Young, SJ; (2013) Testimony on the margins: silence, innocence and the other in Vasilii Grossman's late fiction. Journal of European Studies , 43 (4) 329 - 343. 10.1177/0047244113501756.

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Abstract

The article examines the mode of testimony to trauma employed by Vasilii Grossman in his short, later works. Deflecting attention from his main subject, and focusing on peripheral figures and unusual viewpoints, Grossman explores the possibilities and limitations of representation, to question how those involved in historical events understand and testify to their experience. Focusing on the novella Everything Flows, in particular the encounter between Ivan, the Gulag returnee, and Anna, the former activist, that leads to her testimony of the famine, and comparing its approach to the adoption of marginal focalizers in the stories 'Mama' and 'The Road', recurring themes such as the absent mother figure, and the embodiment of testimony through reference to the senses, are examined. These become central to the construction of two modes of witnessing, the relational and the pure, that make testimony possible, but also define the difficulty of attaining it.

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