“How the Steel Was Tempered”

Genre: autobiographical novel, historical novel

"Kak zakalyalas' stal'" is an autobiographical novel written by Nikolai Ostrovsky.

It is divided into two parts. The first part is early life, which describes his childhood, adolescence and youth. The second part is middle years, which narrates about his illness and death.

The novel is well renown for its simplicity of wording. You will not find here any confusion. Everything in the book is clear.

“How the Steel Was Tempered” is more than just a story about author's life.

It goes in depth of the overall life during communist regime.

The main purpose of the novel is to show the tragedy of the generation during the time the author lived. Namely, the idea in what people believed blindly. People, who were ready to follow it to death without even trying to look at this all from the opposite side. As a consequence of it, they become victims of repressions and killings in the thirties.

The book is relevant for reading nowadays.

Since time has passed, people have learned nothing.