A Legendary Image

Abstract

Daniil Granin's novella Aurochs [Zubr] (New World [Novyi mir], 1987, nos. 1-2) represents a remarkable phenomenon in our literature. Its real impact isn't immediately apparent; at first you feel only that you're reading something extraordinarily interesting. This work lies somewhere on the boundary between documentary and purely artistic literature, combining the virtues of both genres. Its focus is the inspiring, paradoxical, altogether inimitable image of Aurochs—this is the nickname of an actual person, the famous geneticist Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovskii, who is the subject of the novel—an extraordinarily charming, unique individual with an unusual fate. Those who knew Aurochs speak of him with rapture and amazement.