The second edition of the novel Woldemar by Oleg Serebrian has been launched on Wednesday in Chisinau. Relieved of the footnotes that peppered the first edition, it tells the slightly redacted and reconstructed story of a boy of about 8 years old, the grandson of Marta Skawronski, the leading character in Serebrian’s previous novel Cântecul mării/The Song of the Sea.
At his first contacts with school and society, Woldemar starts developing adaptive and inclusion issues. “He is a child who lived in his own world, sort of a Soviet version of Mowgli, and who suddenly finds himself propelled in the middle of society, a pretty much alien world to him”, abstracts Serebrian.
The novel is neither autobiographical nor analytical, but rather “a cornerstone for other, more important novels”, the author said during the book launch.
“My childhood was different, though I won’t deny there are many contextual elements there. The situations described come from a collective memory or from recollections that I heard from friends or relatives, some of them former deportees”. Serebrian says the novel is about loneliness and unrequited friendship. “It is (also) a story about the onset of sexuality, as the protagonist is at an age when the first questions about sexuality appear. Then it’s about atmosphere, as I wanted to paint a fresco of a typical Soviet society at the border of the USSR in the 1970s”.
Poetess Maria Șleahtițchi noted that in this sequel to The Song of the Sea, the first installment of the saga, some plot lines are revisited from a different angle. “I enjoyed reading this novel because it is a book well written that shows the growth of a novelist”.
Linguist Nina Corcinschi also praised the novel as a proof that Oleg Serebrian is “a talented proser with great linguistic and psychological refinement” . Woldemar is a novel “with a very personalized aesthetics, a generous transfer of sensibility and individuality closely and intimately connected to the author’s inner self. It is a narratively well built novel, a living novel, an overwhelming novel because it abounds in exacerbated sentiments. Woldemar is a boy that seems bound for success, but then comes this rupture of his inner self from the world, and he tries to rescue himself by taking refuge in his childhood”.
Woldemar’s second edition was printed in 1,000 copies, which be bought from bookstores for 111 lei.
Oleg Serebrian is a Moldovan political scientist, politician, author and diplomat, currently serving as Moldova’s ambassador to Germany. In 2012 he was given the Moldovan Writers Union’s Special Award for his Song of the Sea, and in 2013 he became a member of the Union.
