The Whisperers
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Peasant Russia, Civil War:
The Volga Countryside in Revolution, 1917–1921
A People’s Tragedy:
The Russian Revolution, 1891–1924
Interpreting the Russian Revolution:
The Language and Symbols of 1917
(with Boris Kolonitskii)
Natasha’s Dance:
A Cultural History of Russia
ORLANDO FIGES
The Whisperers
Private Life in Stalin’s Russia
ALLEN LANE
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
ALLEN LANE
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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First published 2007
1
Copyright © Orlando Figes, 2007
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright
reserved above, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior
written permission of both the copyright owner and
the above publisher of this book
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
EISBN: 978–0–141–80887–1
For my mother, Eva Figes (née Unger, Berlin 1932) and to the memory of the family we lost
Contents
List of Illustrations
Note on Proper Names
Maps
Family Trees
Introduction
1 Children of 1917 (1917–28)
2 The Great Break (1928–32)
3 The Pursuit of Happiness (1932–6)
4 The Great Fear (1937–8)
5 Remnants of Terror (1938–41)
6 ‘Wait For Me’ (1941–5)
7 Ordinary Stalinists (1945–53)
8 Return (1953–6)
9 Memory (1956–2006)
Afterword and Acknowledgements
Permissions
Notes
Sources
Index
List of Illustrations
xxxi Antonina Golovina, 1943
2 The four secretaries of Iakov Sverdlov, chief Party organizer of the Bolsheviks, the Smolny Institute, October 1917
17 Leonid Eliashov, 1932
19 Iosif and Aleksandra Voitinsky, Yekaterinoslav, 1924
21 A Lenin Corner, 1920s
23 Aleksei and Ivan Radchenko, 1927
26 Vera Minusova, early 1930s
40 The Tetiuev family, Cherdyn, 1927
42 Batania Bonner with her grandchildren, Moscow, 1929
48 Peasant nanny, Fursei family (Leningrad)
49 Natasha Ovchinnikova
56 The Vittenburg family at Olgino, 1925
60 Konstantin Simonov, Aleksandra and Aleksandr Ivanishev, Riazan, 1927
61 Page from Simonov’s school notebook (1923)
67 The Laskin family, Moscow, 1930
71 The Slavin family, 1927
78 Yevdokiia and Nikolai with their son Aleksei Golovin (1940s)
89 ‘Kulaks’ exiled from the village of Udachne, Khryshyne (Ukraine), early 1930s
90 Valentina Kropotina and her sister with three of their cousins, 1939
101 Exiles in a ‘special settlement’ in western Siberia, 1933
105 Left: Leonid and Aleksandr Rublyov, 1930. Right: Klavdiia, Natalia and Raisa Rublyova with Raisa’s husband, Kansk, 1930
107 Left: Aleksandr and Serafima Ozemblovsky on their wedding day in 1914. Right: Serafima with Sasha and Anton Ozemblovsky in 1937
116 Maria, Nadezhda and Ignatii Maksimov with Ignatii’s brother Anton, Arkhangelsk, 1934
119 The Uglitskikh family, Cherdyn, 1938
122 The Golovins’ bed from Obukhovo
135 Aleksandr Tvardovsky, 1940
140 Simonov ‘the proletarian’, 1933
147 The otlichniki of Class B, Pestovo School, 1936
148 Fania Laskina and Mikhail Voshchinsky, Moscow, 1932
149 The Laskin household in the Arbat
152 Left: Maiakovsky Metro Station, 1940. Right: Avtozavod Metro Station, 1940s
166 Left: Vladimir Makhnach, 1934. Right: Maria and Leonid, 1940s
168 From left: Anatoly Golovnia as Chekist, 1919; Liuba Golovnia, 1925; Boris Babitsky, 1932
170 Volik Babitsky and Liuba and Oksana Golovnia at the Kratovo dacha, 1935
176 The Khaneyevsky household
178 Communal apartment (‘corridor system’), 1930–64
182 The Reifshneiders’ room in the Third House of Soviets, Moscow
199 Simonov in 1936
206 Teachers and students of the Law Department of the Communist Academy in Leningrad, 1931
209 Zina and Pavel Vittenburg at the Kem labour camp, 1931
212 Pavel Vittenburg in his office, Vaigach labour camp, 1934
217 ‘Papa’s Corner’. Drawing by Mikhail Stroikov, 1935
220 The Poloz family, 1934
222 Letter (extract) from Tatiana Poloz to Rada, 12 June 1935
225 Nikolai and Elena (‘Alyona’) Kondratiev, 1926
226 Nikolai Kondratiev, ‘The Unusual Adventures of Shammi’ (detail)
229 Osip and Julia Piatnitsky with their sons and neighbours’ children at their dacha near Moscow, late 1920s
232 Osip Piatnitsky at the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, Moscow, 1935
247 Ida Slavina and her parents, 1937
266 The Malygin house in Sestroretsk, 1930s
288 The Nikitin and Turkin apartments, Perm
291 Gulchira Tagirova and her children, 1937
299 Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko with his wife Sofia and stepdaughter Valentina, 1936
317 Angelina and Nelly Bushueva, 1937
321 The house in Ak-Bulak where Elena Lebedeva lived with her granddaughters, Natalia and Elena Konstantinova, 1940s