Caviar and Ashes

Marci Shore is assistant professor of history at Yale University.

“One of Marci Shore’s fine accomplishments in Caviar and Ashes is the care she bestows not only on the minute ideological and political differences among the various groups that came into being in the wake of the Russian Revolution, but on their tangled personal interrelations as well.”—Abraham Brumberg, Times Literary Supplement“Shore creates an intimate portrait of star-crossed idealism by reconstructing the history around the fate of two dozen personalities. . . . Because the history is so personal and anguishing, one finishes the book as exhausted as when closing the cover of an epic novel.”—Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs“An elegant portrayal . . . a page turner. . . . A valuable study for all those interested in collective biography, Polish history, European Marxism, and the twentieth-century experience.”—Catherine Epstein, Slavic Review“A highly organized, coherent and teleologically-driven narrative. . . . The sheer amount of knowledge [Shore] has woven into her text is in itself impressive [and] the texture of her storytelling is quite rich. . . . Filigreed with fascinating details.”—Bozena Shallcross, Canadian Slavonic Papers“Shore strikes a beautiful balance between empathy and dispassion. Her thorough research into the lives and papers of the Polish avant-garde writers who became Marxists rescues many of them from the margins of receding memory, while explaining the world in which they lived.”—Nathaniel D. Wood, Russian ReviewWinner of the 2007 Oskar Halecki Polish/East Central European History Award given by the Polish Institute of the Arts and SciencesFinalist for the Koret International Jewish Book Award in Jewish ThoughtCo-winner of the 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies/Orbis Books Prize for Polish StudiesWinner of the 2006 National Jewish Book Award in Eastern European Studies given by the Jewish Book Council“This book is utterly original, and its scholarship—and I don’t use this word lightly—is breathtaking. Shore has produced a penetrating study of a host of the twentieth century’s most perplexing issues.”—Jan T. Gross, Princeton University“Shore chronicles the collective journey of a group of brilliant and endlessly dedicated intellectuals through one of the worst hells, both physical and spiritual, of the century just ended. There is scarcely any study I can think of in any language to compare to this one.”—Michael Steinlauf, Gratz College“A marvelous example of intellectual history at its best, this book captures the moral and political dilemmas of a generation of brilliant writers who experienced communism first as a dream, then as a nightmare. A superb addition to the ever disturbing literature on the ‘God that failed.’”—Vladimir Tismaneanu, author of Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism“Marci Shore’s account of the founding generation of Polish intellectual Communists reaches far beyond its subject. In its deeply engaged narrative of the lives and illusions of the twentieth-century Polish avant-garde, Caviar and Ashes recovers a fascinating, talented community of men, women and ideas now rapidly receding beyond memory. Professor Shore’s history of Polish Marxists is not just an impressive work of historical scholarship; it is a moving elegy to a turbulent century and a forgotten world.”—Tony Judt, author of Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945