Related Papers
"The Origins of Post-Stalin Individuality: Aleksandr Tvardovskii and the Evolution of 1930s Soviet Romanticism," Russian Review 76: 3 (2017): 458-83
Anatoly Pinsky
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/russ.12139/abstract
Slavic Review
Between Scholarship and Dissidence: TheDissident Historical Collection Pamiat΄ (1975–1982)
2017 •
Barbara M Martin, Anton Sveshnikov
This article examines the history of the Soviet dissident historical collection Pamiat΄ through the lens of liminality. It argues that the publication sought to bridge the gap between dissident and professional scholarship, between grassroots memory collection, with its emphasis on the witness's voice, and historical research's reliability and “scientificity.” Although Pamiat΄ was inspired by earlier dissident historiographical projects and its editorial team was closely linked to the human-rights movement, its ambitions of objectivity and representativeness also connect it to later Perestroika projects based on citizen involvement, such as Memorial. Pamiat΄s ambiguous identity and claim to neutrality may have delayed the Soviet authorities’ response to it, but repression eventually hit the publication. By putting into question the state's monopoly on historical scholarship and connecting readers and contributors across the Iron Curtain, Pamiat΄ had clearly overstepped the boundaries of the permissible and acquired a political meaning it disingenuously claimed not to have.
"The Meaning of Sincerity," English-language original of "Znachenie iskrennosti: Fedor Abramov i pervaia ottepel', 1952-1954," in Nikolai Mikhailov and Jochen Hellbeck, eds., Chelovek i lichnost' v istorii Rossii (St. Petersburg: Nestor, 2013), 598-612
Anatoly Pinsky
Nationalities Papers
Political Affinities and Maneuvering of Soviet Political Elites: Heorhii Shevel and Ukraine’s Ministry of Strange Affairs in the 1970s
2019 •
Olga Bertelsen
This article examines the goals and practices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ukraine in the 1970s, a Soviet institution that functioned as an ideological organ fighting against Ukrainian nationalists domestically and abroad. The central figure of this article is Heorhii Shevel who governed the Ministry from 1970 to 1980 and whose tactics, strategies, and practices reveal the existence of a distinct phenomenon in the Soviet Union—the nationally conscious political elite with double loyalties who, by action or inaction, expanded the space of nationalism in Ukraine. This research illuminates a paradox of pervasive Soviet power, which produced an institution that supported and reinforced Soviet “anti-nationalist” ideology, simultaneously creating an environment where heterodox views or sentiments were stimulated and nurtured.
Academic Studies Press
Roy and Zhores Medvedev: Loyal Dissent in the Soviet Union
2023 •
Barbara M Martin
Roy and Zhores Medvedev, two identical twins with a unique fate, not only lived through a whole century of history, from Stalin to Putin, they wrote and made history. Their research on Stalinism, the first to come out of the Soviet Union in the 1960s-1970s, turned them into famous dissidents overnight, but their criticism of the regime always remained loyal to Soviet power. The story of their lives provides a snapshot into the history of Soviet dissent, from psychiatric hospitalization to forced exile, and from KGB interrogations to collaboration with Western news correspondents. Yet their trajectory was also marred by controversy with fellow dissidents, and in the post-Soviet era active support of authoritarian rulers, including Vladimir Putin. The book is published open access under a CC-BY-NC license. The publication was funded by an open access grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation
in Ben Dorfman (ed.) "Dissent! Refracted. Histories, Aesthetics and Cultures of Dissent"
History as Dissent: Independent Historians in the Late Soviet Era and Post-Soviet Russia: From " Pamiat' " to Memorial
2016 •
Barbara M Martin
This paper establishes a line of continuity between the Soviet, Brezhnev-era dissident historical journal Pamiat' and the post-Soviet human rights organization Memorial. It examines the differences and similarities of their histories, contexts of action, and goals.
Cambridge Histories Online ©
Ivana Veskovic
The Dangerous God: Christianity and the Soviet Experiment
The Pearl of an Unreasonable Thought: Religion and the Poetic Imagination
2017 •
Josephine von Zitzewitz
Nationalities Papers
Soviet Patriotism and its Discontents among Higher Education Students in Khrushchev-Era Russia and Ukraine
2009 •
Benjamin Tromly
Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas
Roy Medvedev's Political Diary: An Experiment in Free Socialist Press
2019 •
Barbara M Martin
This article focuses on the samizdat and tamizdat versions of the journal Political Diary, edited between 1964 and 1970 by the Soviet dissident Roy Medvedev. Based on an analysis of the nearly full collection of issues from the Moscow Memorial archives and interviews with Roy Medvedev, the author explores the functions of the journal during its samizdat and tamizdat periods, its place in the history of socialist dissent in the USSR, the transformations the text underwent for publication abroad, and its reception. The article argues that the jour-nal's functions were to aggregate reliable information on current Soviet politics, history, and culture gathered through various official and non-official channels; to offer Medvedev and his like-minded reformist socialist readers a space to reflect on current events and socialist democracy , primarily in opposition to attempts by neo-Stalinists to rehabilitate Stalin; and to give Medvedev an outlet and feedback mechanism for his current historical and political research. With the publication of the journal abroad in the 1970s, however, its perception shifted, influenced by the political context and Roy Medvedev's reputation as a left-wing dissident. As a result, the dissident connections of the journal were downplayed and it was labelled a "loyal" samizdat publication.
