Upper and Lower

Galina Kalinkina — prose writer, critic, essayist.
The novels "Laurel Leaf Not for Consumption" and "Bare Field" have been included in the longlists for the "Big Book" and "Yasnaya Polyana" awards.

In Moscow, in the Preobrazhenskaya Sloboda, the house of an Old Believer factory owner has survived to this day. The history of his family is fictionalized by the author of the novel "Upper and Lower," but is based on real facts of the life of a Moscow merchant family. The household and their relatives are divided into "uppers" and "lowers," "drummers," "puppeteers," "lawmakers," and "heirs." Together, they try to hold onto their dreams and preserve their home amidst the realities of the 1914 war and the revolution that followed. Some of the household members accept the changes in the country, while others await the "final horror" to leave it…

"Galina Kalinkina takes a layer of people that has almost gone unnoticed by their contemporary writers. Simple Russian citizens of the early 20th century against the backdrop of revolutions, World War I, and the Civil Wars. However, such events have no backdrop or extras — each character in "Upper and Lower" willingly or unwillingly becomes a participant in a grand narrative (Roman Senchin)."

"Russia just before the revolution, its people, their daily lives, the growth of a big and terrifying history from everyday life and routine is something we still have not examined. To investigate this time now, the author brings a large, careful magnifying glass to the years of great historical rupture (Olga Balla)."