About the Book

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.

Table of Contents:
PREFACE vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix Introduction 3 Sheila Fitzpatrick, Lives and Times 3 Yuri Slezkine, Lives as Tales 18 PART I. Civil War as a Way of Life (1917-1920) 31 1. Ekaterina Olitskaia, My Reminiscences (1) 33 2. Anna Litveiko, In 1917 49 3. P. E. Melgunova-Stepanova, Where Laughter Is Never Heard 66 4. Anna Andzhievskaia, A Mother's Story 73 5. Zinaida Zhemchuzhnaia, The Road to Exile 82 6. Nadezhda Krupskaia, Autobiography 111 7. Tatiana Varsher, Things Seen and Suffered 113 8. Zinaida Patrikeeva, Cavalry Boy 118 9. Irina Elenevskaia, Recollections 123 10. Sofia Volkonskaia, The Way of Bitterness 140 PART II. Toward "New Forms of Life" (The 1920s) 167 11. Agrippina Korevanova, My Life 169 12. Anonymous, What Am I to Do? 207 13. Ekaterina Olitskaia, My Reminiscences (2) 209 14. Paraskeva Ivanova, Why I Do Not Belong in the Party 213 15. Maria Belskaia, Arina's Children 219 16. Antonina Solovieva, Sent by the Komsomol 235 17. Nenila Bazeleva et al., Peasant Narratives (1) 241 18. Anna Balashova, A Worker's Life 243 19. Valentina Bogdan, Students in the First Five-Year Plan 252 20. Alla Kiparenko, Building the City of Youth 277 21. Anna Iankovskaia, A Belomor Confession 282 22. Lidia Libedinskaia, The Green Lamp 286 PART III. "Life Has Become Merrier" (The 1930s) 303 23. Pasha Angelina, The Most Important Thing 305 24. Efrosinia Kislova et al., Peasant Narratives (2) 322 25. Fruma Treivas, We Were Fighting for an Idea! 324 26. N. I. Slavnikova et al., Speeches by Stakhanovites 331 27. Ulianova, A Cross-Examination 342 28. Anna Shchetinina, A Sea Captain's Story 350 29. Kh. Khuttonen, Farewell to the Komsomol 354 30. Anastasia Plotnikova, Autobiography 356 31. A. V. Vlasovskaia et al., Speeches by Stakhanovites' Wives 359 32. Inna Shikheeva-Gaister, A Family Chronicle 367 33. Evdokia Maslennikova, The Story of My Life 391 34. Valentina Bogdan, Memoirs of an Engineer 394 35. Frida Troib et al., Engineers' Wives 419 36. Ekaterina Olitskaia, My Reminiscences (3) 424 GLOSSARY 435 INDEX 437