Hvad er sandest: De historiske kendsgerninger i den ufuldstændige form, vi kender dem, eller den kunstneriske fremstilling, der flytter rundt på enkeltdelene for at trænge ned til historiens kerne? Det spørgsmål kunne man diskutere på baggrund af Stalins død, men det er lidt ligegyldigt. Så længe der spilles med åbne kort, er der behov for begge dele, hvis vi skal forstå fortidens virkelighed.

Forfatter Nury og tegner Robin lægger ikke skjul på, at de har digtet hen over kendsgerningerne, men der er heller ingen tvivl om, at der ligger mange timers research bag alt fra personkarakteristikken til mærkerne på uniformsjakkerne. Fortællingen starter med en koncert, som Stalin roser og gerne vil have en indspilning af – problemet er bare, at koncerten ikke bliver optaget, men det kan man selvfølgelig ikke fortælle ham. I stedet må endnu koncerten opføres endnu engang mens både teaterdirektører og medvirkende er ved at knække sammen under presset. Ingen gør sig illusioner, arbejdslejrene kan være næste opholdssted, hvis diktatoren ikke er tilfreds.

Scenen er sat: Vi befinder os i marts 1953 i selskab med en af historiens mest undertrykkende og paranoide magthavere. En mand som alle frygter med god grund, og som fra sin tidligste karriere har brugt brutalitet, falske anklager og udrensninger til at befæste sin magt. Men udødelig er han ikke, og i stedet for at fortsætte de jødeforfølgelser, som han var i gang med at dirigere, bliver han ramt af et slagtilfælde. Berija bliver hurtigt underrettet, men han vil ikke tilkalde en læge, før centralkomiteen er samlet. Og da den er samlet kræver det en god diskussion at blive enige om, hvordan der overhovedet skal udpeges læger.

Det er mænd, der har tusinder og atter tusinder af liv på samvittigheden, og selv de ryster i bukserne over for Stalin, der kan få dem til at forsvinde med et fingerknips. Ingen vil tage ansvar alene, heller ikke for at redde diktatorens liv, og da det først går op for dem, at slagtilfældet er alvorligt, har de heller ikke den store lyst til at bremse naturens gang.

Endnu før Stalin er død, går magtkampen i gang. Der er to kandidater til at overtage lederskabet: Berija, der som indenrigsminister og chef for NKVD har stået i spidsen for undertrykkelsesapparatet, og Krustjov. I starten ser den snu Berija ud til at have overtaget, men kan man stole på den mand, der så effektivt har været Stalins bøddel? Eller bør man frygte ham, fordi han ikke bare drømmer om at overtage Stalins plads men også hans metoder? Krustjov får efterhånden overbevist de andre om, at Berija må fjernes, hvis der skal sættes en stopper for de blodige udrensninger helt ind i partitoppen.

Det er ikke mindst i forhold til Stalins to børn, at Nury tager sig nogle friheder. De tildeles mere centrale roller, end der egentlig er grundlag for, og det handler nok om at menneskeliggøre ham, for det store dilemma er jo, at Stalin ganske vist var et paranoidt monster, der mest optræder som halv- eller heldød i bogen, men han var også et menneske med drifter og familie, hvilket bare gøre hans handlinger mod andre mennesker og deres familie endnu mere absurde.

Tegningerne er ganske vist i farver, men de er domineret af sort og hvid med solid brug af skygger og skarpe kontraster. De centrale figurer i Centralkomiteen fremstilles næsten karikeret, men det handler nok lige så meget om at gøre dem hurtigt genkendelige for læseren. Personerne og deres indbyrdes relationer var så giftige, at der ikke er behov for at karikere. Til gengæld fanger den mørke og ekspressionistiske stil godt den paranoia og rædsel, som fyldte alle i magtens nærhed.

Bogen er forsynet med ekstramateriale i form af et efterord ved historikeren Jean-Jacques Marie, stilstudier af hovedpersonerne og uddrag af en ikke-udgivet tegneseriebiografi om Stalin, som Thierry Robin arbejdede på, inden Nury tilbød ham at illustrere denne historie. Det er fint, men også blot et supplement til en godt fortalt historie, der som et ægte kunstværk formår at trænge ned i de grundlæggende konflikter og digte overbevisende hen over de velkendte fakta. ( )

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Nury-La-mort-de-Staline-Integrale/649606
> Elle (Chloé Laforest) : http://www.elle.fr/Loisirs/Livres/Dossiers/BD-a-lire-au-moins-une-fois-dans-sa-v...

This is a fairly interesting depiction of the power struggle at the highest level of the Soviet government following the death of Stalin. Evil old white men rape, conspire and murder, so yeah, there's no one to root for in this tale of political intrigue beyond a defiant young female pianist shoved into framing scenes and a small cameo in the center of the book. Also, this is a fictionalized take on events so being ignorant of the facts, I was a little frustrated at not knowing what was real and what was made up, though a disclaimer at the start implies much of it is conjecture. Bottom line: this is a well executed work whose subject matter left me cold. ( )

This graphic narrative recounts the aftermath of the death of Stalin: the party politics, the manoeuvring for power, and the moments of utter farce that arose from the circumstances. Overall, I thought the narrative did a good job of encapsulating those events and particularly keeping the atmosphere laced with an undertone of menace; after all, these were people's lives and Beria was a nightmare figure.

Having seen the movie first, I probably prefer the movie, which highlights more of the farcical side of things with black humour, and gives more speaking roles to the women. There aren't a lot of women in the story to begin with, but they are much more present in the movie, such as Nikita Khruschev's wife. Overall, though, the graphic narrative provided a good jumping-off point for Iannucci to make a great movie, and it's interesting to read the source material to compare the two. ( )

Here Be Monsters

Sometimes the most persuasive way to portray the monstrous is through the medium of fiction, whether it be the recording of Nazi atrocities in "The Kindly Ones" by Jonathan Littell or in the case of this graphic novelization of various apocryphal stories surrounding the death of the Communist dictator Joseph Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union from the mid-1920's through to his death in 1953. A strict non-fictional listing of the brutal facts can by turns be simply repellent, too overwhelming or just a droning bore.

Fiction usually needs a hero or perhaps an anti-hero to give the reader a point of entry into the book's world. "The Death of Stalin" does provide that somewhat through the bookending use of classical pianist Maria Yudina. An infamous apocryphal story related in Solomon Volkov's "Testimony: The Memoirs" (it has been long disputed whether any of it was actually written by composer Dmitri Shostakovich) is that Stalin heard a broadcast of Yudina performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 with the Moscow Symphony and phoned up Radio Moscow to ask for a personal copy to be delivered the next day. The broadcast had been live-to-air though and no actual recording existed. Such was the terror induced by a mere trifling request from the feared dictator that the radio station re-assembled the musicians in the middle of the night to record the album and to press a single LP copy to be delivered to Stalin the following morning. Graphic novel writer Fabien Nury takes this story a step further though and moves the night of the broadcast & recording to a few days prior to Stalin's death in 1953, although Volkov's supposed incident occurred in 1944. So a likely fictional story is made to serve as a dramatic plot element leading to Stalin's death. But the point of it is how a single incident can be used to portray the fear that Stalin induced in his people. Yudina is drawn as a feisty glamorous diva, a portrayal that will likely be accentuated further by having model-actress Olga Kurylenko in the role for the upcoming film-version by director Armando Iannucci. The real-life Yudina seems to have been more of a dour religiously-observant individual.

I've over-explained the Yudina incident here only because I had read of it previously. But it is a good example to show how Fabien Nury and illustrator Thierry Robin have taken the bare-bones facts and various rumours and apocryphal stories to illustrate the incidents preceding and following the death of Stalin. It may seem unbelievable, but it is horrifying, entertaining and persuasive. And the actual truth would likely be even more unbelievable.

Further on Fabien Nury
Looking further into writer Fabien Nury I found that many of his works have not yet (as of mid-2017) been translated from their original French. There is one other collaboration with artist Thierry Robin in "Mort au Tsar" (Death to the Tsar) in 2 parts "Le Gouverneur" (The Governer) & "Le Terroriste" (The Terrorist) which is about the 1905 Russian Revolution (not the 1917 one). Other works are the Nazis & Vampires saga "I Am Legion" which is apparently also in film preproduction and various genre series such as the WWII Occupied France story of "Il était une fois en France" (Once Upon a Time in France) and the wild west epic "W.E.S.T." ( )