Starting a series of posts on the novelist Victor Serge, I want to draw attention to the informal trilogy he wrote in the 1930s that has become recognised as the ‘cycle of revolution’ collection. This includes Men in Prison [1930], Birth of Our Power [1931], and Conquered City [1932] that all provide a compelling portrait of revolutionary victory.
Subsequently, a further informal trilogy of novels, written in exile, included Midnight in the Century [1939], The Case of Comrade Tulayev [1942], and The Long Dusk [1946], that has become recognised as the ‘cycle of resistance’ collection, all about revolutionary defeat. Richard Greeman, who has done the most to translate and interpret many of these novels as well as establish the International Victor Serge Foundation, makes the case that the two cycles combine the themes of victory-in-defeat/defeat-in-victory, reflecting on the reversal of the Russian Revolution.
