47 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
History in the making: how scholars pried open Soviet-era archives, January 4, 2009
This review is from: Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia (Hardcover)
"Every student can recite Pushkin by heart in this shitty country but there are no jobs, there is no future here."
That's the bitter reaction of Olga, a young Russian woman after discovering that a neighbor - a classically-trained ballet dancer - is performing in a cabaret that is really a strip club. It is against that kind of backdrop that Jonathan Brent is trying to obtain access to Russia's Soviet-era archives (assisted by Olga, a translator). Russians like Olga, hungry for stability and prosperity and nostalgic for past glories, are finding a new allure in the idea of a totalitarian state; communism, Brent writes, may be dead, but not the idea of an all-powerful state unconstrained by the rule of law. Will publishing crucial records of Stalin's days, when state oppression reached surreal levels, make Olga and her peers aware of the dangers of that kind of nostalgia?
The title of this fascinating book is actually somewhat misleading. Rather than a straightforward recitation of of what Brent, the editorial director of the Yale University Press, unearths within the archives, it sets some such revelations in the much broader and fascinating chronicle of his experiences trying to win and maintain access to those records, of his relationships and discussions with Russian archivists. Brent also incorporates his personal observations of the changes that take place within Russia over the 15 years that he spends shuttling back and forth between New England and Moscow as he battles to publish a series of scholarly books based on the Soviet archives addressing questions such as who orchestrated and controlled the Great Terror of the 1930s; whether the US Communist Party engaged in espionage; the real role of the Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War and the truth about the Katyn massacre of Polish officers during World War II.
Brent's first trip to Russia takes place in the winter of 1992, when he arrives hoping to persuade the archivists to strike a publishing deal with the Yale press rather than a British or German Rival. Once that is finally accomplished (with a lot of negotiating and a lot of vodka) some former Soviet policymakers urge him to shed light on Stalin's era, in particular. "Without the information provided in the documents, knowledge of the past is impossible, and without this knowledge, the Russian people will not be able to understand the effects of unconstrained state power. They will not understand why they need a country ruled by law - that economic prosperity and stability is not enough," they tell Brent, repeatedly.
Ultimately, Brent's narrative is more a scholar's memoir than a scholarly history -- and that's just fine. Like any good observer, he spots the little signs of change: On his first visits, he sees that bowls of fresh violets are left as a tribute at the feet of a painting of Lenin at the archives; these are eventually replaced by plastic flowers - and then the flowers disappear altogether, although the painting remains. Although he devotes a lot of attention to the evolution of Russia's consumer culture, it never feels like overkill and Brent manages to combine that part of his narrative seamlessly with his adventures within the archives themselves. The result? The reader emerges with fresh insight into the way scholarly histories are written - and the reasons why some remain unwritten. He discusses his meetings with former generals whose memoirs Yale may publish (including an encounter with a rare Amazon Blue parrot presented to one of the generals by Fidel Castro), and his meetings with the surviving relatives of literary figures who were purged and executed by Stalin (or who, like Georgi Dimitrov, died mysteriously while in Stalin's control). He repeatedly tries to gain access to something called "the Kutuzov file", which would reveal the fate of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who disappeared from Budapest into the Lubyanka during the final days of World War II, only to be told, ominously that no one will ever know the truth of Wallenberg's fate. He even gets to study Stalin's personal library - a vast array of books of political philosophy of all kinds, heavily read, annotated, underlined; all offering clues to the way this "small pockmarked son of an illiterate shoemaker" who became the Soviet "vozhd" or supreme leader, formulated his own political thoughts and actions.
However intriguing Brent's narrative is - and for any history buff with an interest in Russia, it's pretty much impossible to put down - there are several flaws. Some are quite basic; Brent's purpose is to compile and commission works for Yale's "Annals of Communism" series. But we hear few details of what is eventually published and few details of how they may have changed historians' views of the Soviet Union. (Indeed, there isn't even a bibliography detailing those works; that and an index would be immensely helpful to readers.) While his Russian archivists make the impossibility of publishing any kind of authoritative history of the period - "to offer a unified interpretation of the Soviet period meant, first, that you wished to know the truth, and second, that you wished to tell it" - I, for one, lamented the lack of anything more than a passing reflection by Brent on what was published (not just his thoughts on documents he encounters.)
Brent is alert to the parallels between the totalitarianism of Stalin and the less oppressive authoritarian regime in Russia today. (He notes, for instance, that just as Stalin once wanted to be informed of his Politburo's preference in toothbrush brands and whether they selected red or white telephones in their offices, commenting that "all these nothings became something over time", so the former Soviet officials he encounters are aware of the oddest details of his life, from the hotel he is staying at and the date of his arrival, to the birth of his infant daughter.) At the same time, he doesn't address whether or not publication of the archive's contents within Russia did, as he and some of his Russian colleagues hoped, transform the public debate about the nature of the state and its relationship to the people it governs. In light of the frequency and urgency with which the question is raised, that lack is particularly apparent.
Still, the glimpses into the world that Stalin inhabited (he had, for instance, an unexpected affinity for Ivan the Terrible) are fascinating, as are those into the worlds of those Stalin persecuted. For that, and for the rare look at what is involved in producing scholarly historical work, I rate this four stars. For more insight into the Stalinist era itself, one of the newest books out on the lives of ordinary Russians is
The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, while Simon Sebag Montefiore has published two authoritative volumes on Stalin himself, including
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. One definitive work on the Great Terror is by Robert Conquest
The Great Terror: A Reassessment. For those who are curious about the evolution of today's Russia, I'd recommend
Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution for insight into the havoc wreaked by the oligarchs and
Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy for a polemical but riveting view of what has happened since 1998.
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24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Wrong expectation: a personal, unremarkable journey., May 9, 2009
This review is from: Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia (Hardcover)
This book became a disappointment within the first 10 pages, when I realized the author wasn't about to share any material FROM the archives, but rather his own rather uninteresting travels to / from Moscow, discussions with his proud landlady on Kutuzovski Prospect, drinking tea from cracked cups, etc.
His personal experiences were shared by hundreds, thousands of foreigners who flocked in the early 1990s to a very exciting new Russia -- emerging from stagnation while nearly falling into anarchy. I was one of those foreigners, and found Mr. Brent's limited journey to be unremarkable.
In fairness to the author, and after re-reading the editorial review, I see that my expectations on this book's content were indeed raised too high by its title. I should have read this with the understanding that this is Mr. Brent's personal journey, rather than a scholarly work. In fact, I shouldn't have read this book at all.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
History of the Yale Annals of Communism series, May 4, 2009
This review is from: Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia (Hardcover)
As a student of history, and coincidentally a reader of the Annals of Communism series, I found this half history half "memoir" a very provocative read. At the end of the Soviet Union Russia was in the midst of chaos and turmoil. Yet, into this mix comes Jonathan Brent with no idea of what he's about to face. Meeting the various actors he interacts with, and learning about some of their tragic situations and demises, keeps the narrative going pretty quickly. Many of the the Russians he meets I have encountered as authors/editions in various books I've read, and with the details found in this book I can put something of a character/personality to the name. A few complaints: I do think the author is at times a bit too literary and long-winded, specifically when he begins to dissect Babel and Stalin, also, even with over a decade of traveling back and forth between Russia and the US and reading through archives in their original, he still makes at least one mistake in his translation from Russian to English. Lastly, the political atmosphere in Russia, both in the 90s and in this decade, is something I don't think he can comment on with as much insight as some would like. While he did have access to the likes of Yakovlev, I don't think such connections are enough to make some of the claims that he takes the liberty of making. While not anti-Russian, although some nationalists would undoubtedly think that, I believe some are naive. That being said, the overall narrative is quite interesting, insightful and candid.
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