Ilya Ehrenburg

Born in 1891, Ehrenburg reported from three wars across half a century, filing copy from the trenches of the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. His articles during the Great Patriotic War — raw, incendiary, calling for vengeance against the invaders — made him a hero to soldiers and a lightning rod for controversy; he later insisted he meant only armed aggressors, not a people. After Stalin's death in 1953, his novel "The Thaw" gave a name to the slow melt of Soviet repression. He co-edited "The Black Book" with Vasily Grossman, documenting the H…