Bury Me Behind the Baseboard by Pavel Sanaev was, for many years, a bit like Pasternak was for Soviet citizens. Meaning: I hadn’t read it, but I’d heard so much about it from all sides that, deep down, I didn’t even want to read it—I “disapproved” along with everyone else.
But the years went by. The book kept coming up, stage adaptations were made, and it even got a screen version with fantastic actors. So at some point I decided you can’t judge a book based on third-hand retellings.
Pavel Sanaev is the son of the actress Yelena Sanaeva, whom most people know as Alice the Fox from the film The Adventures of Buratino. He’s also the stepson of actor and director Rolan Bykov (a name that really needs no introduction). And he’s the grandson of the famous actor Vsevolod Sanaev (he appeared in all sorts of films, but Belarusians probably know him best as Fedos in White Dew).
And Bury Me Behind the Baseboard is a slightly fictionalized set of the author’s memories of his childhood. The names have been changed, but overall he’s simply telling the story of how he lived—separated from his mother—under the care of his grandmother, and to some extent his grandfather too.
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