I Salute You, Caesar!

About the Book

The story "I Salute You, Caesar!" by Andrei Frolov, subtitled (The Story of my Life and Death) is a fictional story with a non-realistic ending. The main character is a Russian man, who tried to establish himself as an independent and creative person. He wanted to be a writer. The literature in the former Soviet Union was a part of State propaganda, a very important part of it. Once, at a writer's conference, the famous Soviet writer - Maxim Gorky, named writers as "engineers of human souls". Such words could be interpreted in different ways. Maxim Gorky established himself before the Revolution in Russia as a humanist, who wanted to see humans in the future as better than they were in their prerevolutionary past. Later, Soviet power developed this apophthegm of the proletarian writer into one of most important rules of Soviet ideology. In the understanding of Soviet leaders it meant that human souls should be cloned by recipe of the State and its ideology. The word "cloned" wasn't in use at that time, and Maxim Gorky probably wouldn't have wanted such an interpretation, as he and his moral principles were known. Some of the Soviet high-ranking bureaucrats were in charge of Ideology, Arts and Literature. The rules were created by them. In such a cultural climate independence of writers and others in the field of Art would be impossible. The main character of the story realized as he grew up that with his inability to compromise and to adjust to existing circumstances he has no chance to succeed. He became an engineer. His father, an engineer, always had convinced him to choose that path. Our young engineer worked successfully as an engineer, but, as many others, he couldn't get his own, even small, apartment. He couldn't buy a car. Such necessities were considered a kind of luxury, not available for everybody. He quit his job and tried to satisfy himself in different ways: he started to travel around the huge country (Russia) as a member of different kinds of expeditions and after while became a journalist. He wrote about people in so-called romantic professions: seamen, pilots, hunters…He should see those occupations in romantic way; the Soviet State needed young people, who were ready to work in difficult situations and not demanding a lot in return. The main character had great luck; while working in the Central Library in Moscow, he met an American girl, who was on an exchange program between Soviet and American Universities. After while they were married and from that point a lot of trouble began. After long struggle with Soviet authorities, the man finally moved to the U.S. to be reunited with his wife, but found himself in a difficult situation again. He had problems adjusting to the new life and new for him culture. It was a struggle again. His wife and he were divorced. The big changes had happened in Russia, unbelievable for many before. Russians got many Freedoms including Freedom for people, who worked in the field of literature. Our man became homesick. He moved back to Moscow, and shortly was killed by his old enemy - some former secret agent, a man who now worked for a group of criminals in new Russia, which was freed from Communism, but captured by corruption and criminal mafias. "I solute you, Caesar!" is well known greeting of slaves-gladiators, who were entering into the Coliseum arena in ancient Rome to fight and kill each other. The statue of an ancient Roman gladiator, who salute Caesar going to die, was in the main Public Library in Moscow in the reading hall for teenagers. Probably the administration of the Library considered this piece of Art (copy) to represent a particular historical era for young people, who studied history among other things.

About the Author

After High school graduation in Moscow, Andrei Frolov studied engineering at college. After the first year in college, he took an academic vacation, worked on ship in engine room on different positions, including position as machinist, years later graduated as mechanical engineer, worked in Moscow at Automobile factory and at the Research Institute as engineer-disigner. Also he studied in evening classes at the Cinema Institute. In year 1966 Andrei Frolov completed his degree at the Moscow Institute of Cinematography and worked as a script editor for Moscow television. He made a breake again, not academic now, and worked in different geological expeditions and some others, which were about exploration of natural resources. Since 1972, he worked as a freelance journalist for the magazines "Around the World" and "Country Youth" (both in Moscow). As a journalist he traveled extensively throughout the former Soviet Union, mostly to Siberia and far East of the Country. Working as a freelance journalist, Andrei Frolov met in Moscow an American graduate student and they were married in 1981. Frolov was forced to engage in a hunger strike in order to be allowed to move to the U.S. for a reunion with his wife. He emigrated to the U.S. at year 1982.