Summer of the Lord: Holidays. Joy. Sorrow

The novel “Summer of the Lord” can rightfully be called the peak of the work of the writer and the Orthodox thinker Ivan Shmelev. The book, the work on which continued from 1933 to 1948, consists of three parts: “Holidays”, “Joy” and “Sorrow”.
The autobiographical work shows the life of a patriarchal merchant family through the eyes of a little boy. The Russian way of life is described through the church liturgical year, starting from Great Lent, and family traditions. This is the narrative of both the old Moscow life, seen by the eyes of the child and the world of a Russian man whose life is imbued with the Orthodox spirit and filled with Christian faith.
The author himself wrote about the book “Summer of the Lord”: “In it I show the face of Holy Russia, which I wear in my heart ... Russia, which looked into my childhood soul.”