A Welsh Award-Winning Novel on Russia: Petrograd by Wiliam Owen Roberts

Abstract

In our paper we present the novel Petrograd by the Welsh author Wiliam Owen Roberts, written in Welsh. Winner of the Wales Book of the Year 2009 award, this substantial 544-page volume is the first part of a trilogy dedicated to the fates of Russian well-to-do families in years previous and following the revolutionary year 1917. Taking his inspiration from Mikhail Bulgakov’s The White Guard, as well as the works of Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorkij and Alexi Tolstoj, the Welsh author writes full of sympathy about those who lose their normal way of life, his main characters being three adolescents. In our paper we discuss both the surface features of the novel, e.g. the Russian names the writer gives to his characters, as well as the main elements which make this novel so interesting for Wales and Russia, including the importance of the First World War and its consequences for both countries.