Entourage of Ezhov & Stalin - reply

[Robert Chandler]

Dear Professor Hill, and all,

> I have always assumed that Comrade Malenkov tended to OBESITY,
>  i.e., was definitely not svelte (thin).  Or did he add all those extra
> kilograms after WW2?
Yes, it is a bit puzzling, but such changes do happen...
 
> Also, does it seem that Comrade Zhdanov (A. A. Zhdanov) does
> not appear in Grossman's depiction of the Ezhovs' party?
He definitely is NOT mentioned in any of the descriptions of Yezhov's guests
in the story.

Just for the record, I am not a professor.  (Nor even a doctor!)
 
Best Wishes,

Robert
> ______________________________________________________________
> 
> Date: Mon 14 Dec 00:03:47 CST 2009
> From: <LISTSERV at bama.ua.edu>
> Subject: Re: GETPOST SEELANGS
> To: "Steven P. Hill" <s-hill4 at ILLINOIS.EDU>
> 
> Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 06:18:52 +0000
> From: Robert Chandler <kcf19 at DIAL.PIPEX.COM>
> Subject: Stalin's entourage
> 
> Dear all,
> Vasily Grossman¹s story ŒMama¹ is about a small girl (she is still alive, to
> the best of my knowledge!) who was adopted from an orphanage by the Yezhovs.
> We glimpse the Yezhov household, and their guests, primarily through this
> girl¹s eyes.  Below is my translation of a passage about the Œguests¹,
> followed by my endnotes.  Can anyone identify the first of these guests?
> And does anyone have any corrections to the rest of my notes?
> 
> And then there were Father¹s guests.  There was one who kept giving a little
> laugh; he had a guttural voice and a nose that seemed to be always trying to
> sniff something.  There was a man who always smelt of wine, with a loud
> voice and broad shoulders. There was a thin little man with very dark eyes;
> he usually came early, with a briefcase, and left before they¹d sat down to
> supper. There was a dark-skinned man with a pot belly and moist red lips;
> one evening he took Nadya in his arms and sang her a little song. [i]
> 
> Once she saw a guest with a pink face and grey hair, in military uniform.
> He drank a lot of wine, then sang.  There was a guest who seemed to make
> Mama feel shy; he had small glasses and a large forehead and he stuttered.
> Unlike the others, who wore military jackets of one kind or another, he wore
> an ordinary jacket and a tie.  He told Nadya in an affectionate voice that
> he had a little daughter too.[ii]
> 
> Marfa Dementyevna couldn¹t remember which was Beria and which was Betal
> Kalmykov, and she kept forgetting that the thin man with a brief case was
> Malenkov. Kaganovich, Molotov and Voroshilov, on the other hand, she
> recognized from the photographs she used to see of them in the
> newspapers.[iii] 
> 
> i] I have not been able to identify the man with the guttural voice who kept
> giving a little laugh.  The other three men, in order of appearance, are
> Betal Kalmykov, Georgy Malenkov and Lazar Kaganovich. Betal Kalmykov was the
> local Party boss in Karbardino-Balkaria, an autonomous republic in the North
> Caucasus.  Georgy Malenkov was at this time the Central committee¹s
> personnel officer.
> [ii]  These two Œguests¹ are Voroshilov and Beria.
> [iii]   Stalin¹s three most important allies.  All three were full members
> of the Politburo.
> 
> VSEGO DOBROGO,
> ROBERT
> _________________________________________________________________
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