Winner of the Stalin Prize for 1948--from back cover: As Ernest J. Simmons points out in his extensive Introduction, Fedin "identifies the formative years of his 'great contemporary hero' with the Russian past, when political idealism was ennobled by the simple virtues of sincerity and integrity. For these are the virtues of the young Kirill Izvekov when he begins his revolutionary education as a future bolshevik leader in the historic year 1910." Beyond this central theme, with its intense and varied cast of characters, is the love story of Kirill and Lisa Meshkova--"and hardly anywhere else in Soviet fiction has young love been treated with such charm and psychological insight."
