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Brian Garfield

Brian Garfield (Brian Garfield, 1939, New York) — American writer and screenwriter, author of more than fifty adventure works (detectives, westerns). His novel "Kolchak's Gold" (1973) contains a Crimean plot strand and directly points to the Ukrainian origin of the protagonist's family and the Ukrainian affiliation of Sevastopol.

Overview

Brian Garfield was born in 1939 in New York. During his lifetime he wrote more than 50 works in various genres of adventure literature — primarily detective novels and westerns; he was president of the American association of detective writers. Several films were made from his works, including "Death Wish" (2018) with Bruce Willis and "Three Days of the Condor".

The key work for the Ukrainian-Crimean theme is the novel "Kolchak's Gold" (The Paladin / Kolchak's Gold, 1973). The narrative is told by historian Harry Bristow, an American of Ukrainian descent, who searches for Admiral Kolchak's vanished "gold train" (the tsarist gold reserve of ~500 tons). The plot runs through Israel, Siberia, a Nazi special commando of 1942 that delivered the gold to Crimea, and a confrontation of intelligence services (Mossad, CIA, KGB). The culmination of the Crimean strand — the hero's stay in the then-closed Sevastopol and a trip to the village of Bykivske in Greater Yalta.

Importantly, in the novel (through the narrator-author) Sevastopol is directly called a Ukrainian city: "my mother was Ukrainian… she lived in Sevastopol," which is cited by an article in "Krymska Svitlytsia" as an argument in favor of the thesis "Sevastopol is Ukraine."

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Biography: born 1939 in New York; more than 50 adventure works; president of the American association of detective writers; screen adaptations ("Death Wish", "Three Days of the Condor").
  • "Kolchak's Gold" (1973): a detective-adventure novel about the search for Kolchak's vanished gold reserve (estimated at ~2 billion dollars by 1970s standards).
  • Ukrainian trace: the protagonist Harry Bristow is an American of Ukrainian descent; the narrator's mother came from Sevastopol, where she lived until 1935; command of the Ukrainian language.
  • Crimean plot strand: Nazi operation of 1942 to transport the gold to Crimea; Bristow's stay in the closed Sevastopol; a trip to Bykivske (Greater Yalta); "Sevastopol Newspaper", KGB, Mossad, CIA appear.
  • Thesis "Sevastopol is Ukraine": Garfield's authorial position, covered in the "Krymska Svitlytsia" article as a separate credit to the writer.
  • Crimea in the works of foreign literature: Much gold — much death — an article by Valerii Verkhovskyi in the newspaper "Krymska Svitlytsia" (2019, No. 41-42), the main primary source on Garfield and the novel "Kolchak's Gold".
  • Jules Verne and Crimea — another article from the same "Crimea in the works of foreign literature" section about the depiction of Crimea in foreign literature.
  • Beryl Bainbridge — another article from the same section about the depiction of Crimea in foreign prose (the novel "Master Georgie").
  • Crimea is Ukraine (project) — a project whose idea the article cites (the thesis about the Ukrainian affiliation of Sevastopol).
  • Jasper Fforde — an article from the same "Crimea in the works of foreign literature" section about the Welsh science-fiction writer and the novel "The Eyre Affair".
  • George Fraser — an article from the same section about the Scottish writer and the Flashman cycle (Crimean War, escape from captivity).
  • Harold Lamb — an article from the same section about the American writer and the "Cossack cycle" about Cossack Khlit (Crimean Khanate, influence on Robert Howard).
  • Heinrich Böll — an article from the same section about the German writer and Nobel Prize laureate and his Crimean frontline experience (1943).
  • Colleen McCullough — an article from the same section about the Australian writer and the depiction of Mithridates/Bosporus/Panticapaeum in "Masters of Rome".
  • Louis Boussenard — an article from the same section about the French novelist and the novel "The Zouaves of the Malakhov Mound" about the Crimean War.
  • Mark Twain — an article from the same section about the American writer who visited Crimea in 1867 and described his impressions in the book "The Innocents Abroad" (a bestseller of 1869).
  • Michael Moorcock — an article from the same section about the British fantasy writer and the "Chronicles of Hawkmoon" cycle (techno-fantasy) with a Crimean plot (Simferopol, Kerch, "Ukrania").