Багровая книга. Погромы 1919-20 гг. на Украине.

С.И. Гусев-Оренбургский

“Багровая книга. Погромы 1919-20 гг. на Украине.”

Изд-во “Ладога”, Нью-Йорк, 1983.

OCR: Александр Белоусенко; вычитка и форматирование: Давид Титиевский; май 2008.

--------------------------------------------

Печатается по изданию: С.И. Гусев-Оренбургский, Багровая книга. Погромы 1919-20 гг. на Украине. Харбин, издание Дальневосточного Еврейского Общественного Комитета помощи сиротам-жертвам погромов («ДЕКОПО»), 1922.

Many people have heard of the famous "Crimson Book." Few, if any, have read it. For it has been buried for more than sixty years in Soviet archives.

It is called Crimson, because its pages are drenched with rivers of human blood.

The book portrays the waves of bloody pogroms against Jews that swept the Ukraine in 1919–1920. It was written by a distinguished Russian writer, a former priest, son of an Orenburgh Cossack, Sergei Gusev-Orenburgsky. The pages of his book do not speak to the reader — they scream of pain and anger.

The document-based "Crimson Book" is remarkable for its deep penetration of human psychology, for its brief, precise powerful style, devoid of all sentimentality. It is these qualities that make the "Crimson Book" one of the most compelling works in world literature. The "Crimson Book" shows that always, in every era of persecution against Jews, indignant voices of the best representatives of Russian intelligentsia were heard, and that the great literature of Russia always resisted the waves of anti-Semitism. It is only in Soviet Russia that those voices are never heard.

It is our duty to bring this fiery book back from obscurity. Every man or woman who takes hold of it must preserve it and pass it on to the next generation, so that it is never lost, burned, or forgotten in archives. A wide distribution of this book may prevent a new Holocaust.

On the last page of this extraordinary book, the reader will find these words:

"Here are the facts. Speak of them, shout of them at the top of your voice. Citizens, people of good faith! It is your duty, your responsibility to the human race."