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INTRODUCTION
TO STORY
Red Cavalry describes the war between Poland and Soviet Russia
in the summer of 1920. The narrator Kirill Vasilevich Lyutov is
attached as a propaganda-correspondent to the Cossack Division that
is fighting for the Red Army. His job is to help spread the message
of the Russian Revolution among the troops, among those being conquered,
and among the readers back home. At the start of Red Cavalry,
the Cossack cavalry is on the offensive, crossing the river to engage
the Poles in battle. After a time, the tide of the war shifts: the
Cossacks are in retreat, and the officers find it harder to maintain
military discipline.
One of the complicating features of Lyutov's job
is that the war is being fought on territory in which there are
many Jews, heavily concentrated in the towns. They are fair game
for both armies, though the Cossacks, under Soviet regulations,
are not supposed to harm them. They obviously pay very little attention
to the regulations. Although Lyutov is a Jew, he doesn't advertise
the fact. He only lets it be known selectively, for example, to
Gedali, the little Jewish shopkeeper. Gedali, who had hoped that
the Revolution might usher in a just society, discovers that the
Soviets treat people with the same contempt as the Poles.
Lyutov is a writer on two levels. His army job is writing for
the Red Cavalryman or Red Trooper (depending on your
translation), the official bulletin from the front. We discover
this in the final sentence of the story that describes his
visit to Rabbi Motale. But he is also a writer of fiction.
The stories of Red Cavalry are not his propaganda reports
but stories that reflect his own attitudes and perceptions.
He reveals how hard he works to become a good Bolshevik and
to ride with the Cossacks on equal terms, yet how different
he remains in spite of his efforts.
Like his character, Lyutov, Isaac Babel was also a correspondent
for the Red Army paper who accompanied the same Cossack regiment
into battle in real life. According to his diary, he saw and
experienced many of the things that Lyutov does in these stories.
In fact, Lyutov is the non-Jewish name he assumed for his
work as a war correspondent. These stories obviously convey
the disturbing sentiments of the Jew who is involved in a
process injurious to his own people, yet who participates
in it anyway — perhaps because
he finds no better option.
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QUESTIONS
FOR ONLINE DISCUSSION
How soon do you realize that the narrator of these stories
— who has taken the non-Jewish
name Kirill Vasilevich Lyutov —
is a Jew? How much of his Jewishness does he reveal to his
comrades and how much of it does he reveal to us readers?
Babel writes some of the stories from the Cossacks'
point of view. If Babel is able to present their stories as convincingly
as he presents the figures of Gedali and the Hasidic Rabbi Motale,
does that mean that he gives the values of Jews and Cossacks the
same degree of sympathy and support?
One of the strangest features of these "war
stories" is the lyricism of some of the language. Babel's style
is terse, compressed, yet filled with opulent images and poetic
flourishes. What do you think of this odd combination? How does
the poetic imagery suit the violent subject matter?
How is religion treated in these stories —
the Catholic religion as well as the Jewish? Do you think
Babel harbors sentimental attachments to the vanishing religious
tradition? If not, why are there so many religious references
and allusions?
Does Pan Apolek convey Isaac Babel's ideal of art?
Would you have liked this work to be a more straightforward
account of who Lyutov was, how he got into his situation, and how
the war was fought? Why do you think that Babel didn't provide more
connecting passages and explanations to make things easier for the
reader?
How is moral sensitivity treated in these stories?
Do we share Lyutov's pride when he finally learns to ride with the
Cossacks?
The first time Babel published Red Cavalry it ended
with the story, "The Rabbi's Son." When he published the
series a few years later, it concluded with the story, "Argamak."
What is the difference between these two endings, and how do you
think the change of endings affects the story-sequence as a whole?
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