Seryozha is a short novel by Soviet writer Vera Panova

Vera Panova

-Early life:Vera was born into the family of an impoverished merchant in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. Her father, Fyodor Ivanovich Panov, built canoes and yachts as a hobby, and founded two yachting clubs in Rostov. When she was five her father drowned in the Don River. After her father's death, her...

. Seryozha has also been translated as Time Walked and A Summer to Remember. Seryozha is a diminutive form of the name Sergey.

Plot

Seryozha is the story of a young boy living in the rural Soviet Union in the mid 1950s. The novel describes Seryozha's experiences, and those of his family, friends and neighbors over the course of a summer. The most important event of the story is the marriage of Seryozha's mother to a Red Army veteran named Dmitry Korostelyev. Korostelyev becomes the new manager of the local collective farm and a strong role model for Seryozha. Throughout the novel Panova gives a relatively grim picture of life in the rural Soviet Union where both money and opportunity are scarce. The novel ends with Korostelyev being reassigned to a new collective farm in the remote Arkhangelsky District

Arkhangelsky District

Arkhangelsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the fifty-four in the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia. Its administrative center is the rural locality of Arkhangelskoye...

, and taking the family with him.

Quote

Panova said of the genesis of Seryozha:

"The soul of a child was revealed to me, the revelation engendered reflection, my reflections became clothed in images- and there appeared Seryozha."

English translations

• Time Walked, Harvill Press, 1957.
• A Summer to Remember, Thomas Yoseloff, 1962.
• Selected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976.