By the book: reflections on an Indian childhood reading Soviet hardbacks | Hacker News Reader

By the book: reflections on an Indian childhood reading Soviet hardbacks

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No mention of the most famous Russian book among Indian high Schoolers: [Problems in General Physics by I E Irodov](https://www.amazon.com/Problems-General-Physics-I-Irodov/dp/...)?

I have spent so much time with this book growing up. It was THE Book to solve to get the bragging rights that you know your physics.

Ah I still ‘see’ the tiny fonts when I think about the book..

For REAL bragging rights, you had to solve Krotov :)

Bukhantsov was the real deal. Higher than Krotov

Never heard of it. Will check it out. Thank you!

PS: One of the highest points during my college prep days was when I managed to solve this kinematics problem from Krotov where the condition for a ball bouncing in a well to get out depends on the ratio of some parameters to be co prime. Good times.

don't forget i.a. maron for calculus :)

Heh! Irodov problems were dope... Spend multiple days putting over the same problem and the exhilaration when you finally crack it!

Still brings back memories

Haha, this brings back memories! Spent so much time slouching over this book and taking a crack at the problems. Thanks for comment and triggering a trip down the memory lane :)

There was a Mir Publishers bookshop close to my college in Patna and I would make regular visits in hope of landing gems like IE Irodov. Alas, most other Science books were so so and nowhere near their American counterparts (Halliday Resnick for Physics, Morrison Boyd for Chemistry comes to mind).

The Soviets did have the Landau book for physics, though I do not know if it was made available in India.

I should put a word for an Indian publishing house named Narosa which put out cheap editions of text books(mostly western) like the Feynman Lectures, Fermi's Thermodynamics, etc.

Landsberg's series on Elementary Physics[0] would be a more appropriate counterpart to Resnick & Halliday etc, targeted towards those preparing for university exams. Narosa has a great collection indeed.

0 - https://archive.org/details/LandsbergElementaryTextbookOnPhy...

Yes, I've bought computer books from Narosa and they were good. I think they had tie-ups with western publishing houses like Springer-Verlag, etc.

I'm taking a Russian lit class right now and it’s astonishing how much my Indian mother can follow along with my recounting of various plot points from Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. Russian literature is beloved in India

While I think Russian lit is indeed beloved in India, Nabokov is perhaps yet to get his due appreciation, perhaps Solzhenitsyn also.

Nabokov, to be fair, left Russia before the age of 18 and I don't believe he ever returned [1]. Lolita, his magnum opus (at least by public opinion), was first written in English. Despite his upbringing, I'm not sure he would be best classified as Russian Lit.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov

Nabokov wrote many novels in Russian before he reluctantly switched to English. I prefer them to his later work, which is a bit too gimmicky for me. The earlier novels have that quality too, but it's more in balance with his other gifts. They're absolutely wonderful (edit: and not too long!), and there are good translations.

Nine, apparently!

Any particular recommendations out of those? And does an English version carry the same weight, or does one have to read in Russian to appreciate most of it?

I read them in English. The translations are great and I'm pretty sure he vetted them carefully. IIRC, his son did some of them, in between being an opera singer.

My favorite was Luzhin's Defense, about a chess master who goes mad. But I liked all of them, including Despair, Glory, and Invitation to a Beheading. Invitation to a Beheading is unusual, sort of phantasmagoric—a bit like Kafka at his most dreamlike. If you like movies that play games with "what is real", it's in that spirit.

The first two English novels Sebastian Knight and Bend Sinister are very much in the style of his Russian novels. But the language of the Russian novels is lush rather than brittle, and this comes out even in the translations.

My impression of Nabokov is that he was inwardly a romantic and even a sentimentalist, but was conflicted about that and so wrapped it in many layers of cleverness. For me, the cleverness and self-reference get to be too much in the later work. He's at his best when the clever side and the romantic side are equally matched and the tension between them has the most energy. People say the sentimental side comes through more strongly in his memoir (Speak, Memory) but I haven't read that one.

I do think, though he wrote many novels in English, he drew much inspiration from the wellsprings of the Russian tradition.

Nabokov is absolutely considered a Russian writer by Russians themselves, both lit critics and casual readers. He wrote 8 novels in Russian and identified himself as both Russian and American and, according to his own words, loved the Russian language most.

I doubt that works of Solzhenitsyn has any value as a literature. He was a tool of political propaganda against USSR. There're numerous lies and exaggerations in his books. In 20-50 years everybody will forget him for good.

There are books he wrote like August 1914, which isn't about the Soviet Union. I think though he ended up criticizing USSR, he also criticized the west as well.

I disagree. The USSR was as bad as it he said it was. That said, I strongly reject Solzhenitsyn's religious and political philosophy.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a quite good novel even if you'd treat it as total fiction.

I loved Baba Yaga when I was 8 in South India!

I absolutely love MIR publishers. My interest in science still exists because of the books they published.

here Someone Has uploaded many of the MIR's titles.

https://mirtitles.org/category/mir-publishers/

MIR, Raduga (mostly children's fiction), Progress (popular science, if I remember correctly) - these publishers were really cheap in 80s and 90s India, compared to similar books in terms of content, printing and binding. Perhaps that's why they were such a favourite. I used to frequent a bookstore solely devoted to these called Vostok. That bookstore is long gone.

I still have many of these, some gifted by relatives, in my shelves today.

These days, at book fairs and on sites like OLX, certain unscrupulous sellers have taken to selling whatever such Soviet hardbacks they can find at astronomical prices. To be fair to them, it's a supply and demand problem.

Comments in this thread are kind of trippy but also so heartwarming to read. I was born in independent Ukraine but, unsurprisingly, I studied math and physics with the help of all of those Soviet handbooks: Perelman, Irodov etc, basically all of them are household names.

It's amazing to realize that somebody from a totally different culture, continent, language, was slouching over the same problems as I was, maybe even at the same time.

Good points. I am in India. When in college, used to buy and read those books, for math., physics, etc. Good content. I remember Ya. Perelman's [1] books in particular, for popularizing physics to the layman. Stuff about perpetual motion machines (explaining why they cannot work), physical phenomena related to refraction, reflection, etc., and much else besides.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Perelman

What many people don't realise is that the Soviets also made significant investments in "high" culture in western Europe. I distinctly remember a very important independent film distributor in Belgium got at least partly financed initially by the USSR. They did modestly well and were able to survive the collapse of the USSR until well past the year 2000.

Edit: The distributor was called Progrès films, founded in 1950 by the communist party of Belgium. It worked until 2002, after which other independent cinema projects like cinéart and cinélibre took over.

Well, the belief was that the capitalist regimes were keeping down and exploiting the proletariat by keeping them uneducated. Once given an opportunity for education and exposed to science and culture they will raise up against their masters.

I had a hardback of a soviet childrens book, which had a long story by Sergei Mikhalkhov called "Disobedience Holiday". Now thinking about it, it was as an allegory about the west in the same vein as "Animal Farm" was an allegory about the Soviets.

I think this is one of the things many in the third world started to be deprived off, following the Fall, inexpensive but very well made hardbacks printed in the USSR. The very smell of the ink and paper was something special, compared with locally made books.

The Chinese also had started printing cheap books for other countries in the third world, but they never could match the scope and scale of what USSR was doing.

And there seems to be an even older tradition of tiny pocket hardbacks mostly printed from England, small enough to fit almost in the palm of the hand, of classic novels majorly. I have managed to pick up a few at second hand sellers. I thought I'll write a blog post about them sometime, but I never came around to it.

Is that the one where the protagonists were called Turnip and Turnip?

As for the latter, that would possibly be The Collector's Library?

Large selection of classics, printed on thin 'Bible paper', hardback, diminutive size, ribbon marker.

I tend to always keep one or two in my cabin luggage for the occasions when I feel like giving the Kindle a rest.

I do find them from different publishers, Oxford World Classics dated from 1940's and other's like Blackie and Son's from the 50's. They are so conveniently sized.

This is really fascinating. Because even though I am an Indian I didn't know the Soviet Union and India were that close. I wonder if any Indian school books mention this.

While I was growing up in the 90s in the same state in India as the author of the article, English translations Soviet science and math books were super cheap (I suspect they were heavily subsidized) and have had a profound impact on me. My mum used to read a lot of the English translations of literary works, but I had no interest in them until I was much older.

During the Cold War India was leaning to the Soviets. Its also the reason why Nato never really tried to stop Pakistan from acquiring the atomic bomb.

Ofcourse nowadays India is a democratic republic with a good relationship with the West.

India did sometimes try to be in a neutral position with respect to both the West and the Soviets, for eg: the Indian Nuclear program had large support from the Canadians. Indian space program had help from the Americans and the French as well as the Soviets.

Absolutely but during the Cold War you had to be either for the US/NATO or Soviet Union/Warsaw pact. The West was terrified of Russia getting a naval base on the Indian Ocean.

Any country that tried to be neutral was considered suspicious.

There was a third path which India did follow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement

Lenin called this "useful idiots".

The Non-Aligned Movement was part and parcel "Soviet lite".

It's good to know the history here. For most of 50s and 60s we were roughly equidistant between US and USSR. It was the crass support for Pakistan's Ayub Khan by Nixon and Kissinger before the Bangladesh war in 1971, which forced India to shift a little closer to the Soviet Union. Both Nixon and Kissinger had a visceral hatred of India and Indira Gandhi - see [1].

The USSR did help us with arms and with votes in the United Nations. While this was generally helpful, it led to a shameful episode when India chose to tacitly support the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan. It may surprise many Indians to know that more recently, inspite of our tilt to the West, we have supported Russia's annexation of Crimea, and we were one of the first major countries to recognize the annexation.

[1] https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/indira-gandhi-is-...

I do not think that India has recognized that annexation. And there are no major countries that have recognized it.

I remember too. Wonderful books at throwaway prices. I remember Ya Perelman's books on physics. Also a wonderful book just on limits which helped me understand the concept in a way which no other maths book could. And we also used to have beautifully illustrated magazines. I still have many of these books. I think Ya Perelman really made me fall in love with Physics.

Yakov Perelman forever! Are you referring to the limits book in dialogue format ? I came across one few years back.

Soviet books and influence were especially common in the state of Kerala, where we had the first democratically elected communist government. I remember this book called Misha (for kids) and Soviet Woman for well, women. They were very high quality prints, and was a joy to read.

Till the 80s Kerala had strong Soviet influence in politics, lifestyle and even in the architecture of buildings. I remember when I visited Vietnam, I was surprised by how similar their cities looked.

We got Misha in Hyderabad too in the 80s. My mother used to buy them for me regularly when I was a kid.

Yup. I got Misha even in a small town in Karnataka. I remember writing to Russian pen pals via Misha.

I'm from Coimbtore, Tamilnadu.

Me & my sister loved reading Misha in the early 90's. Some of the stories where deep.

Is there an online archive for those magazines?

P.S. I'm writing this via kindle & I didn't take any effort to search for it.

Edit:typo

Here you go :) https://mirtitles.org/2018/11/11/misha-stack/

I think, what made them special was the very smooth, glossy printing, and extremely vivid colours. If you take american comics of a similar time, eg something like Archies: Archies colours look pale and faded, compared with the bright contrasts and lush colours of the Misha.

And the smell was amazing too :)

The smell. Yes the smell!

Thank you!

"Space Adventures in your Home" by F. Rabiza is perhaps this - https://itexts.net/avtor-florentiy-vladimirovich-rabiza/2638... - another translation "Space at your house" by Florentii Rabiza.

Wow.. wow.. there are others who have read the same things. :)

The hydro pneumatic rocket!

I tried to find Mir publishers books about 10 years ago. Apparently Mir got bought out and publishing ceased.

Another gem is "Fun with maths and physics" by Ya Perelman. It's available in a cheap reprint now, nothing that matches the original Mir publishers book.

I read the Kannada translation of the book "Fun with Physics" back when I was in primary school. Didn't understand large parts of it but that didn't stop me from repeatedly reading the books. As high quality as the content was I absolutely loved the high quality print, glossy and gorgeous paper, and really beautiful and durable hard cover. The illustrations were also of high quality. They also had a very distinct smell.

Another Kannada translated book I read (countless times) is stories from Russian history.

Needless to say Russian books are a part of my childhood :)

I remember reading a hard bound introduction to quantum mechanics from Mir publishers on a summer vacation..

That sounds much nicer than any edition of Perelman's books I've ever laid my hands on in Russian.Those were great books, though!

Is this the book you are referring to ? - https://sovietbookbugs.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/rassian-c...

Holy mother!!! Never in my dreams could I imagine I'd be seeing it again. You've made my day :-). And, as you'd know surely, how similar/close Kannada and Telugu scripts are I could effortlessly read it!

It does bring back a flood of memories. Thanks again :-)

You're welcome :) Memorable tales and gorgeous illustrations. This is one of the few books I managed to keep in absolute mint condition :) I have a scanned version lying around in my collection. Will upload sometime soon on my blog.

Wikipedia says Mir publishing house exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_Publishers

Venkatesh Rao (of Gervais Principle fame) wrote nicely on the same topic https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/30/morning-is-wiser-than-...

> I wonder who Rabiza was; none of the many fan sites for Soviet books say that.

I've found a short postmortem from 2002 in a magazine "Science and Life"[1]. Seems he was engineer, painter and popular science writer/journalist.

[1] https://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/4982/

I remember reading translated versions of Yakov Perelman's "Physics for Entertainment" as a kid. There were also translations of more "propaganda-ish" works like "Three Fat Men".

Ya Perelman - Fun with maths and Fun with Physics brings back so many memories (Irodov had too much at stake so there no unbounded joy of learning for learning's sake)

I started loving Physics with Marathi translation of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Entertainment-Yakov-Perelman/...

I can't emphasize enough how important these books were in shaping my childhood in a rural town in India. I still vividly remember making a fuss when Misha and Sputnik stopped after the fall of Soviet. A part of me is forever indebted to Russia for this.

Given the strong Communist presence in Andhra Pradesh, the state I am from, we were lucky to have a great number of these books translated to Telugu, by no less than legends like Sri Sri.

I have some of the children's books uploaded on my blog at http://linkdot.link/sooviytt-prcurnnlu-childrens-books.html

PS: I named my daughter Aelita after the science fiction classic.

Funny thing about the Sputnik magazine. In a lot of the West it was seen as Communist propaganda (which to be fair a lot of it was), but in the late 1980s it was actually banned in East Germany because it wasn't Communist enough as it wrote favorably about Perestroika and Glasnost, which the leaders of the GDR weren't happy about.

Interesting to know that!

According to an ossi friend of mine, the moment he could no longer buy Sputnik, that torch of progressive socialism at his local Leipzig newsstand was the moment he realised that the GDRs days were numbered...

"Ants among Elephants" by Sujatha Gidla is the true story of a communist revolutionary in (what is now) Andhra Pradesh in the mid 20th century, I'd recommend it: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31450688-ants-among-elep...

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