The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

The Whisperers

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Peasant Russia, Civil War:

The Volga Countryside in Revolution, 1917–1921

A People’s Tragedy:

The Russian Revolution, 1891–1924

Interpreting the Russian Revolution:

The Language and Symbols of 1917

(with Boris Kolonitskii)

Natasha’s Dance:

A Cultural History of Russia

ORLANDO FIGES

The Whisperers

Private Life in Stalin’s Russia

ALLEN LANE

an imprint of

PENGUIN BOOKS

ALLEN LANE

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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First published 2007

1

Copyright © Orlando Figes, 2007

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved

Without limiting the rights under copyright

reserved above, no part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,

or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior

written permission of both the copyright owner and

the above publisher of this book

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

EISBN: 978–0–141–80887–1

For my mother, Eva Figes (née Unger, Berlin 1932) and to the memory of the family we lost

Contents

List of Illustrations

Note on Proper Names

Maps

Family Trees

Introduction

1  Children of 1917 (1917–28)

2  The Great Break (1928–32)

3  The Pursuit of Happiness (1932–6)

4  The Great Fear (1937–8)

5  Remnants of Terror (1938–41)

6  ‘Wait For Me’ (1941–5)

7  Ordinary Stalinists (1945–53)

8  Return (1953–6)

9  Memory (1956–2006)

Afterword and Acknowledgements

Permissions

Notes

Sources

Index

List of Illustrations

xxxi  Antonina Golovina, 1943

2  The four secretaries of Iakov Sverdlov, chief Party organizer of the Bolsheviks, the Smolny Institute, October 1917

17  Leonid Eliashov, 1932

19  Iosif and Aleksandra Voitinsky, Yekaterinoslav, 1924

21  A Lenin Corner, 1920s

23  Aleksei and Ivan Radchenko, 1927

26  Vera Minusova, early 1930s

40  The Tetiuev family, Cherdyn, 1927

42  Batania Bonner with her grandchildren, Moscow, 1929

48  Peasant nanny, Fursei family (Leningrad)

49  Natasha Ovchinnikova

56  The Vittenburg family at Olgino, 1925

60  Konstantin Simonov, Aleksandra and Aleksandr Ivanishev, Riazan, 1927

61  Page from Simonov’s school notebook (1923)

67  The Laskin family, Moscow, 1930

71  The Slavin family, 1927

78  Yevdokiia and Nikolai with their son Aleksei Golovin (1940s)

89  ‘Kulaks’ exiled from the village of Udachne, Khryshyne (Ukraine), early 1930s

90  Valentina Kropotina and her sister with three of their cousins, 1939

101  Exiles in a ‘special settlement’ in western Siberia, 1933

105  Left: Leonid and Aleksandr Rublyov, 1930. Right: Klavdiia, Natalia and Raisa Rublyova with Raisa’s husband, Kansk, 1930

107  Left: Aleksandr and Serafima Ozemblovsky on their wedding day in 1914. Right: Serafima with Sasha and Anton Ozemblovsky in 1937

116  Maria, Nadezhda and Ignatii Maksimov with Ignatii’s brother Anton, Arkhangelsk, 1934

119  The Uglitskikh family, Cherdyn, 1938

122  The Golovins’ bed from Obukhovo

135  Aleksandr Tvardovsky, 1940

140  Simonov ‘the proletarian’, 1933

147  The otlichniki of Class B, Pestovo School, 1936

148  Fania Laskina and Mikhail Voshchinsky, Moscow, 1932

149  The Laskin household in the Arbat

152  Left: Maiakovsky Metro Station, 1940. Right: Avtozavod Metro Station, 1940s

166  Left: Vladimir Makhnach, 1934. Right: Maria and Leonid, 1940s

168  From left: Anatoly Golovnia as Chekist, 1919; Liuba Golovnia, 1925; Boris Babitsky, 1932

170  Volik Babitsky and Liuba and Oksana Golovnia at the Kratovo dacha, 1935

176  The Khaneyevsky household

178  Communal apartment (‘corridor system’), 1930–64

182  The Reifshneiders’ room in the Third House of Soviets, Moscow