Overview

Asked shortly after the revolution about how she viewed the new government, Tatiana Varsher replied, ""With the wide-open eyes of a historian."" Her countrywoman, Zinaida Zhemchuzhnaia, expressed a similar need to take note: ""I want to write about the way those events were perceived and reflected in the humble and distant corner of Russia that was the Cossack town of Korenovskaia."" What these women witnessed and experienced, and what they were moved to describe, is part of the extraordinary portrait of life in revolutionary Russia presented in this book. A collection of life stories of Russian women in the first half of the twentieth century, In the Shadow of Revolution brings together the testimony of Soviet citizens and emigres, intellectuals of aristocratic birth and Soviet milkmaids, housewives and engineers, Bolshevik activists and dedicated opponents of the Soviet regime. In literary memoirs, oral interviews, personal dossiers, public speeches, and letters to the editor, these women document their diverse experience of the upheavals that reshaped Russia in the first half of this century.As is characteristic of twentieth-century Russian women's autobiographies, these life stories take their structure not so much from private events like childbirth or marriage as from great public events.Accordingly the collection is structured around the events these women see as touchstones: the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War of 1918-20; the switch to the New Economic Policy in the 1920s and collectivization; and the Stalinist society of the 1930s, including the Great Terror. Edited by two preeminent historians of Russia and the Soviet Union, the volume includes introductions that investigate the social historical context of these women's lives as well as the structure of their autobiographical narratives.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sheila Fitzpatrick ,  Yuri Slezkine
Publisher:   Princeton University Press
Imprint:   Princeton University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.70cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.624kg
ISBN:  

9780691019499

ISBN 10:   0691019495
Pages:   456
Publication Date:   21 May 2000
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Language:   English

Table of Contents

"PREFACE vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix Introduction 3 Sheila Fitzpatrick, Lives and Times 3 Yuri Slezkine, Lives as Tales 18 PART I. Civil War as a Way of Life (1917-1920) 31 1. Ekaterina Olitskaia, My Reminiscences (1) 33 2. Anna Litveiko, In 1917 49 3. P. E. Melgunova-Stepanova, Where Laughter Is Never Heard 66 4. Anna Andzhievskaia, A Mother's Story 73 5. Zinaida Zhemchuzhnaia, The Road to Exile 82 6. Nadezhda Krupskaia, Autobiography 111 7. Tatiana Varsher, Things Seen and Suffered 113 8. Zinaida Patrikeeva, Cavalry Boy 118 9. Irina Elenevskaia, Recollections 123 10. Sofia Volkonskaia, The Way of Bitterness 140 PART II. Toward ""New Forms of Life"" (The 1920s) 167 11. Agrippina Korevanova, My Life 169 12. Anonymous, What Am I to Do? 207 13. Ekaterina Olitskaia, My Reminiscences (2) 209 14. Paraskeva Ivanova, Why I Do Not Belong in the Party 213 15. Maria Belskaia, Arina's Children 219 16. Antonina Solovieva, Sent by the Komsomol 235 17. Nenila Bazeleva et al., Peasant Narratives (1) 241 18. Anna Balashova, A Worker's Life 243 19. Valentina Bogdan, Students in the First Five-Year Plan 252 20. Alla Kiparenko, Building the City of Youth 277 21. Anna Iankovskaia, A Belomor Confession 282 22. Lidia Libedinskaia, The Green Lamp 286 PART III. ""Life Has Become Merrier"" (The 1930s) 303 23. Pasha Angelina, The Most Important Thing 305 24. Efrosinia Kislova et al., Peasant Narratives (2) 322 25. Fruma Treivas, We Were Fighting for an Idea! 324 26. N. I. Slavnikova et al., Speeches by Stakhanovites 331 27. Ulianova, A Cross-Examination 342 28. Anna Shchetinina, A Sea Captain's Story 350 29. Kh. Khuttonen, Farewell to the Komsomol 354 30. Anastasia Plotnikova, Autobiography 356 31. A. V. Vlasovskaia et al., Speeches by Stakhanovites' Wives 359 32. Inna Shikheeva-Gaister, A Family Chronicle 367 33. Evdokia Maslennikova, The Story of My Life 391 34. Valentina Bogdan, Memoirs of an Engineer 394 35. Frida Troib et al., Engineers' Wives 419 36. Ekaterina Olitskaia, My Reminiscences (3) 424 GLOSSARY 435 INDEX 437"

Reviews

Give[s] depth and human dimension to a place and period too often shrouded in polemics and ideology. Publishers Weekly Each autobiography here transforms the story of a private life into the story of the country and the times... Kirkus Reviews

Give[s] depth and human dimension to a place and period too often shrouded in polemics and ideology. -- Publishers Weekly Each autobiography here transforms the story of a private life into the story of the country and the times... -- Kirkus Reviews

A collection of life stories of Russian women, accompanied by an analytical introduction and edited by scholars Fitzpatrick (History/Univ. of Chicago) and Slezkine (History/Univ. of California), from the perspective of direct participants in the unfolding historical drama begun in 1917.Contributing to the completeness of the picture, the documents selected for this publication vary in genre from literary autobiographies to edited interviews to formal letters and speeches, and their authors are just as diverse in social class, experience, age, and occupation. The objectivity of the narrative is bolstered because events are assessed from opposite points of view (from that of both the victims and the beneficiaries of the Revolution). These antagonistic positions merge in camp memoirs written by those who were at first strong supporters of the Bolshevik cause, but later fell from grace. One principle unifying almost all the narratives is the suppression of personal information. Instead of the traditional focus on marriage, childbirth, and family life, these women defined themselves in terms of historical and public events. The Revolution, civil war, collectivization, and industrialization were the major milestones of their lives. These personal accounts differ significantly in length and style. From Lenins wife Nadezhda Krupskaia, for instance, we have a brief, dry, and extremely factual third-person account of her political activities. Princess Sofia Volkonskaia, on the other hand, produced a highly emotional story of her return to Russia from emigration in order to rescue her husband from jail. But even here, private circumstances are viewed against the broader background of disarray and brutality that reigned in post-revolutionary Russia. Yet another patriotic and upbeat narrative filled with praise of Stalin can be found in the autobiography of the Soviet Unions most decorated labor hero, tractor driver and Supreme Soviet Deputy Pasha Angelina.Each autobiography here transforms the story of a private life into the story of the country and the times: a volume sure to attract early Soviet history buffs. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Sheila Fitzpatrick is the Bernadotte E. Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor in History at the University of Chicago and coeditor of The Journal of Modern History. She is the author of, most recently, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s and Accusatory Practices: Denunciation in Modern European History, 1789-1989. Yuri Slezkine is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the coeditor of Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture and the author of Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North.

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