Sergei Kourdakov | Notes from the Motherland

Even though Sergei Kourdakov’s book was published in 1973, it’s always uplifting for me to know that people are still searching for information about him. Thus it was a pleasant surprise when I received some interesting comments on my blog from Alex. His research notes about Sergei, that he called “Notes from Siberia,” came at the perfect time.

Yes, it was perfect timing. As it turns out, I met Sergei Kourdakov in the fall of 1972—exactly 50 years ago. My mind drifted to long ago memories as I recalled the day I first met Sergei. Little did I know then that I was going to play a part in Sergei’s life, and that Sergei would play an important role in mine. Little did I know then that one day I would write about Sergei Kourdakov in my memoir, A Rose for Sergei.

In Sergei’s autobiography, he wrote that he wanted to find out more about his mother, father, and brother. After checking a database of victims during Stalin’s repressions, Alex’s response was: “His [Sergei’s] granddad might have had a different surname. There was a practice that small children of repressed parents were separated and their surname changed by authorities. Although in past it's common for overall Russia that surnames of siblings might have got changes in spelling. Or even brother can get totally different surnames especially in such cases as described in book when after revolution Bolsheviks started to do dekulakization. Brothers held different surnames and divided property to save it. As well in the past people with education tended to change the ending of surname to have it more Russian sounded if they had a Ukrainian or Belarusian version.”

Regarding a discrepancy in Sergei’s book, Alex said: “Sergei mentioned Konstantin Koptelov one of Russia's most popular writer who won the Lenin Prize for Literature. But he mixed it up. There is only one writer Koptelov but with name Afanasiy who won USSR State Prize instead but only in 1979.”

Regarding this possible mix up of writers, I do believe Sergei met a famous Russian writer. The exact name, or award, may have been misunderstood during transcribing from an audio tape. Sergei recorded his book on audio cassette tapes. From those recordings, someone typed his manuscript. From my own secretarial experience in the 1970s, transcribing from audio tape directly to your typewriter was a very difficult, time consuming process. Plus you had to constantly rewind the audio tape if you couldn’t make out what the person was saying. Throw in the fact that Sergei’s accent was quite heavy and that added another level of difficulty. I can see that a name/word could be easily misunderstood, or the recording “blipped” at that second and only part of the name was available.

I found it interesting that Alex mentioned the English version of The Persecutor differed slightly from the Russian version Forgive Me Natasha in some places, especially regarding location.

Alex also noted that he was shocked when he heard Sergei’s voice from the Forgive me Sergei documentary film: “…He did not have typical Russian accent and was talking fluent! Most of Russians never got to talk English properly. There is great language barrier which takes years due to different way of thinking and mentality. As well as native English people will always sound non Russian even after many years of learning. Sergei was phenomenally talented!”

Heartfelt thanks for your comments and research, Alex. Since your “hello” went out to me, and Author Dane Cramer, I forwarded all your notes and web links to him also.

And I absolutely agree that Sergei Kourdakov was phenomenally talented.

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Sergei Kourdakov’s autobiography was published under three titles:

The Persecutor - Sergei - Forgive Me, Natasha