This novel is, in its way, a family chronicle—the chronicle of a working family of shipbuilders, covering three generations. At the head of the family stands Old Matvei, its patriarch, and his sons, who, before the Revolution, endured all the horrors of capitalist exploitation and fought for Soviet power, helping to establish and strengthen it.

The action of the novel takes place in our own times, in postwar years. Old Matvei, his sons and their wives, and his numerous grandchildren live and work in an age that is building communism. The story unfolds against the background of a great event in the lives of the shipyard workers—the gigantic reconstruction of the shipyard. Showing his characters in the workshop and club, in their studies and personal lives, Kochetov conveys a broad picture of the life of modern Soviet workers in a way that is both vivid and convincing.

The Zhurbins is Vsevolod Kochetov’s first novel. It has already won great popularity among Soviet readers.

Translated from the Russian by Robert Daglish
Illustrated by Igor Pehelko

You can get the book here and here