Pasternak Family Papers, 1878-2010
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'Socialism in One Country': Komsomol'tsy
Youthful Internationalism in the Age of ‘Socialism in One Country’: Komsomol’tsy, Pioneers and ‘World Revolution’ in the Interwar Period Matthias Neumann On the 1st of March 1927, two Komsomol members from the Chuvash Republic, located in the centre of European Russia, wrote an emotional letter to Comrade Stalin. Reflecting on the revolutionary upheavals in China, they attacked the inaction of the Komsomol and the party and expressed their sincere determination to self-mobilise and join the proletarian forces in China. ‘We do not need empty slogans such as “The Komsomol is prepared”’, ‘We must not live like this’ they wrote and boasted ‘we guarantee that we are able to mobilise thousands of Komsomol members who have the desire to go to China and fight in the army of the Guomindang.’ This was after all, they forcefully stressed, the purpose for which ‘our party and our Komsomol exist.’1 These youngsters were not alone in their views. As the coverage on the situation in China intensified in the Komsomol press in March, numerous similar individual and collective letters were received by party and Komsomol leaders.2 The young authors, all male as far as they were named, expressed their genuine enthusiasm for the revolution in China. The letters revealed not only a youthful romanticism for the revolutionary fight abroad and the idea of spreading the revolution, but often an underlying sense of disillusionment with the inertia of the revolutionary project at home. A few months earlier, in 1926 during the campaign against the so-called eseninshchina3, a fellow Komsomol member took a quite different view on the prospect of spreading the revolution around the world. -
Soviet Political Memoirs: a Study in Politics and Literature
SOVIET POLITICAL MEMOIRS: A STUDY IN POLITICS AND LITERATURE by ZOI LAKKAS B.A. HONS, The University of Western Ontario, 1990 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of History) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA June 1992 Zoi Lakkas, 1992 _________________ in presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department. or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. V Department of The University of British &‘olumbia Vancouver, Canada Date 1L4( /1 1q2 DE-6 (2/88) ii ABS TRACT A growing number of Soviet political memoirs have emerged from the former Soviet Union. The main aim of the meinoirists is to give their interpretation of the past. Despite the personal insight that these works provide on Soviet history, Western academics have not studied them in any detail. The principal aim of this paper is to prove Soviet political memoir’s importance as a research tool. The tight link between politics and literature characterizes the nature of Soviet political memoir. All forms of Soviet literature had to reform their brand of writing as the Kremlin’s policies changed from Stalin’s ruthless reign to Gorbachev’s period of openness. -
ABSTRACT BITCHES and THIEVES: GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, and PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS in the BITCHES' WAR by Adam Richard
ABSTRACT BITCHES AND THIEVES: GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN THE BITCHES’ WAR by Adam Richard Rodger Amongst the professional criminals imprisoned in the Soviet Gulag, a split developed between those who kept to the Thieves’ Law and those who broke the Law and collaborated with the State. This violent schism, the Bitches’ War, raged across the entire Gulag system, becoming most heated between 1948 and 1953, and implicated the camps’ guards and administrators as much as the prisoners themselves. This research examines primary and secondary sources, heavily incorporating Gulag survivor memoirs, to investigate the culture of the Thieves-in-Law, these professional criminals, and also to uncover the involvement, intentions, and guilt of the camp administration. This study argues that the Bitches’ War sheds light on the real purpose and function of the Gulag; that it was not primarily about ideological re-education, nor was it primarily about economics and production, but that the Gulag served as a model for social control through use of power, persuasion, and violence. BITCHES AND THIEVES: GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN THE BITCHES’ WAR Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of Master’s Degree by Adam Richard Rodger Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2017 Advisor: Dr. Stephen Norris Reader: Dr. Dan Prior Reader: Dr. Scott Kenworthy ©2017 Adam Richard Rodger This thesis titled BITCHES AND THIEVES GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN THE BITCHES’ WAR by Adam Richard Rodger has been approved for publication by The College of Arts and Sciences and The Department of History ____________________________________________________ Dr. -
Babel' in Context a Study in Cultural Identity B O R D E R L I N E S : R U S S I a N А N D E a S T E U R O P E a N J E W I S H S T U D I E S
Babel' in Context A Study in Cultural Identity B o r d e r l i n e s : r u s s i a n а n d e a s t e u r o p e a n J e w i s h s t u d i e s Series Editor: Harriet Murav—University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Editorial board: Mikhail KrutiKov—University of Michigan alice NakhiMovsKy—Colgate University David Shneer—University of Colorado, Boulder anna ShterNsHis—University of Toronto Babel' in Context A Study in Cultural Identity Ef r a i m Sic hEr BOSTON / 2012 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: A catalog record for this book as available from the Library of Congress. Copyright © 2012 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved Effective July 29, 2016, this book will be subject to a CC-BY-NC license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Other than as provided by these licenses, no part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or displayed by any electronic or mechanical means without permission from the publisher or as permitted by law. ISBN 978-1-936235-95-7 Cloth ISBN 978-1-61811-145-6 Electronic Book design by Ivan Grave Published by Academic Studies Press in 2012 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com C o n t e n t s Note on References and Translations 8 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 11 1 / Isaak Babelʹ: A Brief Life 29 2 / Reference and Interference 85 3 / Babelʹ, Bialik, and Others 108 4 / Midrash and History: A Key to the Babelesque Imagination 129 5 / A Russian Maupassant 151 6 / Babelʹ’s Civil War 170 7 / A Voyeur on a Collective Farm 208 Bibliography of Works by Babelʹ and Recommended Reading 228 Notes 252 Index 289 Illustrations Babelʹ with his father, Nikolaev 1904 32 Babelʹ with his schoolmates 33 Benia Krik (still from the film, Benia Krik, 1926) 37 S. -
Talking Fish: on Soviet Dissident Memoirs*
Talking Fish: On Soviet Dissident Memoirs* Benjamin Nathans University of Pennsylvania My article may appear to be idle chatter, but for Western sovietolo- gists at any rate it has the same interest that a fish would have for an ichthyologist if it were suddenly to begin to talk. ðAndrei Amalrik, Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? ½samizdat, 1969Þ All Soviet émigrés write ½or: make up something. Am I any worse than they are? ðAleksandr Zinoviev, Homo Sovieticus ½Lausanne, 1981Þ IfIamasked,“Did this happen?” I will reply, “No.” If I am asked, “Is this true?” Iwillsay,“Of course.” ðElena Bonner, Mothers and Daughters ½New York, 1991Þ I On July 6, 1968, at a party in Moscow celebrating the twenty-eighth birthday of Pavel Litvinov, two guests who had never met before lingered late into the night. Litvinov, a physics teacher and the grandson of Stalin’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Maxim Litvinov, had recently made a name for himself as the coauthor of a samizdat text, “An Appeal to World Opinion,” thathadgarneredwideattention inside and outside the Soviet Union. He had been summoned several times by the Committee for State Security ðKGBÞ for what it called “prophylactic talks.” Many of those present at the party were, like Litvinov, connected in one way or another to the dissident movement, a loose conglomeration of Soviet citizens who had initially coalesced around the 1966 trial of the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, seeking to defend civil rights inscribed in the Soviet constitution and * For comments on previous drafts of this article, I would like to thank the anonymous readers for the Journal of Modern History as well as Alexander Gribanov, Jochen Hell- beck, Edward Kline, Ann Komaromi, Eli Nathans, Sydney Nathans, Serguei Oushakine, Kevin M. -
The Story of the Yale Literary Magazine
Richard Brookhiser A MUGGING IN THE GROVES: THE STORY OF THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE Yale giveth, and Yale taketh away. X he publicity generated by the strug- parents, taking advantage of a Jewish gave three of his translations to the full color art reproductions, and gles of the Yale Literary Magazine with ancestor, had left the Soviet Union floundering Lit. combed the back issues of American Yale University is, in part, a testament during the detente emigrations, and By then time had run out on the and English magazines for congenial to the American caste system. A fight come to New York in 1972. They gave magazine, at least as far as its writers. over the Yellow Book of a land-grant up a comfortable, indeed a privileged, publishers were concerned. The Ban- Their plans required large infusions college or a Baptist seminary would life; Andrei's father, Lev, was a suc- ner had offered it to the Elizabethan of cash. The new editors compiled a probably not make "Sixty Minutes" cessful translator, and Gromyko had Club, a campus literary society, which list of Lit alumni from old mastheads and the New York Times. It has also been one of the neighbors. Andrei had wouldn't touch it. Schwarz was slated and sent out a solicitation. With the been treated, with some justification, never had to attend a Soviet school. to be editor in the fall of 1978, but, money that came in they paid a deposit as a political issue—liberals quashing I first met Navrozov when he was a Liberman recalls, "there wasn't going on a four-color brochure, which went conservative dissent. -
Monde Russe40(1-2)
LESLEY A. RIMMEL SVODKI AND POPULAR OPINION IN STALINIST LENINGRAD* THE RELATION OF PROPAGANDA TO POPULAR OPINION in the Soviet Union has been of interest to scholars for at least half a century, and it will undoubtedly continue to be as long as the question of people’s relation to the regime remains an issue. In what proportions did Soviet citizens support the regime, resist it, fear it, or were apathetic to it? How can researchers approach these complicated questions? What are the most useful sources for learning about the Soviet population’s perceptions of the regime? We have not, of course, been without sources on popular opinion for the past fifty years. Archives and émigré interviews in the West, such as in the captured Smolensk archive, the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System, the Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History at Columbia University, and the Hoover Institution Archive at Stanford University, as well as published and unpublished memoirs, have provided information on people’s outlook, as well as giving us an idea of just what issues absorbed them. All of these sources are useful. But the materials in these collections are insufficient in quantity, recorded events long after the fact, or come from regions that did not include a heterogeneous mix of the population. Newly published or discovered diaries represent an additional source of information on people’s beliefs during the Stalin years.1 The latter are especially helpful in delineating an individual’s personal development over a period of time. Another more recently available — but quickly * I would like to thank Andrea Graziosi and Anatol Shmelev for their comments on earlier drafts of this essay. -
Kopelev, Lev (Henry Wallis)
Kopelev, Lev (Henry Wallis) Biographical profile: Lev Kopelev Born: April 9,1912 Ethnicity: Ukranian Jew Field of activity: Literature Spouse: Raisa Orlova Children: None Died: June 18, 1997 Brief Biography: Lev Kopelev was a professor of languages and author in the 20th century. He grew up in Kiev, Ukraine, where he attended school. From a young age Kopelev was a strong supporter of the Bolsheviks, and this contributed greatly to his commitment and belief in communism. In 1926, his family moved to Kharkov, Ukraine, where he attended the Kharkov State University, graduating with a degree in Philosophy. I was also here that he had his first taste of political activism- if mostly through exposure. In 1929 Kopelev was arrested for the first time for associating with Bukharists and Trotskyists, for which he was sentenced to 10 days in prison. In the 1930’s, Kopelev worked for various news outlets where he witnessed dekulakisation and 1 collectivisation. By the late 1930’s, Kopelev had obtained a PhD and was teaching at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History. When war broke out between the USSR and Germany Kopelev volunteered himself for the Red Army. While in the army however, he began to have serious misgivings and in 1945 he spoke out against the atrocities he saw the army committing. For this he was sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag and was where he met Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. After the war, he worked primarily in Germany and continued to publish his work in various journals and newspapers. Biographical Analysis: The Red Army: Growing up in Ukraine, and being a supporter of the Stalin regime there came a time when Kopelev saw an opportunity to serve Russia as the true patriot he was. -
O'donnell 1 the Soviet Century, 1914-2000 New York University
The Soviet Century, 1914-2000 New York University, Spring 2018 CORE UA-528 T/Th 3:30 – 4:45 PM Silver 408 Professor Anne O'Donnell Office hours: T 12:30-1:30 PM 19 University Place, Room 216 [email protected] Course Description: By its own definition, the Soviet Union was neither nation-state nor empire, neither capitalist nor communist, neither east nor west. What was the Soviet Union? What was Soviet socialism? Who made it? What was the role of the Communist Party in creating and maintaining Soviet rule? What is a personal dictatorship, and how did the Soviet Union become one? How did the Soviet regime maintain its rule over one-sixth the world’s landmass? Did it enjoy legitimacy among the population, and if so, why? What was the role of violence or coercion in the maintenance of Soviet power? Did people “believe” in the Soviet Union, and if so, in what exactly? How did the Soviet regime use institutions, social class, information networks, consumer desires, ethnic minorities, expert knowledge, cultural production, and understandings of the non-Soviet outside world to advance its ambitions? How and why did it succeed or fail? In the wake of recent challenges to liberal institutions across the Western world, the history of the Soviet Union offers its students critical insight into the characteristics and functioning of illiberal politics and an unfree society. It also illuminates the experience of people who made and lived through the world’s greatest experiment in organizing a non-capitalist society. This course will examine the project of building socialism—as a culture, economy, and polity—in the Soviet Union and its satellites from inception to collapse. -
Glasnost| the Pandora's Box of Gorbachev's Reforms
University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1999 Glasnost| The Pandora's box of Gorbachev's reforms Judy Marie Sylvest The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Sylvest, Judy Marie, "Glasnost| The Pandora's box of Gorbachev's reforms" (1999). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 2458. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/2458 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Maureen and Mike MANSFIELD LIBRARY Tlie University of IVTONXANA Permission is granted by the autlior to reproduce this material in its entirety, provided that this material is used for scholarly purposes and is properly cited in published works and reports. ** Please check "Yes" or "No" and provide signature ** Yes, I grant permission No, I do not grant permission Author's Signature ri a nh^ YYla LjJl£rt' Date .esmlyPYJ ?> ^ / ? ? Any copying for commercial purposes or financial gain may be undertaken only with the author's explicit consent. GLASNOST: THE PANDORA'S BOX OF GORBACHEV'S REFORMS by Judy Marie Sylvest B.A. The University of Montana, 1996 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts The University of Montana 1999 Approved by: //' Chairperson Dean, Graduate School Date UMI Number: EP34448 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. -
Solzhenitsyn Exhibition Chronology
1 Dates in the Life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) 1918 Born in Kislovodsk 6 months after his father’s death in a hunting accident. 1921 Mother moves with him to Rostov-on-Don 1929 First reads Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Beginnings of his literary juvenilia. 1931 Joins the Pioneers. 1936 Conceives the historical epic which, 30 years later, will become The Red Wheel. Begins to study Maths at Rostov University. From 1940 simultaneously studies extramurally at Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature & History (MIFLI). 1940 Marries Natalya Reshetovskaya. 1941 After initial rejection on medical grounds (his incipient tumor), enlists in a horse-drawn transport unit, until 1942 able to transfer to Artillery Training College, then serves in and eventually commands a frontline artillery range-finding battery. Wartime stories, verse, fragments of a long narrative Sixth-Year Studies. 1945 Arrested at the front for anti-Stalinist innuendo in correspondence with a friend. 1945-5 Serves in mixed camps (professional criminals as well as political). 1946-50 Moved to a special technical prison in the Marfino district of Moscow (‘Mavrino’ in S’s novel The First Circle). While there drafts the fragment History of One Battery and begins the long verse narrative The Way. 2 1950-53 Transferred to labour camp for politicals in Ekibastuz, N. Kazakhstan. Composes in his head and memorizes lyrics, the verse drama Feast of the Victors, half of another play, Captives, the bulk of the long verse narrative The Way — some 12,000 lines in all. He also conceives the idea for his later story of Ivan Denisovich’s day. -
Human Rights Education As the Outcome of Human Rights Movements
HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION AS THE OUTCOME OF HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENTS Uta Gerlant “THE LAW IS OUR ONLY LANGUAGE”: SOVIET DISSIDENTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS “Adhere to the Soviet Constitution!” was one of the slogans on the banners waved at the independent Moscow demonstration on December 5, 1965 on behalf of the arrested authors Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky. Dan- iel and Sinyavsky had published writings under pseudonyms abroad and stood accused of “anti-Soviet propa- ganda.” With the knowledge that the state had unlimited power to “violate the law behind closed doors,” some 200 protesters demanded that the trial be open to the public.1 This demonstration became an annual event. In 1977, the demonstration was moved from December 5, the anniversary of the Soviet Constitution, to December 10, the international day of human rights. Ludmilla Alexeyeva later called this the “birthday of the human rights movement.”2 The 1965 demonstration in front of the Pushkin memorial was organized by the mathematician Alexander Esenin-Volpin, who became one of the mentors of the human rights movement.3 As Vladimir Bukovsky later remembered, “Alik was the first person who met with us, who spoke to us in a serious way about Soviet law. We all laughed at him. … Who would have thought at the time that the … amusing Alik Volpin … would spark 1 Call for a public demonstration on December 1965; see Alexander Ginsburg, ed., Weißbuch in Sachen Sinjawskij – Daniel (Frankfurt a.M., 1967): 44. Al- though the trial was in theory open to the public, access to the courtroom was by invitation only; only the wives of the two writers were permitted to attend.