In the Shadow of Revolution

by Fitzpatrick, Sheila; Slezkine, Yuri

• ISBN13: 9780691019499
• ISBN10: 0691019495
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-05-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

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 eacute;migreacute;s, 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.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	3	(1)
Lives and Times	3	(15)
Sheila Fitzpatrick
Lives as Tales	18	(13)
Yuri Slezkine
Part I. Civil War as a Way of Life (1917--1920)	31	(136)
My Reminiscences (1)	33	(16)
Ekaterina Olitskaia
In 1917	49	(17)
Anna Litveiko
Where Laughter Is Never Heard	66	(7)
P. E. Melgunova-Stepanova
A Mother's Story	73	(9)
Anna Andzhievskaia
The Road to Exile	82	(29)
Zinaida Zhemchuzhnaia
Autobiography	111	(2)
Nadezhda Krupskaia
Things Seen and Suffered	113	(5)
Tatiana Varsher
Cavalry Boy	118	(5)
Zinaida Patrikeeva
Recollections	123	(17)
Irina Elenevskaia
The Way of Bitterness	140	(27)
Sofia Volkonskaia
Part II. Toward ``New Forms of Life'' (The 1920s)	167	(136)
My Life	169	(38)
Agrippina Korevanova
What Am I to Do?	207	(2)
Anonymous
My Reminiscences (2)	209	(4)
Ekaterina Olitskaia
Why I Do Not Belong in the Party	213	(6)
Paraskeva Ivanova
Arina's Children	219	(16)
Maria Belskaia
Sent by the Komsomol	235	(6)
Antonina Solovieva
Peasant Narratives (1)	241	(2)
Nenila Bazeleva
A Worker's Life	243	(9)
Anna Balashova
Students in the First Five-Year Plan	252	(25)
Valentina Bogdan
Building the City of Youth	277	(5)
Alla Kiparenko
A Belomor Confession	282	(4)
Anna Iankovskaia
The Green Lamp	286	(17)
Lidia Libedinskaia
Part III. ``Life Has Become Merrier'' (The 1930s)	303	(132)
The Most Important Thing	305	(17)
Pasha Angelina
Peasant Narratives (2)	322	(2)
Efrosinia Kislova
We Were Fighting for an Idea!	324	(7)
Fruma Treivas
Speeches by Stakhanovites	331	(11)
N. I. Slavnikova
A Cross-Examination	342	(8)
Ulianova
A Sea Captain's Story	350	(4)
Anna Schetinina
Farewell to the Komsomol	354	(2)
Kh. Khuttonen
Autobiography	356	(3)
Anastasia Plotnikova
Speeches by Stakhanovites' Wives	359	(8)
A. V. Vlasovskaia
A Family Chronicle	367	(24)
Inna Shikheeva-Gaister
The Story of My Life	391	(3)
Evdokia Maslennikova
Memoirs of an Engineer	394	(25)
Valentina Bogdan
Engineers' Wives	419	(5)
Frida Troib
My Reminiscences (3)	424	(11)
Ekaterina Olitskaia
Glossary	435	(2)
Index	437