Edited and with an Introduction and Notes by Carol J. Avins Translated by H. T. Willetts

This diary by the famed twentieth-century Russian writer -- now available in English for the first time -- recounts Babel's experiences with the Cossack cavalry during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1920. The basis for Real Cavalry, Babel's bestknown work, it records the devastation of the war, the extreme cruelty of the Polish and Red armies alike toward the Jewish population in the Ukraine and eastern Poland, and Babel's own conflicted role as both Soviet revolutionary and Jew.