The Myth of the New Man

Pavel Korchagin was the Soviet super-hero. Created (dictated) by bed-ridden and blind writer Nikolai Ostrovsky as a semi-fictitious, quasi-autobiographical novel, “How the Steel Was Tempered” came out in 1934 and became instantly a best-seller. The book was an exaltation of revolutionary will, a romantic vision of boundless courage, a portrait of the New Man. Like his hero, Ostrovsky confronted the worst challenges without succumbing to despair. The source of his formidable strength was his mystical love for the Soviet homeland, for the Bolshevik Party, and for Stalin.

Chief propagandist and Stalin’s favorite journalist Mikhail Koltsov gave the novel a rave review in “Pravda". in March 1935 .Ostrovsky passed away, age 32 in December 1936, the novel became a cult book, three films were made throughout the years. The first one, directed by Mark Donskoy, was released in 1940 and was meant to inspire and energize the Soviet military in the war against the Wehrmacht. Mikail Koltsov, the brilliant chronicler of the Spanish Civil War, was arrested in December 1938, charged with treason, and executed in 1942 in the Lubyanka prison.

Shortly before his arrest, referring to recent news from Spain and displaying a mischievous sense of tragedy, Koltsov shared with his friend Ilya Ehrenburg this ominous joke: “‘Did you hear? They took Teruel.’ ‘How about his wife?” Thus the steel was tempered...