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Title: Dynamo: Triumph and Tragedy in Nazi-Occupied Kiev by Andy Dougan ISBN: 1-58574-719-X Publisher: The Lyons Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Servicable Correction of the Myth
Comment: British journalist Dougan's subject is probably better suited to a lengthy magazine essay, but has been inflated into this short book. In it, he examines the legend legendary "Death Match" between a squad of Ukrainian footballers and their German occupiers in Kiev during World War II. It's a legend that the former USSR was keen to propagate, and has remained largely intact through retellings in books such as Soccer In Sun and Shadow and Football Against the Enemy-until now. Although Dougan's book is about FC Start and their role as rallying point for the terrorized citizens of Kiev, the bulk of it really concerns the brutal Nazi occupation of the Ukraine. Indeed, there can be no better measure for it than to acknowledge that the horror comes through loud and clear despite Dougan's barely adequate prose. The book starts badly, with a wildly irrelevant and off-putting prologue wedding scene just prior to the Nazi invasion in 1941. Then the reader get various chunks of information: the history of football in the Ukraine, the history of the Dynamo Kiev team, a few profiles of key figures, a condensed version of Ukrainian history, and then the story of the siege of Kiev. All of which is welded together in prose that can only be described as serviceable.
Fortunately, Dougan's story of the '42 summer season (which the Germans allowed in order to demonstrate that life under their rule wasn't too bad, even as they were systematically murdering most of the population though death camps and slave labor), is told a little more ably. The tension builds as FC Start destroys all the competition in a league comprised of a teams ranging from a collaborationist Ukrainian nationalist side, to Romanian and Hungarian occupying army troops, and finally to German army and Luftwaffe teams. FC Start becomes a beacon of pride for the occupied city, and when they defy Aryan supremacy by defeating a handpicked German team, the result is inevitable-though not as dramatically tragic as the legend would have it. None of the players so lushly praised by Dougan ever comes to life, which is hardly surprising since he's coming at them from almost six decades in the future. And reliance on a Ukrainian researcher to feed him all the translated testimony and accounts can only have added to the distance. Still, he's done a service to football history by digging for the truth, and a service to history by reminding readers of the terrors of war for the civilians.
Rating: 4
Summary: Victory
Comment: The events detailed in this book have become the stuff of soccer legend. The infamous Kiev "Death Match" against the Nazis has been told and retold, but it is more myth than reality. Eduardo Galeano in "Soccer in Sun and Shadow" wrote that Dynamo "committed the insane act of defeating Hitler's squad in the local stadium" with the result that "all eleven were shot with their shirts at the edge of a cliff."
The story also became the inspiration for the cult classic movie "Victory" in which a team of allied prisoners of war play against the German National team in occupied Paris.
Yet the real story behind the myth, while in some ways not as dramatic, is just as compelling. Dynamo was the team of the Kiev branch of the NKVD. Yet most of the players were not secret policemen or even committed Stalinists. Rather, they were a group of extremely talented men who wanted to play soccer. All that changed with the coming of the German army in 1941.
But the Germans wanted to show that all was normal in occupied Ukraine, and normalcy required soccer. Finding themselves employed in a bakery, Dynamo was reborn as FC Start and played in a makeshift league against teams of Ukrainian nationalists collaborating with Hitler, Romanian and Hungarian occupation troops, and German army and air force teams.
Andy Dougan makes the era come alive, and shows the fears that drove the players. In the end, Dougan demolishes most of the myths of the "Death Match," though, unfortunately, not all. While the book was clearly written for a soccer audience, anyone interested in World War Two would be fascinated by Dougan's treatment of life in occupied Ukraine.
Rating: 5
Summary: wow
Comment: This book is much more than I expected. I purchased it because of my interest in football, Dynamo Kiev, and because of my german-russian background. I expected a book about soccer and it was much more. It opened my eyes to the facts surrounding the occupation of Kiev and the Russian perspective of the war. The story draws you in and it is hard to put the book down. It is also very personal for somebody with ties to the Kiev area and people.
If you are interested in these subjects, you should read this book. You will not be disappointed.
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Title: The Far Corner by Harry Pearson ISBN: 0349108374 Publisher: Trafalgar Square Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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Title: A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character, and...Goals! by Tim Parks ISBN: 1559706287 Publisher: Arcade Books Pub. Date: 10 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: The Miracle of Castel di Sangro : A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy by Joe McGinniss ISBN: 0767905997 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 06 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore ISBN: 0446532231 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 07 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right by Al Franken ISBN: 0525947647 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 29 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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