Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary Under Stalin

New
Paperback
2009
$34.56

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.

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.

$34.56

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 448
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 14 Apr 2009
ISBN 10: 0674032314
ISBN 13: 9780674032316
Book Overview: One of the most important books ever written in the field of Soviet Studies, Revolution on My Mind is a brilliantly conceived, poignant work about the experience of trying to live as a self-conscious Soviet citizen. Beautifully written and analytically compelling, this is a book for anyone who has thought deeply or cared passionately, one way or the other, about Communism and its impact on individual lives. -- Eric Naiman, University of California at Berkeley This masterful book looks at the Russian Revolution from an entirely new perspective. It explores how individuals refashioned their personal selves to bring their lives into alignment with the revolution. Far from being oppressed by history, Soviet diarists embraced it; they became the engineers of their own souls. Hellbeck has provocatively rewritten the emotional history of twentieth-century Communism. -- Peter Fritzsche, author of Stranded in the Present: Modern Time and the Melancholy of History Hellbeck's work is pathbreaking in the challenges it poses to our past thinking about Soviet history. Using previously unknown diaries of the Stalin era, he explores the fascinating worlds of Soviet subjectivity. This book is hard to put down! -- Mark L. von Hagen, Columbia University

Media Reviews

Hellbeck's attempt to situate the Bolshevik project of self-transformation within this wider cultural and historical perspective (a dimension too often lacking in Western studies of the Soviet era) is one of the outstanding virtues of his impressive book. - Aileen Kelly, New York Review of Books Jochen Hellbeck has opened up a new way into the private inner world of the Stalin years, a world to which former schools of Soviet history didn't pay much attention... There can't now be a cultural history of the 20th century that ignores the experience of forging the self under the conditions of Communist - and especially Stalinist - rule. - Karl Schlogel, London Review of Books [A] fascinating book... Hellbeck's analysis of his diarists is first-rate, and his enthusiasm for his subject is infectious. - Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Nation

Author Bio

Jochen Hellbeck is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University.