Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero [Paperback]

Catriona Kelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2007

It was September, 1932. Gerasimovka, Western Siberia. Two children are found dead in the forest outside a remote village. Both have been repeatedly stabbed and their bloody bodies are covered in sticky, crimson cranberry juice. Who committed these horrific murders has never been proved, but the elder boy, 13-year-old Pavlik Morozov, was quickly to become the most famous boy in Soviet history - statues of him were erected, biographies published, and children across the country exhorted to emulate him. Catriona Kelly's aim is not to find out who really killed the boys, but rather to explore how Stalin's regime turned Pavlik into a hero designed to produce good Soviet citizens. Pavlik's story is intriguing and multi-layered: did he denounce his own father to the authorities? Was he murdered by members of his own family? Did he ever belong to the Pioneers, the Communist youth organization who claimed him as member No. 001? This is the first book in English on Pavlik's legend, using previously inaccessible local archives.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This dogged and creative exploration of the political uses of a 1930s family tragedy demonstrates the strides made in Soviet history since the field emerged from the grip of the Cold War. Pavel Morozov was found murdered in Siberia at age 13 with his younger brother. The case was turned into an opportunity by the Soviet authorities, who said Pavlik had denounced his father for being in league with the despised kulaks—allegedly rich peasants. Kelly, a professor of Russian at Oxford, is less interested in the facts of the case (although she explores them in her last chapter) than in tracing how the Soviet machine turned Pavel into a model for millions of Soviet children—and how the story changed over time along with the political winds. Kelly finds Pavel's primary meaning was as a symbol of self-sacrifice and relentless commitment to the cause, rather than as a denouncer. Kelly also relies on oral histories with elderly Russians to explore how they remembered reacting to the story as children. Readers interested in propaganda and in Russian history will learn much from Kelly's scrupulous research. Photos, maps. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"* 'Hers is a crisply narrated and well- argued book about a boy whose historical reality will never cease to be enigmatic' Guardian * 'Gripping and scholarly book... anchors Pavlik in history, literature and politics of the Soviet empire' The Economist * 'A masterful investigation, part detective story, part explanation of provincial backwardness and Stalinist terror' The Times * 'A fascinating reconstruction of life in the distant provinces of the Soviet Union during the 1930s... imaginative approach' Telegraph * 'In this absorbing book, she probes the moral problems that arise when a state impels children to choose between their civic duties and their familial obligations' Scotland on Sunday"

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Granta UK (March 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1862078459
• ISBN-13: 978-1862078451
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,541,065 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Stalinist History without Stalin", July 5, 2010

By 

Paul Cuneo (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero (Paperback)

This is an academic study of the Soviet hero cult that was manufactured around Pavlik Morozov, a boy who was stabbed to death with his brother in a backwards rural village in 1932.

It's a somewhat obscure story, which is part of what makes this book so interesting. This is raw early Soviet history, on the micro-level, and full of fascinating details that fleshed out my vague textbook knowledge of the era. Local Party officials come off as overworked and incompetent, rural life as cripplingly poor and often violent. The fabrication and transformation of the Morozov story is traced with similar attention through a variety of ideological distortions.

The primary source material Kelly obtained is thorough and revealing. (My favorite aside: an brief mention of a truly bizarre incident in which Leningrad officials purged "dozens of profoundly deaf individuals" on suspicions of a Fascist conspiracy, with the sole evidence an allegation of a Hitler postcard changing hands.)

The clearly fragmentary state of the evidentiary record surrounding the Morozov murders means that the book is somewhat speculative in its ultimate conclusions. The writing style is definitely academic, and the middle chapters are somewhat dense. On the whole, however, I would recommend the book to those with an interest in Soviet history and propaganda in particular.