In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War

Sheila Fitzpatrick, Yuri Slezkine

Princeton University Press, May 21, 2000 - Biography & Autobiography - 443 pages

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 émigrés, 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.

Contents

• INTRODUCTION: 3
• Yuri Slezkine Lives as Tales: 18
• Civil War as a Way of Life 19171920: 31
• Ekaterina Olitskaia My Reminiscences 1: 33
• Anna Litveiko In 1917: 49
• P E MelgunovaStepanova Where Laughter Is Never Heard: 66
• Anna Andzhievskaia A Mothers Story: 73
• Zinaida Zhemchuzhnaia The Road to Exile: 82
• Nadezhda Krupskaia Autobiography: 111
• Tatiana Varsher Things Seen and Suffered: 113
• Zinaida Patrikeeva Cavalry Boy: 118
• Irina Elenevskaia Recollections: 123
• Sofia Volkonskaia The Way of Bitterness: 140
• Toward New Forms of Life The 1920s: 167
• Agrippina Korevanova My Life: 169
• Anonymous What Am I to Do?: 207
• Ekaterina Olitskaia My Reminiscences 2: 209
• Paraskeva Ivanova Why I Do Not Belong in the Party: 213
• Maria Belskaia Arinas Children: 219
• Antonina Solovieva Sent by the Komsomol: 235
• Nenila Bazeleva et al Peasant Narratives 1: 241
• Anna Balashova A Workers Life: 243
• Valentina Bogdan Students in the First FiveYear Plan: 252
• Alla Kiparenko Building the City of Youth: 277
• Anna Iankovskaia A Belomor Confession: 282
• Lidia Libedinskaia The Green Lamp: 286
• Life Has Become Merrier The 1930s: 303
• Pasha Angelina The Most Important Thing: 305
• Efrosinia Kislova et al Peasant Narratives 2: 322
• Fruma Treivas We Were Fighting for an Idea: 324
• N I Slavnikova et al Speeches by Stakhanovites: 331
• Ulianova A CrossExamination: 342
• Anna Shchetinina A Sea Captains Story: 350
• Kh Khuttonen Farewell to the Komsomol: 354
• Anastasia Plotnikova Autobiography: 356
• A V Vlasovskaia et al Speeches by Stakhanovites Wives: 359
• Inna ShikheevaGaister A Family Chronicle: 367
• Evdokia Maslennikova The Story of My Life: 391
• Valentina Bogdan Memoirs of an Engineer: 394
• Frida Troib et al Engineers Wives: 419
• Ekaterina Olitskaia My Reminiscences 3: 424
• GLOSSARY: 435
• INDEX: 437

About the author

Sheila Fitzpatrick is an Australian historian, born in 1941 in Melbourne Australia. She earned her BA from the University of Melbourne and received her PhD from St Antony's College, Oxford University. She is the a Professor in the Department of History at the University of Sydney, and Emerita Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. She is the author of numerous books, articles, and book reviews. Her first book was The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet organization of education and the arts under Lunacharsky, 1917-1921 (1970). Her recent work includes My Father's Daughter (2010), A Spy in the Archives (2013), and On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics. Princeton University Press (2015) for which she was a joint winner of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2016, Nonfiction.

Bibliographic information

• Title: In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War; Princeton Paperbacks
• Editors: Sheila Fitzpatrick, Yuri Slezkine
• Translated by: Yuri Slezkine
• Compiled by: Yuri Slezkine
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2000
• ISBN: 0691019495, 9780691019499
• Length: 443 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; Biography & Autobiography / Historical; Biography & Autobiography / Women; History / Modern / 20th Century / General; History / Russia / General; History / Russia / Soviet Era; History / Women; Social Science / Women's Studies