Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books

144. RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, D.38, passim.

145. On Vipper: H. Graham, ‘R. Iu. Vipper: A Russian Historian in Three Worlds’, Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, 28/1 (March 1986). Also the translation of the entry on Vipper in The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia: https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Robert+Iurevich+Vipper. Accessed 4 August 2021.

146. Cited by A. Dubrovsky, Vlast’ i Istoricheskaya Mysl’ v SSSR (1930–1950-e gg.), Rosspen: Moscow 2017 pp.150–1. See also D. Brandenberger, National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931–1956, Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA 2002 pp.32–3. Stalin’s comments did not come out of the blue. Already in August 1932 the party central committee had issued a decree noting the poor state of the history curriculum (M. Pundeff (ed.), History in the USSR: Selected Readings, Chandler Publishing Co.: San Francisco 1967 doc.18).

147. Cited by D. Dorotich, ‘A Turning Point in the Soviet School: The Seventeenth Party Congress and the Teaching of History’, History of Education Quarterly (Fall 1967) p.299.

148. K. M. F. Platt, Terror and Greatness: Ivan and Peter as Russian Myths, Cornell University Press: Ithaca NY 2011 p.182.

149. Dubrovsky, Vlast’ i Istoricheskaya Mysl’, pp.157–9; Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, pp.34–5.

150. Ilizarov, Stalin, Ivan Groznyi, p.68.

151. I.V. Stalin, Istoricheskaya Ideologiya v SSSR v 1920–1950-e gody, Nauka-Piter: St Petersburg 2006 doc.79.

152. ‘O Prepodavanii Grazhdanskoi Istorii v Shkolakh SSSR’, Pravda (16 May 1934). The decree, which was published on the newspaper’s front page, was hand-edited and corrected by Stalin. For an English text of the full decree: Pundeff, History in the USSR, doc.20.

153. ‘Na Fronte Istoricheskoi Nauki’, Pravda (27 January 1936); Tillett, The Great Friendship, pp.42–3. For the full English text of the Pravda editorial and the two notes of Stalin, Zhdanov and Kirov: Pundeff, History in the USSR, doc.21.

154. ‘Postanovlenie Zhuri Pravitel’stvennoi Komissii po Konkursu na Luchshii Uchebnik dlya 3 i 4 Klassov Srednei Shkoly po Istorii SSSR’, Pravda (22 August 1937).

155. The details of the process may be followed in the books by Brandenberger and Dubrovsky cited above. Much of the documentary basis of their research may be found in this publication of the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation: S. Kudryashov (ed.), Istoriyu – v Shkolu: Sozdanie Pervykh Sovetskikh Uchebnikov, APRF: Moscow 2008.

156. Svetlana’s copy of the book is stored in the State Socio-Political Library in Moscow as part of its holdings of books from Stalin’s personal library.

157. Tillett, The Great Friendship, p.50.

158. Dubrovsky, Vlast’ i Istoricheskaya Mysl’, p.240.

159. The dummies may be found here: RGASPI, F.558, Op.3, Dd.374–5, Op.11, D.1584.

160. Dubrovsky, Vlast’ i Istoricheskaya Mysl’, p.239.

161. Ibid., pp.235–6.

162. A. Shestakov (ed.), Kratkii Kurs Istoriya SSSR, Uchpedgiz: Moscow 1937 p.42. A detailed summary and analysis of the book may be found in Platt, Terror and Greatness, chap.5.

163. Ibid., p.37.

164. Ilizarov, Stalin, Ivan Groznyi, pp.100–1

165. Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, p.51.

166. Stalin, Leninism, p.5.

167. Dimitrov, Diary, p.65.

168. Both citations from I. Paperno, ‘Nietzscheanism and the Return of Pushkin’ in B. Glatzer Rosenthal (ed.), Nietzsche and Soviet Culture, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 1994 pp.225–6. See further K. Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin, Indiana University Press: Bloomington 2000 chap. 5 on the Pushkin centennial.

169. Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades, p.159.