The Russian Century
The Russian Century
A Hundred Years of Russian Lives
Edited by George Pahomov Nickolas Lupinin
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF AMERICA,® INC.
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Copyright © 2008 by
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Contents
Acknowledgementsv
Introductionvii
Glossary of Russian Termsxi
PART I THE VANISHED PRESENCE: RUSSIA
BEFORE 19141
Viktor Chernov, Idylls on the Volga3
Sergei N. Durylin, Domestic Love18
Sofiia Kovalevskaia, A Thief in the House28
Oleg Pantiukhov, A Student’s Summer41
Aleksandra Tyrkova-Williams, A Woman’s Autonomy54
Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev, Memoirs64
Vladimir Zenzinov, Coming of Age74
Vasilii Nikiforov-Volgin, Presanctified Gifts88
Mark Vishniak, In Two Worlds95
Konstantin Paustovskii, Commencement Revelry103 PART II INSTABILITY AND DISLOCATION: 1914–1929111
Georgii Altaev, How I Became a Cub Scout113
Nikolai Filatov, A Soldier’s Letters120
ivContents
Konstantin Paustovskii, Save Your Strength130
Roman Gul, We’re in Power Now139
Sergei Mamontov, Civil War: A White Army Journal144
Vera Volkonskaia, Orphaned by Revolution155
Mikhail Gol’dshtein, My First Recital168
Viktor Kravchenko, Youth in the Red173
Vasilii Ianov, The Heart of a Peasant181
PART III UNRELENTING ORDER AND TERROR:
1930–1953189
B. Brovtsyn, Dearly Beloved191
Tat’iana Fesenko, Internal Dissenter199
Nila Magidoff, Only to Travel! Only to Live!210
Tat’iana Fesenko, War-Scorched Kiev225
Elena I. Kochina, Blockade Diary236
N. Ianevich, Literary Politics251
K. Vadot, The Terrorist259
PART IV APOGEE AND FRACTURE: 1954–1991265
Mariia Shapiro, A Soviet Capitalist267
Valerii Leviatov, My Path to God273
Valentin Kataev, A Paschal Memory282
Kirill Kostsinskii [K.V. Uspenskii], A Dissident’s Trial285
Iurii Krotkov, The KGB in Action290
Vladimir Azbel, Siberian Adversity306
Leonid Shebarshin, Three Days in August315
Acknowledgments
My gratitude is due, first of all, to Professor Nickolas Lupinin of Franklin Pierce University, gentle critic and steadfast friend, co-author, without whom this volume would never have appeared and also to Marina Adamovitch, editor of The New Review (Novyi zhurnal), for her helpful advice and permission to translate and reprint a number of memoirs from that journal. Gratitude must also be expressed to a number of publishers and publications, some of them long-vanished, whose names appear in the brief introduction to each particular entry. I also wish to thank several colleagues and friends for their exemplary translations of various pieces: Professor Mark Swift, of the University of Auckland, for translating Filatov, “A Soldier’s Letters,” Leviatov, “My Path to God,” and Fesenko, “War-Scorched Kiev;” Professor Karen Black of Millersville University for Paustovskii, “Commencement Revelry;” Sharon Bain, my colleague at Bryn Mawr College, for Shapiro, “A Soviet Capitalist;” Cindy Burr-Ramsey for Durylin, “Domestic Love,” and Krotkov, “KGB in Action;” Julie Stetson for Vadot, “The Terrorist;” and Brian Boeck for Gul, “We’re in Power Now.” Finally, to my students at Bryn Mawr College who, in taking my course on Russian culture and civilization, provided incentive and manifested the curiosity and enthusiasm which is their valued hallmark.
Bryn MawrGeorge Pahomov
Introduction
Russia has had a great influence on the twentieth century world. Russian music, dance, theatre, art, and literature have shaped contemporary life in significant ways. It is very unlikely that one reaches adulthood without reading Dr. Zhivago, seeing the films of Eisenstein or the plays of Chekhov. And any overview of 20th century art and music will prominently include Malevich, Kandinsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. But this influence also has a dark side. The Russian version of communism was a virulent ideology during a major part of the twentieth century, its global impact so profound that it has rightly become the source of countless studies and extensive documentation. While this focus on Russian communism is invaluable and completely justified, it too often overshadows the many other aspects of Russian life. There is still an unknown Russia, a Russia comprised of private lives as opposed to public history. This Russia includes the stories of real people who lived during the turbulent one-hundred years between 1890-1991, people from diverse backgrounds, a broad geographic spectrum, and various educational and socio-economic levels. This volume, which brings together letters, diaries, personal sketches, and memoirs—most of which are appearing in English for the first time—was put together to tell that fascinating story.
Beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, with the rapid growth of cities and industry and Russia’s entrance into modernity, and proceeding chronologically to the collapse of the USSR in August 1991, the stories presented here do not simply trace linear change punctuated by great convulsive events. Those are the peaks of history. These accounts have been written by people who lived in the shadows of those peaks but who strived to make meaning of their lives. The selections speak in an intimate and personal voice of immediate experience rather than of the distant, general flow of history.
viii
Introduction