![]() ![]() A must read for eastern front history enthusiast of the Great Patriotic War. The translators did a good job of including foot notes explaining Russian words, Idioms and Jokes. ![]() Vasili takes us along with him across Volga into stalingrad and let us get a glimpse of the carnage and horrid conditions surrounded him along with his sniping experiences and so many near death experiences. Unlike the war in vast steppes, it was an urban warfare in the midst of factories and mangled metal and concrete. The Kessel was only possible by the Russian sharp shooters in this battle. Seige of Stalingrad was a brutal stalemate for both sides and for a long time both sides grunted back and forth like deer with locked horns. The story was told with sincere honesty with out mixing any propaganda IMO. The narration was very gripping and majority of the book was about his experience in the eastern front. Vasili's writing skills are as good as his sniping for sure. After reading this book I realized how inaccurate and made up the movie (Enemy at the gates) was in portraying Vasili Zaitsev the rabbit. But this one was surprisingly well translated it was readable. This book is worth your time, if you like war stories.īooks translated from Russian to English are most of the time hard to read. If you changed the people's names, you could be talking about soldiers anywhere. Zaitsev sounds pretty apolitical: he's a loyal enough Communist and a member of the komsomol, but that's only mentioned in passing. One thing that surprised me about this book is that it's not really very Russian or very Communist. I came away from this book with great respect for Zaitsev and the men like him. Imagine having to sit for hours or DAYS in some cramped spot (like in a drainage pipe, or under a sheet of iron) without being able to move, lest you give away your position, through heat and cold and thirst and sleep deprivation, and once you decide to fire you only get one chance, and then right away you have to leap up and run like heck to another spot and hope the enemy are bad shots. I really got a sense of how hellish Stalingrad must have been during that time, and how incredibly difficult a sniper's job is. ![]() Zaitsev is a plain man but he has a good story to tell and he's very direct and honest about what went on and even about his own mistakes and shortcomings. The results didn't surprise me: Enemy at the Gates is hopelessly inaccurate (but still a good movie).Īnd as for the book? If you are looking for a fast-paced, action-packed war story, you've found it here. Having seen the movie Enemy at the Gates, I wanted to read the real Vassili Zaitsev's story and see how it compared. ![]()
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