Dauria

The novel by Konstantin Sedyh "Dauria" is often compared to "Quiet Don": these are books about the destinies of the Cossacks in the 20th century; about the violation of age-old traditions that seemed unshakable; about the destruction of the old... world and the formation of a new one - frightening and cruel for some, desired and long-awaited for others. The events described in "Dauria" unfold thousands of kilometers away from the Don steppes - in Transbaikal. The civil war reaches the farthest borders of the country: the residents of the Mungalovsky village are divided into reds and whites, as well as members of one family - the Cossacks Ulybiny. Konstantin Sedyh called this novel his favorite creation, to which he devoted "an abyss of labor": the work on the novel took 15 years. Legends and traditions, archival sources, memoirs of participants of the Civil War, scientific works - all of this has come together in a colorful panorama of Transbaikal at the beginning of the 20th century. "Dauria" has been translated into many languages and published in the United Kingdom, USA, France, Canada, and Yugoslavia; while the author was still alive, the novel saw more than 100 editions. A two-part feature film of the same name (1971) was made based on the book, in which roles were played by Vasily Shukshin, Vitaly Solomin, Efim Kopelyan, and other remarkable actors.