Marking the 60th anniversary of the passing of Vasily Grossman, the film “Vasily Grossman. I Realized I Was Dead” by director Yelena Yacobovich, will be screened at ANU, as part of a series of documentaries about prominent cultural figures in the former Soviet Union.
Vasily Grossman died on September 14, 1964, on the same date when in 1941 the Nazis murdered his mother in Berdichev. His main novel, Life and Destiny, was dedicated to her. The film includes exclusive footage of the Life and Destiny manuscript’s journey from the Federal Security Service reserved archive, to the Archive for Literature and Art. The manuscript was confiscated by the KGB on February 1961. Though Grossman passed away shortly after, the manuscript was not lost.
