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As I've noted before, one of my favorite things to do as a parent is to share interesting and unusual books with our girls at every possible opportunity. Sometimes, the results aren't terribly well received, like the time I read aloud from an old inductive logic book over dinner or the night I shared some passages from Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. Other times, the girls are genuinely interested in what I am reading and they ask me to share a bit with them. I have, of course, obliged on a number of occasions, sharing pieces from books like Chaim Potok's The Chosen and Richard Poe's Afrocentric historical study Black Spark, White Fire.
There was also the wonderful evening when I received a rare first printing of Voltairine de Cleyre's Selected Works in the mail and the girls sat by and watched closely as I carefully opened the book, showed them de Cleyre's portrait and read some of her poems for them. (To this day, Baby Z. says she will someday have a daughter named Voltairine. Really.) I must say that it's nice to help our girls to develop interests and knowledge that extends beyond the limitations of mass marketing and popular culture.
Last Friday afternoon, I was sitting on the swing in front of my in-laws' house enjoying a rare, gentle July breeze as I relished the end of the workweek. I took advantage of this down time to read some of Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children which I had started a week or so prior. My rather busy schedule had prevented me from spending more than a few minutes every few days with the book.
After a short time, the girls noticed that I was sitting outside and Baby Z. ran out to join me. She scrambled up into the swing next to me, grabbed a hold of my arm and laid her head on my chest. She looked down at the book and said, 'Read that book to me.” I had just finished the section in the book in which Mother Courage's son Swiss Cheese was executed, so I figured that the next few pages might be rather unremarkable.
So, I started reading to Z. from the beginning of Scene Four but about halfway down the page, I realized that I had indeed come upon some subject matter that wasn't entirely age-appropriate for my young, audience. This scene featured a young soldier who was furious with his captain and was looking to exact some revenge. I stopped reading as I scanned the remainder of the page to see what I had gotten myself into and I silently read the following:
YOUNG SOLDIER: Screw the Captain! Where is the son of a bitch? Swiping my reward, spending it on brandy for his whores, I'll rip his belly open!
AN OLDER SOLDIER (coming after him): Shut your hole, you'll wind up in the stocks.
YOUNG SOLDIER: Come out, you thief, I'll make lamb chops out of you! I was the only one in the squad who swam the river and he grabs my money, I can't even buy myself a beer. Come on out! And let me slice you up!
I wasn't entirely sure what to do at this point, as Baby Z. seemed fairly interested in the subject matter and I have to admit that it's awfully nice to have my little one cuddled up next to me, intent on sharing in what is so obviously rather interesting to me. So I substituted my own "revised” version of the passage and said something like this:
"Well, ummm…See, this young guy is mad at the Captain – really mad, see – and he wants to get the Captain really, really badly because the Captain took his money….or something. And he's really going to get him, I guess. And then this other guy comes along and tells him to be quiet, but the young guy won't because he's really mad. Yeah."
It was at this point that Baby Z. hopped down from the swing abruptly and said, "Okay…Can we do something else?” I asked her if she wanted to know what happened to Mother Courage and she said, rather matter-of-factly, "That book is boring.” Then she toddled off to the garage to get her tricycle so she could ride it in the driveway for a while. Ah well, it was nice for a moment, anyway.
I wondered if Brecht is really boring to a 5 year-old or if it was just came across as boring because I dumbed it down. Whatever the case, I always appreciate the candor of our girls and I figure that someday when they come back to these authors and books of their own accord, they might feel a small spark of recollection and ultimately end up with some greater appreciation for what we've tried to share with them along the way.
Our small venture, Erythrós Press and Media, has yielded its first official publication. The book Red Youth: Young Heroes of the Great Patriotic War went on sale earlier this week through our online store. This book is hopefully the first volume in a series of books that will chronicle the outstanding achievements of the youngest fighters in the Soviet Union's struggle against fascist Germany during World War II. This volume tells the story of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who was the first female fighter of World War II to be named "Hero of the Soviet Union."
I have been preparing materials for this project as far back as late 2004 when I began transcribing the entire contents of Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya's 1953 book The Story of Zoya and Shura for greeklish.org. Shortly thereafter, I began research for an annotated version of the book that I hoped to publish in print at some point in the future. I did quite a bit of work on this project, compiling a huge annotated manuscript and reams of notes, but I shelved the project after I developed many questions and concerns regarding Soviet and Russian copyright law.
A while later, I resurrected the project, first intending to produce a single-volume work which featured biographies of a number of young heroes, including Zoya, Marat Kazey, Elizaveta Chaikina, Zinaida Portnova and others. Realizing I had a significant amount of material on Zoya alone as a result of my previous research, I settled on the idea of developing a multi-volume set that would include newly annotated transcriptions of public domain, Soviet era documents along with my original introductory notes and supplemental information. This first volume of Red Youth is thus the culmination of over four years of work.
I have a tendency towards self-criticism and this tends to effect how I feel about things at the end of a relatively long project. Such is the case with Red Youth. Upon my initial perusal of the finished product, I immediately noticed a few block quotes that weren't properly indented and a missed line break or two. That wasn't so bad. Probably my most unfortunate oversight (which I noticed a bit later) was my failure to include V. I. Lenin's name in the table of contents listing for his 1920 work "Tasks of the Youth Leagues." The document itself is properly noted and cited later in the text, but I would have liked for an important feature like the table of contents to be completely accurate. A good friend put things in perspective for me, however. He told me that having a handful of imperfections gives the work a feeling of credibility that might not otherwise come with an immaculately produced product from a big, bourgeois publishing house. I suppose that is a nice way to look at it.
Whatever the case, I need to get to work promoting and distributing the work to spread the story of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya far and wide once again.
Quite a few of my close friends helped me with this project through hard work, patience, encouragement and support. Below is the complete text of my "Acknowledgments" section from the book. A number of people from around the world contributed significant time and effort toward the preparation and enhancement of this book. I am especially grateful to my friend Andy Blunden for his assistance and guidance in all aspects of my work, with particular appreciation for his help in formatting and editing the complete text of this volume. Brian Reid and Clara Statello also assisted in proofreading and editing of most of the documents contained herein and their critique and support were vital to this endeavor. Randy Graham also helped by proofreading selected documents.
Mitch Abidor provided much-needed advice and encouragement at a critical point in my writing.
I thank Tim Davenport from the Early American Marxism website for providing source material. I am also indebted to Steve Palmer and my other fellow volunteers of the Marxists Internet Archive for their collective assistance with a number of research topics.
My friends Einde O'Callaghan, Nina Lebed, Antonis Megremis and Nikos Loudos assisted with the translation of selected passages from source documents and research materials.
I also extend my heartfelt gratitude for my dear friends who have inspired me through their political work and activism. I am thankful to know Panos Fidis, Sam Berner, and many of the students and supporters of the Freedom and Equality Seeking Students of Iran. It is their work and struggle that inspires me to move forward in numerous endeavors, including this project.
I am fortunate to have the friendship and tutelage of David Walters who has provided me with valuable camaraderie, guidance and insight for almost a decade. I am certainly a better person for knowing him.
Finally, I must express my deepest appreciation for the love and companionship of my wife Thomaï. She is my most important supporter and critic and she is responsible for everything good and decent in my life.
As I've noted before, one of my favorite things to do as a parent is to share interesting and unusual books with our girls at every possible opportunity. Sometimes, the results aren't terribly well received, like the time I read aloud from an old inductive logic book over dinner or the night I shared some passages from Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. Other times, the girls are genuinely interested in what I am reading and they ask me to share a bit with them. I have, of course, obliged on a number of occasions, sharing pieces from books like Chaim Potok's The Chosen and Richard Poe's Afrocentric historical study Black Spark, White Fire.
So, I started reading to Z. from the beginning of Scene Four but about halfway down the page, I realized that I had indeed come upon some subject matter that wasn't entirely age-appropriate for my young, audience. This scene featured a young soldier who was furious with his captain and was looking to exact some revenge. I stopped reading as I scanned the remainder of the page to see what I had gotten myself into and I silently read the following:
