Dersu Uzala (book)

Plot

Arsenyev tells of his travels in the Ussuri basin in the Russian Far East. Dersu Uzala ( – 1908) was a Goldi hunter who acted as a guide for Arsenyev's surveying crew mapping the taiga from 1902 to 1907 and saved them from starvation and cold. Arsenyev portrays him as a simple yet great man, an animist who sees animals and plants as equal to man. From 1907, Arsenyev invited Dersu to live in his house in Khabarovsk as Dersu's failing sight hampered his ability to live as a hunter. In the spring of 1908, Dersu bade farewell to Arsenyev and walked back toward his home in the woods of the Primorsky Krai; he was killed before he could reach them, near the town of Korfovskiy, evidently for the highly valuable latest model Russian military rifle given to him by Arsenyev as a parting gift to replace his old, worn, Berdianka. He was buried in a hastily dug grave, unmarked but for Dersu's walking stick, stuck in the earth beside it by a heartsick Arsenyev.

Historical accuracy

According to Arsenyev's diary, he met the historical Dersu in 1906, not 1902. It appears that the Dersu character is a composite of several trappers who Arsenyev met during his expedition. In reality, although Arsenyev was heartbroken by Dersu's murder, he was unable to find his grave.

Editions in Russian

• Дерсу Узала. Сквозь тайгу Издательство: Терра - Книжный клуб (1997) Н. Е. Кабанова (ed.) (English: Dersu Uzala. Taiga Publishing House: Terra Book Club) (1997) N. ya. Kabanov (ed.) )

English translations

• Dersu the Trapper, translated by Malcolm Burr from the heavily redacted 1926 edition V debryakh Ussuriyskogo kraya (In the wilds of the Ussuri krai)
  • Pub: Secker & Warburg, London 1939. First English edition.
  • Pub: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. New York: 1941. First American edition.
  • Pub: McPherson and others, 1996, 2001. . Mass market paperback.
• Dersu Uzala, translated by Victor Shneerson from the heavily redacted 1944 edition Dersu Uzala
  • Pub: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, ca 1950
  • Pub: Raduga Publishers, Moscow 1990,
  • Pub: University Press of the Pacific 2004
• With Dersu the Hunter: Adventures in the Taiga, adapted by Anne Terry White. A shortened version of Shneerson's 1950 translation.
  • Pub: George Braziller 1965, A Venture Book, New York.

Film adaptations

• (1961) Dersu Uzala (Дерсу Узала) Soviet Union, director Agasi Babayan
• (1975) Dersu Uzala (Дерсу Узала) Soviet Union/Japan, director Akira Kurosawa

References

References

1. "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980) - Trivia - IMDb".
2. (2011). "По следам капитана Арсеньева и Дерсу Узала (Часть 1)". GEO.
3. (2011). "По следам капитана Арсеньева и Дерсу Узала (Часть 2)". GEO.
4. Arsenyev, Vladimir K.. (2016). "Across the Ussuri Kray: Travels in the Sikhote-Alin Mountains". Indiana University Press.