Volume 24, Number 6 · April 14, 1977
Inside the Leviathan
By Aleksandr Nekrich
Ziyayushchiye vysoty (The Yawning Heights)
by Aleksandr Zinoviev
L'Age d'homme (Lausanne), 563 pp., 40 Swiss francs
The Russian edition of this book appeared in Switzerland in August 1976. And what an odd title it has. The Russian verb ziyat—'to gape cavernously, to yawn'—is normally used with such words as chasm, gulf, abyss; while in official Russian sloganese, the word usually placed before 'heights' is siyayushchiye (with an 's' not a 'z'), i.e., 'shining, gleaming, radiant.' For example, the 'gleaming heights of socialism' or the 'shining peaks of communism,' toward which all the Soviet peoples are said to be striving, together with 'all of progressive mankind.'
Review, 3467 words
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