be an unsparingly realistic portrayal of warfare, still retains some of the idealism of the Romantics, in particular the concept of the Noble Savage, whose naturalness has not been warped by civilization’s hypocrisies.
Bibliography
Bloom, Harold, ed. Isaac Babel. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Carden, Patricia. The Art of Isaac Babel. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972.
Charyn, Jerome. Savage Shorthand: The Life and Death of Isaac Babel. New York: Random House, 2005.
Pirozhka, A. N. At His Side: The Last Years of Isaac Babel. Translated by Anne Frydman and Robert L. Busch. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press, 1996.