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Recently unearthed in the archives of Stalin's secret police, the NKVD, Nina Lugovskaya's diary offers rare insight into the life of a teenage girl in Stalin's Russia-when fear of arrest was a fact of daily life. Like Anne Frank, thirteen-year-old Nina is conscious of the extraordinary dangers around her and her family, yet she is preoccupied by ordinary teenage concerns: boys, parties, her appearance, who she wants to be when she grows up. As Nina records her most personal emotions and observations, herreflections shape a diary that is as much a portrait of her intense inner world as it is the Soviet outer one. Preserved here, these markings-the evidence used to convict Nina as a "counterrevolutionary"- offer today's reader a fascinating perspective on the era in which she lived.
"Recently unearthed in the archives of the NKVD, Nina Lugovskaya's diary provides a rare window into the life of a Moscow family during the 1930s when fear of arrest was a fact of life. Like Anne Frank, 13-year-old Nina Lugovskaya is conscious of the extraordinary dangers all around her yet preoccupied by adolescent concerns. The diary ends two days before the NKVD conducted a thorough search of her family's apartment. Nina's diary was seized and carefully studied, the "incriminating" passages were underlined (these markings have been preserved in the book) and used to convict her as a "counterrevolutionary" who was "preparing to kill Stalin." She was sentenced to five years of hard labor and subsequent internal exile. This plainspoken diary is an unprecedented document of Soviet totalitarian rule."--BOOK JACKET.
Does that boy like me? Why are my sisters so mean? Does anyone think I'm pretty? Will my father be arrested? These were the everyday concerns of thirteen-year-old Moscow schoolgirl Nina Lugovskaya, who began to write a diary in 1932. Her indignant outbursts against the brutal raids and purges of Stalin's terror appear alongside the more typical adolescent worries about girlfriends, boys, parties and homework. For five years Nina scribbled down her most intimate thoughts and dreams, including her ambition one day to become a writer. Then in 1937 the NKVD, Stalin's secret police, ransacked Nina's home and discovered her diary. Nina's criticism of the regime provided sufficient evidence for the charge of treason, and she, her mother and two sisters were sentenced to five years' hard labour in the Gulag, followed by seven years' exile in Siberia. Recently Nina's diary was discovered in the KGB archives, complete with the original passages underlined by the secret police. Like Anne Frank's diary, this journal poignantly reveals life at a time of political upheaval, betrayal and repression through the eyes of an innocent.
In Russia, during the reign of communism and one of the many purges that sweep the country, Yuri experiences first-hand the social injustices, labor camp, and starvation.
"Does that boy like me? Why are my sisters so mean? Does anyone think I m pretty? Will my father be arrested? These were the everyday concerns of thirteen-year-old Moscow schoolgirl Nina Lugovskaya, who began to write a diary in 1932. Her indignant outbursts against the brutal raids and purges of Stalin s terror appear alongside the more typical adolescent worries about girlfriends, boys, parties and homework. For five years Nina scribbled down her most intimate thoughts and dreams, including her ambition one day to become a writer. Then in 1937 the NKVD, Stalin s secret police, ransacked Nina s home and discovered her diary. Nina s criticism of the regime provided sufficient evidence for the charge of treason, and she, her mother and two sisters were sentenced to five years hard labour in the Gulag, followed by seven years exile in Siberia. Recently Nina s diary was discovered in the KGB archives, complete with the original passages underlined by the secret police. Like Anne Frank s diary, this journal poignantly reveals life at a time of political upheaval, betrayal and repression through the eyes of an innocent"
Elena Kostioukovitch explores the phenomenon that first struck her as a newcomer to Italy - the Italian 'culinary code', or way of talking about food. Along the way, she captures the fierce local pride that gives Italian cuisine its remarkable diversity.
Girlhood, interdisciplinary and global in source, scope, and methodology, examines the centrality of girlhood in shaping women's lives. Scholars study how age and gender, along with a multitude of other identities, work together to influence the historical experience. Spanning a broad time frame from 1750 to the present, essays illuminate the various continuities and differences in girls' lives across culture and region--girls on all continents except Antarctica are represented. Case studies and essays are arranged thematically to encourage comparisons between girls' experiences in diverse locales, and to assess how girls were affected by historical developments such as colonialism, political repression, war, modernization, shifts in labor markets, migrations, and the rise of consumer culture.
If Ryu Murakami had written War and Peace As the introduction to this book will tell you, the books by Gromov, obscure and long forgotten propaganda author of the Soviet era, have such an effect on their readers that they suddenly enjoy supernatural powers. Understandably, their readers need to keep accessing these books at all cost and gather into groups around book-bearers, or, as they're called, librarians. Alexei, until now a loser, comes to collect an uncle's inheritance and unexpectedly becomes a librarian. He tells his extraordinary, unbelievable story.
Following his widely acclaimed Project X and Love and Hydrogen—“Here is the effect of these two books,” wrote the Chicago Tribune: “A reader finishes them buzzing with awe”—Jim Shepard now gives us his first entirely new collection in more than a decade. Like You’d Understand, Anyway reaches from Chernobyl to Bridgeport, with a host of narrators only Shepard could bring to pitch-perfect life. Among them: a middle-aged Aeschylus taking his place at Marathon, still vying for parental approval. A maddeningly indefatigable Victorian explorer hauling his expedition, whaleboat and all, through the Great Australian Desert in midsummer. The first woman in space and her cosmonaut lover,...
Revolution on My Mind is a stunning revelation of the inner world of Stalin's Russia, showing us the minds and hearts of Soviet citizens who recorded their lives in diaries during an extraordinary period of revolutionary fervor and state terror. Jochen Hellbeck brings us face to face with gripping and unforgettably poignant life stories. This book brilliantly explores the forging of the revolutionary self in a study that speaks to the evolution of the individual in mass movements of our own time.