''Odessa Stories'' (russian: Одесские рассказы, Odesskiye rasskazy), also known as ''Tales of Odessa'', is a collection of four short stories by

Isaac Babel Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel (russian: Исаак Эммануилович Бабель, p=ˈbabʲɪlʲ; – 27 January 1940) was a Russian writer, journalist, playwright, and literary translator. He is best known as the author of ''Red Cavalry'' ...

, set in

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

in the last days of the

Russian empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

and the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...

. Published individually in Soviet magazines between 1921 and 1924 and collected into a book in 1931, they deal primarily with a group of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

thugs that live in

Moldavanka Moldavanka is a historical part of Odesa in the Odesa Oblast (province) of southern Ukraine, located jointly in Malynovskyi and Prymorskyi city districts. Before 1820 it was a settlement just outside Odesa, which later engulfed it. Until the 20t ...

, a

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...

of Odessa. Their leader is

Benya Krik Benya Krik (russian: Беня Крик) is a fictional character from '' The Odesa Tales'', a collection of short stories by Isaac Babel, the derived works and "fan fiction". These stories primarily deal with the Jewish underworld of Moldavanka, ...

, known as the King, and loosely based on the historical figure

Mishka Yaponchik Mishka Yaponchik (born Moisei Wolfovich Vinnitsky; 30 October 1891 – 29 July 1919) was an Odesa gangster, Jewish revolutionary, and a Soviet military leader. Early years Moisey Volfovich Vinnitsky was born into the family of a Jewish wa ...

. In 1926, Babel adapted parts of the first two stories and additional content as a screenplay, ''

'', directed by and released in 1927, as well as the play ''

Sunset Sunset, also known as sundown, is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon due to Earth's rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth (except the North and South poles), the equinox Sun sets due west at the moment of both the spring ...

'', which premiered in October 1927.

Stories

The four stories originally included in the 1931 collection are: * The King (Король) (1921) * How It Was Done in Odessa (Как это делалось в Одессе) (1923) * The Father (Отец) (1924) * Lyubka the Cossack (Любка Казак) (1924) The following stories have at times been included by editors as part of the "Odessa Stories" cycle as well: * Fairness in Brackets (Справедливость в скобках) (1921) * You Missed the Boat, Captain! (1924) * End of the Almshouse (Конец богадельни) (written 1920–29, published 1932) * Froim Grach (Фроим Грач) (written 1933, published 1963) * Sunset (Закат) (written 1924–35, published 1963) *Karl-Yankel (Карл-Янкель) (1931)

Translations

* Walter Morison, in ''The Collected Stories'' (1955) *Andrew R. MacAndrew: ''Lyubka the Cossack and Other Stories'' (1963) *

David McDuff David McDuff (born 1945, Sale, Cheshire, England) is a Scottish translator, editor and literary critic. Life McDuff attended the University of Edinburgh, where he studied Russian and German, gaining a PhD in 1971. He married mathematician Dus ...

, in ''Collected Stories'' (1994, Penguin) *

Peter Constantine Peter Constantine (born 1963) is a British and American literary translator who has translated literary works from German, Russian, French, Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, Italian, Albanian, Dutch, and Slovene. Biography Constantine was born in Lo ...

, in ''The Complete Works of Isaac Babel'' (Norton, 2002) *

Boris Dralyuk Boris Dralyuk (born in 1982) is a Ukrainian-American writer, editor and translator. He obtained his high school degree from Fairfax High School and his PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from UCLA. He has taught Russian literature at his a ...

, in ''Odessa Stories'' (Pushkin Press, 2016) * Val Vinokur, in ''The Essential Fictions'' (Northwestern University Press, 2017)

References

External links

Benya Krik
at the

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

. 1931 short story collections Russian short story collections Short stories about organized crime Odesa in fiction Short stories by Isaac Babel Books about the Russian Revolution {{1930s-story-collection-stub

Stories

Translations

See also

References

External links