View source for How the Steel Was Tempered

{{Short description|Best selling Soviet novel by Nikolai Ostrovsky}}
{{for|the 1942 film adaptation|How the Steel Was Tempered (film)}}
{{expand language|langcode=ru|otherarticle=Как закалялась сталь|langcode2=zh|otherarticle2=鋼鐵是怎樣煉成的}}
{{Too few opinions|date=January 2023}}
{{Infobox book
| name          = How the Steel Was Tempered
| title_orig    = Как закалялась сталь
| translator    = 
| image         = How the Steel Was Tempered (novel) cover.jpg
| caption       = Russian cover
| author        = [[Nikolai Ostrovsky]]
| illustrator   = 
| cover_artist  = 
| country       = [[Soviet Union]]
| language      = [[Russian language|Russian]]
| series        = 
| genre         = [[Socialist realism]]
| publisher     = [[Molodaya Gvardiya (magazine)|Young Guard]] (serial)
| release_date  = 1932–1934 (serial) – 1936 (book)
| media_type    = Print ([[Hardcover|hardback]] & [[paperback]])
| pages         = 
| preceded_by   = 
| followed_by   = 
}}
[[File:The Soviet Union 1964 CPA 3033 stamp (Soviet Writers. Nikolai Ostrovsky (1904-1936). Illustration for the novel 'How the Steel Was Tempered') small resolution.jpg|thumb|1964 stamp depicting Ostrovsky and an illustration for ''How the Steel Was Tempered'']]
'''''How the Steel Was Tempered''''' ({{langx|ru|Как закалялась сталь|Kak zakalyalas stal}}) or '''''The Making of a Hero''''', is a [[socialist realist]] [[novel]] written by [[Nikolai Ostrovsky]] (1904–1936). With 36.4 million copies sold, it is one of the [[List of best-selling books|best-selling books of all time]]<ref name="compuart.ru">{{cite web|author=Евгений Немировский|date=2000-01-03|title=Журнал "КомпьюАрт" &#124; Подводя итоги XX столетия: книгоиздание. Бестселлер – детище рекламы|url=http://www.compuart.ru/article.aspx?id=8496&iid=346|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120222222238/http://www.compuart.ru/article.aspx?id=8496&iid=346|archive-date=2012-02-22|access-date=2009-08-31|publisher=Compuart.ru}}</ref> and the best-selling book in the Russian language.

== Summary ==
The story follows the life of Pavel Korchagin, including his fighting in and aftermath of the [[Russian Civil War]] when he fought for the Bolsheviks during the war and was injured. The novel examines how Korchagin heals from his wounds and thus becomes as strong as steel.

The novel begins when Korchagin is 12, living in the town of [[Shepetovka]] in [[Ukraine]]. He gets kicked out of school for putting tobacco in some bread dough and must go to work as a dishwasher. As a dishwasher he is beaten by a coworker, but his brother Artyom defends him. The novel jumps forward to age 16 when he is working in a power plant. He meets a Bolshevik named Zhukhrai after a run-in with the Tsarist secret police. Zhukrai tells him about the Bolsheviks and Lenin. He also meets Tonia Toumanova, his first of many love interests. Again the novel jumps, to 1917 as the German army invades Shepetovka. Korchagin witnesses the town change hands several times in the chaos of the following months, with a [[pogrom]] against the town's Jewish population occurring during its occupation by soldiers loyal to [[Symon Petliura]]. Korchagin eventually joins the [[Bolsheviks]] and fights in the Civil War and [[Polish-Soviet War]]. He receives an injury in his spine, which slowly saps his strength for the remainder of the novel. After the war he works as a railway mechanic and advances as a [[Komsomol]] member in [[Kyiv]]. He develops many social connections there but loses touch with many of his friends after he is presumed dead during work to build an emergency railway line to provide Shepetovka with firewood. As his health worsens due to his life of hardship and wartime injuries, he spends time in Sanatoria on the [[Black Sea]] coast, where he eventually meets and marries the young daughter of a friend of his mother's. Eventually, having lost his eyesight and almost totally paralyzed, Pavel moves to [[Moscow]] to consult medical specialists, but his condition is hopeless and he ends up staying there to write a novel about his cavalry division from the Civil War.

==Analysis==

The story is a fictionalized autobiography of its author, [[Nikolai Ostrovsky]]. In real life, Ostrovsky's father died, and his mother worked as a cook. As he joined the war with the [[Red Army]], he lost his right eye from artillery fire during the war.

In 2016, Russia's newspaper [[Russia Beyond|''Russia Beyond The Headlines'']] analyzed the story as part of the Soviet narrative of Communism forging uncivilized men into ideal men, like iron into steel. The protagonist fits the mold of pre-Khrushchev literature: an immaculate, ideally communistic individual.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Viesel|first=Mikhail|last2=RBTH|first2=special to|date=2016-12-22|title=How literature was used to 'temper' Soviet people|url=https://www.rbth.com/arts/literature/2016/12/22/how-literature-was-used-to-temper-soviet-people_665721|access-date=2021-05-11|website=www.rbth.com|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Nikolay Ostrovsky how steel was tempered summary. Nikolay Ostrovsky "how the steel was tempered". The history of writing the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered"|url=https://voilokmaikop.ru/en/nikolai-ostrovskii-kak-zakalyalas-stal-kratkoe-soderzhanie-nikolai.html|access-date=2021-05-11|website=voilokmaikop.ru}}</ref>{{Unbalanced opinion|date=January 2023}}

==Characters==
[[File:Fedotova Irina.jpg|thumb|Irina Fedotova as Tonia in the 1942 film]]
* '''Pavel Korchagin''' – The novel's [[protagonist]]. He is fighting on the [[Bolsheviks]]' side in the Civil War (1917–1922). He is a quintessential positive hero of socialist realism.
* '''Tonia Toumanova''' – Pavel's teenage love. Tonia and Pavel became good friends after their first encounter, which later develops into an intimate relationship. Though born of a wealthy and influential family, Tonia treated everyone equally unlike her friends, who only interact with other children of well-reputed families. However, this changed as she grew up, as she became more aware of her appearance and social status of others.

==Publication history==
The first part of ''How the Steel was Tempered'' was published serially in 1932 in the magazine ''[[Molodaya Gvardiya (magazine)|Young Guard]]''. The second part of the novel appeared in the same magazine from January to May, 1934. The novel was published in 1936 in book form in a heavily edited version that conformed to the rules of socialist realism. In the serial version Ostrovsky had described the tense atmosphere of Pavel's home, his suffering when he became an invalid, the deterioration of his relationship with his wife, and their separation. All of this disappeared in the 1936 publication and in later editions of the novel.<ref>A History of Soviet Literature, pgs 43–44, Vera Alexandrova, Doubleday, 1963.</ref>
[[File:RUB 95 (Leipzig, 1984, 23.Auflage) - Ostrowski, Wie der Stahl.jpg|thumb|German translation by Nelly Drechsler]]
A Japanese translation of the novel was made by {{ill|Ryokichi Sugimoto|ja|杉本良吉}}.

==Adaptations==
In the [[Soviet Union]], three films were produced based on this novel:
*''[[How the Steel Was Tempered (film)|How the Steel Was Tempered]]'' (1942)
*''[[Pavel Korchagin (film)|Pavel Korchagin]]'' (1956, Korchagin was played by [[Vasily Lanovoy]])
* ''How the Steel Was Tempered'', 1973 (TV series of 6 episodes; Korchagin was played by [[Vladimir Konkin]])<ref>{{Citation|last=IMDb|title=Kak zakalyalas stal|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0461257/|access-date=2018-12-20}}</ref>

In China, the novel was adapted into a [[How the steel was tempered (TV-series)|television series of the same title]] in 2000; all the members of the cast were from Ukraine.

==In other media==
* The third studio album of Russian experimental group [[Shortparis]] is titled ''Tak zakalyalas stal'' (Russian: Так закалялась сталь, lit. 'Thus the Steel Was Tempered') (2019).

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commonscatinline}}
* {{ISBN|0-7147-0585-3}}
* ''How the Steel Was Tempered'', English translation: [http://www.cpa.org.au/resources/cpa-presents/how-the-steel-was-tempered-book-1.pdf Part 1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190317022058/https://www.cpa.org.au/resources/cpa-presents/how-the-steel-was-tempered-book-1.pdf |date=2019-03-17 }}, [http://www.cpa.org.au/resources/cpa-presents/how-the-steel-was-tempered-book-2.pdf Part 2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191025135809/https://www.cpa.org.au/resources/cpa-presents/how-the-steel-was-tempered-book-2.pdf |date=2019-10-25 }}
* [https://www.persee.fr/doc/cmr_0008-0160_1981_num_22_4_1923 Елена Толстая-Сегал, К литературному фону книги : 'Как закалялась сталь', Cahiers du Monde Russe  Année 1981  22-4  pp. 375-399]
* [http://www.rulit.me/books/obruchennye-s-ideej-o-povesti-kak-zakalyalas-stal-nikolaya-ostrovskogo-read-122693-1.html Лев Аннинский, Обрученные с идеей (О повести 'Как закалялась сталь' Николая Островского)],
* Раиса Островская, Николай Островский, серия ЖЗЛ, Молодая гвардия, 1984
* Евгений Бузни, Литературное досье Николая Островского
* [http://www.rgbs.ru/tiflology/tiflonews/vechera/2015-v/prezentatsiya-monografii-t-i-andronovoy-slishkom-malo-ostalos-zhit-nikolay-ostrovskiy-/ Тамара Андронова, Слишком мало осталось жить... Николай Островский. Биография. – М.: Государственный музей – Гуманитарный центр «Преодоление» имени Н.А. Островского, 2014.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190723123307/http://www.rgbs.ru/tiflology/tiflonews/vechera/2015-v/prezentatsiya-monografii-t-i-andronovoy-slishkom-malo-ostalos-zhit-nikolay-ostrovskiy-/ |date=2019-07-23 }}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:1936 Russian novels]]
[[Category:Socrealist novels]]
[[Category:Nikolai Ostrovsky]]
[[Category:Novels about revolutionaries]]
[[Category:Novels set in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Novels set in Ukraine]]
[[Category:Russian novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:Russian autobiographical novels]]
[[Category:Novels set during the Russian Civil War]]