Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary Under Stalin - Hardcover

Hellbeck, Jochen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674021746 ISBN 13: 9780674021747

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Revolution on My Mind is a stunning revelation of the inner world of Stalin's Russia. We see into the minds and hearts of Soviet citizens who recorded their lives during an extraordinary period of revolutionary fervor and state terror. Writing a diary, like other creative expression, seems nearly impossible amid the fear and distrust of totalitarian rule; but as Jochen Hellbeck shows, diary-keeping was widespread, as individuals struggled to adjust to Stalin's regime.

Rather than protect themselves against totalitarianism, many men and women bent their will to its demands, by striving to merge their individual identities with the collective and by battling vestiges of the old self within. We see how Stalin's subjects, from artists to intellectuals and from students to housewives, absorbed directives while endeavoring to fulfill the mandate of the Soviet revolution--re-creation of the self as a builder of the socialist society. Thanks to a newly discovered trove of diaries, we are brought face to face with individual life stories--gripping and unforgettably poignant.

The diarists' efforts defy our liberal imaginations and our ideals of autonomy and private fulfillment. These Soviet citizens dreamed differently. They coveted a morally and aesthetically superior form of life, and were eager to inscribe themselves into the unfolding revolution. Revolution on My Mind is a brilliant exploration of the forging of the revolutionary self, a study without precedent that speaks to the evolution of the individual in mass movements of our own time.

About this title

About the Author

Jochen Hellbeck is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University.

Reviews

This scholarly examination of diary keeping in the Soviet Union challenges our understanding of the impact of totalitarianism on individuals in the Stalinist era. Hellbeck, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers, examines how the Soviet Union viewed and, at times, nurtured personal literature such as diaries as a way of creating the Soviet ideal of a New Man and New Woman—and how individuals used diaries as a mechanism for reinventing themselves according to these ideals. In the second half of the book, Hellbeck focuses on four diaries he has uncovered and their authors, including a member of the Soviet intellectual class who was killed by a regime she supported, and a member of the "wealthy peasantry" who distanced himself from his exiled father as part of his self-redefinition. What comes through is how individuals internalized the Soviet thinking that placed class and the collective above all else and tried to change their personalities to fit these notions. At times Hellbeck relies on academic jargon. But by focusing on how ordinary citizens struggled with totalitarianism, his work is a welcome step in creating a deeper understanding of Soviet history. 21 b&w photos. (May)
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Historian Hellbeck found a cache of diaries in newly opened Soviet archives that overturns easy assumptions about the inner lives of people subjected to totalitarian rule. The disciplined diarists Hellbeck profiles--including Julia Piatnitskaya, who struggled to maintain faith in the system as she lost her husband and son to Stalin's purges; Zinaida Denisevskaya, who began keeping a diary at age 13 in 1900 and continued until 1933, when severe deprivations led to her early death; the pragmatic survivalist Stepan Podlubny; and the wily playwright Alexander Afinogenov--each strove to be part of the collective, and part of history. Their eloquent, self-critical, and affecting diaries reveal how seriously they took the government's exhortations not merely to conform outwardly to Communist precepts but also to fully internalize them. Each believed that self-improvement, sacrifice, reeducation, and endurance were intrinsic to the success of the revolution. Loneliness, fear, and an ever-widening divide between ideology and reality made life increasingly harrowing for these determined, sometimes ruthless citizens, and their trust and conviction make Stalin's terror all the more heinous. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674021746
• ISBN 13: 9780674021747
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448