The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

The Russian Century

A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

Edited by George Pahomov and Nickolas Lupinin

The Russian Century

A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

Edited by George Pahomov Nickolas Lupinin

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Contents

Acknowledgementsv

Introductionvii

Glossary of Russian Termsxi

PART I THE VANISHED PRESENCE: RUSSIA

BEFORE 19141

Viktor Chernov, Idylls on the Volga3

Sergei N. Durylin, Domestic Love18

Sofiia Kovalevskaia, A Thief in the House28

Oleg Pantiukhov, A Student’s Summer41

Aleksandra Tyrkova-Williams, A Woman’s Autonomy54

Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev, Memoirs64

Vladimir Zenzinov, Coming of Age74

Vasilii Nikiforov-Volgin, Presanctified Gifts88

Mark Vishniak, In Two Worlds95

Konstantin Paustovskii, Commencement Revelry103 PART II INSTABILITY AND DISLOCATION: 1914–1929111

Georgii Altaev, How I Became a Cub Scout113

Nikolai Filatov, A Soldier’s Letters120

iii

ivContents

Konstantin Paustovskii, Save Your Strength130

Roman Gul, We’re in Power Now139

Sergei Mamontov, Civil War: A White Army Journal144

Vera Volkonskaia, Orphaned by Revolution155

Mikhail Gol’dshtein, My First Recital168

Viktor Kravchenko, Youth in the Red173

Vasilii Ianov, The Heart of a Peasant181

PART III UNRELENTING ORDER AND TERROR:

1930–1953189

B. Brovtsyn, Dearly Beloved191

Tat’iana Fesenko, Internal Dissenter199

Nila Magidoff, Only to Travel! Only to Live!210

Tat’iana Fesenko, War-Scorched Kiev225

Elena I. Kochina, Blockade Diary236

N. Ianevich, Literary Politics251

K. Vadot, The Terrorist259

PART IV APOGEE AND FRACTURE: 1954–1991265

Mariia Shapiro, A Soviet Capitalist267

Valerii Leviatov, My Path to God273

Valentin Kataev, A Paschal Memory282

Kirill Kostsinskii [K.V. Uspenskii], A Dissident’s Trial285

Iurii Krotkov, The KGB in Action290

Vladimir Azbel, Siberian Adversity306

Leonid Shebarshin, Three Days in August315

Acknowledgments

My gratitude is due, first of all, to Professor Nickolas Lupinin of Franklin Pierce University, gentle critic and steadfast friend, co-author, without whom this volume would never have appeared and also to Marina Adamovitch, editor of The New Review (Novyi zhurnal), for her helpful advice and permission to translate and reprint a number of memoirs from that journal. Gratitude must also be expressed to a number of publishers and publications, some of them long-vanished, whose names appear in the brief introduction to each particular entry. I also wish to thank several colleagues and friends for their exemplary translations of various pieces: Professor Mark Swift, of the University of Auckland, for translating Filatov, “A Soldier’s Letters,” Leviatov, “My Path to God,” and Fesenko, “War-Scorched Kiev;” Professor Karen Black of Millersville University for Paustovskii, “Commencement Revelry;” Sharon Bain, my colleague at Bryn Mawr College, for Shapiro, “A Soviet Capitalist;” Cindy Burr-Ramsey for Durylin, “Domestic Love,” and Krotkov, “KGB in Action;” Julie Stetson for Vadot, “The Terrorist;” and Brian Boeck for Gul, “We’re in Power Now.” Finally, to my students at Bryn Mawr College who, in taking my course on Russian culture and civilization, provided incentive and manifested the curiosity and enthusiasm which is their valued hallmark.

Bryn MawrGeorge Pahomov

v

Introduction