Dersu Uzala (book)
Dersu Uzala (Russian: Дерсу Узала; alternate U.S. titles: With Dersu the Hunter and Dersu the Trapper) is a 1923 memoir by the Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev, concerning his travels with the hunter Dersu Uzala.
 | |
| Author | V. K. Arseniev |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Travelogue |
| Publisher | McPherson |
Publication date | October 1996 |
| ISBN | 978-0-929701-49-3 |
Plot
Arsenyev's book tells of his travels in the Ussuri basin in the Russian Far East. Dersu Uzala was a Nanai hunter (who lived c. 1849–1908) who acted as a guide for Arsenyev's surveying crew from 1902 to 1907, and saved them from starvation and cold. Arsenyev portrays him as a great man, an animist who sees animals and plants as equal to man. From 1907, Arsenyev invited Dersu to live in his house in Khabarovsk as Dersu's failing sight hampered his ability to live as a hunter. In the spring of 1908, Dersu bade farewell to Arsenyev and walked back to his home in the Primorsky Krai, where he was killed. According to Arsenyev's book, Dersu Uzala was murdered near the town of Korfovskiy and buried in an unmarked grave in the taiga.
Editions in Russian
- Дерсу Узала. Сквозь тайгу Издательство: Терра - Книжный клуб (1997) Н. Е. Кабанова (ed.) ISBN 9785300010973 (English: Dersu Uzala. Taiga Publishing House: Terra Book Club) (1997) N. ya. Kabanov (ed.) ISBN 9785300010973)
English translations
- With Dersu the Hunter: Adventures in the Taiga adapted by Anne Terry White
- Pub: George Braziller 1965, A Venture Book, New York. ISBN 0-8076-0325-2
- Dersu the Trapper translated by Malcolm Burr
- Pub: Secker & Warburg, London 1939. First English edition.
- Pub: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. New York: 1941. ISBN 0-929701-49-6 First American edition.
- Pub: McPherson and others, 1996, 2001. ISBN 0-929701-49-6. Mass market paperback.
- Dersu Uzala translated by Victor Shneerson
- Pub: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, ca 1950
- Pub: Raduga Moscow 1990, ISBN 5-05-002822-1
- Pub: University Press of the Pacific 2004 ISBN 1-4102-1347-1
Film adaptations
- 1961 - Dersu Uzala (Дерсу Узала) Soviet Union, director Agasi Babayan [Агаси Бабаян]
- 1975 - Dersu Uzala (Дерсу Узала) Soviet Union/Japan, director Akira Kurosawa