2001
DOI: 10.1111/0036-0341.00174
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Working, Struggling, Becoming: Stalin‐Era Autobiographical Texts

Abstract: One of the assumptions most deeply ingrained in the Western imagination of the Stalinist regime is that at their core, members of Soviet society resided externally to state policies and Bolshevik ideology. Though the "system" was successful, through a combination of propaganda and coercion, in enforcing a degree of outward popular conformity, individuals were able to mitigate these pressures by retreating into private spheres unaffected by "official" ideology. In search of Soviet citizens' concealed or repress… Show more

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Cited by 70 publications
(7 citation statements)
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“…Some scholars of Soviet history argue that theories of totalitarian propaganda limit the possibilities of self-identification with the state to either indoctrination or cynicism among Soviet citizens. This generalisation overlooks internal contradictions and ambiguities as well as purposeful efforts to fashion a revolutionary self and to gain a sense of coherence between revolutionary subjectivities and Soviet realities by exercising introspection, self-critique, and "hermeneutics of the soul" among Soviet citizens in the 1930s (Slezkine 2017;Fitzpatrick 2017;Hellbeck 2001). However, the activists' opposition to the mass man of a totalitarian society stems from their appreciation of "the value of each person, taken separately" (tsennost zhizni kazhdogo otdelno vzyatogo cheloveka) (Ulitskaya 2018: 5).…”
Section: The Imperative Of Historymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Some scholars of Soviet history argue that theories of totalitarian propaganda limit the possibilities of self-identification with the state to either indoctrination or cynicism among Soviet citizens. This generalisation overlooks internal contradictions and ambiguities as well as purposeful efforts to fashion a revolutionary self and to gain a sense of coherence between revolutionary subjectivities and Soviet realities by exercising introspection, self-critique, and "hermeneutics of the soul" among Soviet citizens in the 1930s (Slezkine 2017;Fitzpatrick 2017;Hellbeck 2001). However, the activists' opposition to the mass man of a totalitarian society stems from their appreciation of "the value of each person, taken separately" (tsennost zhizni kazhdogo otdelno vzyatogo cheloveka) (Ulitskaya 2018: 5).…”
Section: The Imperative Of Historymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…52 However, as Jochen Hellbeck demonstrates in his study of Soviet subjectivity in diaries, feelings of the extraordinary and heroic content of the epoch, as well as one's desire to live up to it, was a fairly common feature among different age groups. 53 Young students' aspirations to accomplish great things reflected their claims to exclusivity and were indicative of their elitist self-consciousness. This tendency found expression not only in young people's search for a professional vocation, but also in the plans they formulated for the results of their careers, results that would be commensurate with the great era in which they lived.…”
Section: The Future As Perceived By Senior High School Students and Hmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, research on Russian life writing focused on either private texts, such as unpublished diaries and testimonial texts, or on public biographies produced, for example, for Party organisation (see Fitzpatrick 2000;Hellbeck 2002;Steinberg 2002;Petersen 2009;Halfin 2011;Herzberg 2015). However, the auto/ biographical mode had already become canonical in Soviet literature, where the factual and ideological and individual and social were in constant tension (Clark 1983, 44;Holmgren 2003, xxii-xxiii, xxvii-xxix;Jones 2018).…”
Section: Strategies Of Socialist Biographical Textsmentioning
confidence: 99%