Moment of History A Russian Soldier in World War I

A Moment of History, first published in 1960, is Nahum Sabsay's dramatic account of his years as a front-line Russian soldier fighting the Germans and Austrians. Especially memorable is his description of the an informal truce where the Russian and Austrian troops, separated by a No-man's land, sang and danced together, followed the next day by intense artillery barrages on each side. The book also depicts the fall of Czarist Russia and the fight against the Communist Red Army. Choosing to flee this chaos, author Sabsay would travel eastward across Siberia, arriving in the U.S. In 1918, he would go on to study mining engineering at Harvard and moved to California where he worked as a tool and die maker while perfecting his English and writing. Sabsay died in 1965.