A collection of life stories of Russian women, accompanied by an
analytical introduction and edited by scholars Fitzpatrick
(History/Univ. of Chicago) and Slezkine (History/Univ. of
California), from the perspective of direct participants in the
unfolding historical drama begun in 1917.Contributing to the
completeness of the picture, the documents selected for this
publication vary in genre from literary autobiographies to edited
interviews to formal letters and speeches, and their authors are
just as diverse in social class, experience, age, and occupation.
The objectivity of the narrative is bolstered because events are
assessed from opposite points of view (from that of both the
victims and the beneficiaries of the Revolution). These
antagonistic positions merge in camp memoirs written by those who
were at first strong supporters of the Bolshevik cause, but later
fell from grace. One principle unifying almost all the narratives
is the suppression of personal information. Instead of the
traditional focus on marriage, childbirth, and family life, these
women defined themselves in terms of historical and public events.
The Revolution, civil war, collectivization, and industrialization
were the major milestones of their lives. These personal accounts
differ significantly in length and style. From Lenins wife Nadezhda
Krupskaia, for instance, we have a brief, dry, and extremely
factual third-person account of her political activities. Princess
Sofia Volkonskaia, on the other hand, produced a highly emotional
story of her return to Russia from emigration in order to rescue
her husband from jail. But even here, private circumstances are
viewed against the broader background of disarray and brutality
that reigned in post-revolutionary Russia. Yet another patriotic
and upbeat narrative filled with praise of Stalin can be found in
the autobiography of the Soviet Unions most decorated labor hero,
tractor driver and Supreme Soviet Deputy Pasha Angelina.Each
autobiography here transforms the story of a private life into the
story of the country and the times: a volume sure to attract early
Soviet history buffs. (Kirkus Reviews)
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 emigres, 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."
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