Yankees in Petrograd

Name: Yankees in Petrograd
Price: 55 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780262553063

Marietta S. Shaginyan, Jill Roese, Jill Roese

$55

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

MIT Press
19 August 2025

Science fiction

When a capitalist cabal plots to assassinate Lenin, can quick-witted American workers ride to the rescue before it's too late?-a new translation.

When a capitalist cabal plots to assassinate Lenin, can quick-witted American workers ride to the rescue before it's too late?-a new translation.

In Yankees in Petrograd, the Russian author Marietta S. Shaginyan (writing under the American nom de plume Jim Dollar) gives us a riveting crime and espionage adventure with science fiction elements. Despite having awesome technologies such as public transportation that bends space and time and electrical forcefields protecting Soviet Russia against its foes, the world's first proletarian state is threatened by a fascist organization that will stop at nothing-including kidnapping, mesmerism, and infiltration-to assassinate Vladimir Lenin and his fellow Communist leaders! Enter Mike Thingsmaster, American tradesman and leader of a secret global organization defending the interests of the proletariat, who tasks his network with foiling this nefarious plot.

Shaginyan's novel, serialized in 1924 with covers decorated by Alexander Rodchenko's photomontages, proved wildly popular with the Soviet reading public, which followed its dizzying plot breathlessly. Settings constantly shift and characters assume multiple identities, and scenes of danger, intrigue, and melodrama are interspersed with moments of comic relief. Can Thingsmaster and his allies-including a robber baron's scion who converts to the cause of Revolution, an alluring masked woman, a doctor investigating a disease that causes fierce anti-communists to revert to proto-human form, a chimney sweep, an intelligent dog, and the General Prosecutor of Illinois-succeed in thwarting the fascists? You'll have to read until the final chapter to find out.

A satire of the sort of thrillers then appearing in Black Mask and similar American pulps, Yankees in Petrograd is an over-the-top, pro-communist thrill ride.

By: Marietta S. Shaginyan, Jill Roese
Introduction by: Jill Roese
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 200mm, Width: 133mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262553063
ISBN 10: 0262553066
Pages: 488
Publication Date: 19 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Marietta S. Shaginyan was a Soviet writer, historian, and activist of Armenian descent. She was one of the ""fellow travelers"" of the 1920s led by the Serapion Brotherhood and became one of the most prolific communist writers experimenting in satirico-fantastic fiction.

Reviews for Yankees in Petrograd

“Marietta Shaginyan’s Yankees in Petrograd is a time capsule—a rollicking, mixed-genre, socialist antidote to Ayn Rand. It’s great to have it in this new edition.” —Keith Gessen, author of A Terrible Country “A novel of our time, in which major events succeed each other with purely cinematographic speed . . . In Jim Dollar’s novel we see nothing but action.” —Nikolai Meshcheryakov, “Foreword to the First Edition” (1924)