Central to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 'The Oak and the Calf'... is his critical, controversial portrait of the late Aleksandr Tvardovsky, editor of the liberal Soviet journal Novy Mir which launched Solzhenitsyn as awriter. Now we have a powerful rebuttal, written originally in samizdat by Novy Mir 'sdeputy editor-literary critic who witnessed the tense events Solzhenitsyn relates in his memoir.... Point by point he takes on Solzhenitsyn's charges against Tvardovsky.... Lakshin's bill of particulars is not mere internecine squabble but rather an authentic attempt to right the record, a telling, important document.
Publishers Weekly
Vladimir Lakshin was the chief critic of the journal Novy Mir (New World) and the closest associate of its editor, Alexander Tvardovsky, when it published, in November 1962, Solzhenitsyn's short novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The editors who performed the feat of bringing to light that revelation of the Stalinist prison camps have a right to be proud of their achievement, and of having attended at the birth in print of a new and powerful literary force. Lakshin in this book asserts their claim to credit and defends himself and Tvardovsky against the 'slanderous caricature' of them, and of the editorial board as a whole, which he finds in Solzhenitsyn's The Oak and the Calf... Lakshin's effort to set the record straight, to enter a defense for those who cannot defend themselves, is admirable. His book has great poignancy and power.
Edward J. Brown
The New Republic
Vladimir Lakshin was the chief critic of the journal Novy Mir (New World) and the closest associate of its editor, Alexander Tvardovsky, when it published, in November 1962, Solzhenitsyn's short novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The editors who performed the feat of bringing to light that revelation of the Stalinist prison camps have a right to be proud of their achievement, and of having attended at the birth in print of a new and powerful literary force. Lakshin in this book asserts their claim to credit and defends himself and Tvardovsky against the 'slanderous caricature' of them, and of the editorial board as a whole, which he finds in Solzhenitsyn's The Oak and the Calf... Lakshin's effort to set the record straight, to enter a defense for those who cannot defend themselves, is admirable. His book has great poignancy and power.
Edward J. Brown
The New Republic