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袣褉褍褌芯泄 屑邪褉褕褉褍褌 #1
丿乇 丿賱 诏乇丿亘丕丿
丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 亘乇丕爻丕爻 禺丕胤乇丕鬲 蹖賵诏蹖賳蹖丕 诏蹖賳夭亘賵乇诏 賳賵卮鬲賴 卮丿賴 丕爻鬲貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 賵 卮丕毓乇蹖 讴賴 讴賲賵賳蹖爻鬲 亘賵丿 賵賱蹖 丿爻鬲诏丕
丕賲賳蹖鬲蹖 丕爻鬲丕賱蹖賳 亘賴 丕賵 馗賳蹖賳 卮丿 賵 倬爻 丕夭 丌夭丕乇 賵 丕匕蹖鬲鈥屬囏й� 亘爻蹖丕乇蹖 讴賴 亘乇丕蹖 丕賵 賵 禺丕賳賵丕丿賴鈥屫ж� 丕蹖噩丕丿 讴乇丿貙 賵蹖 乇丕 亘賴 夭賳丿丕賳 賵 丕乇丿賵诏丕賴鈥屬囏й� 讴丕乇 丕噩亘丕乇蹖 賮乇爻鬲丕丿. 丕賵 賴噩丿賴 爻丕賱 丕夭 毓賲乇卮 乇丕 丿乇 趩賳蹖賳 卮乇丕蹖胤蹖 诏匕乇丕賳丿. 丿乇 丌賳 丿賵乇賴 亘賴 丕丿丕乇賴贁 讴賱 丕乇丿賵诏丕賴鈥屬囏й� 讴丕乇 丕賳囟亘丕胤蹖 芦诏賵賱丕诏禄 賲蹖鈥屭佖嗀�. 丕賵 鬲賳賴丕 蹖讴蹖 丕夭 賲蹖賱蹖賵賳鈥屬囏� 賳賮乇蹖 亘賵丿 讴賴 亘賴 丌賳鈥屫� 鬲亘毓蹖丿 卮丿賴 亘賵丿賳丿. 倬爻乇 丕賵賱卮 乇丕 丿乇 丿賵乇賴贁 鬲亘毓蹖丿卮 丕夭 丿爻鬲 丿丕丿 賵 倬爻乇 丿賵賲卮 賵丕爻蹖賱蹖 丌讴爻蹖丕賳賵賮貙 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴贁 賲毓乇賵賮 乇賵爻蹖賴 丕爻鬲 讴賴 趩賴丕乇丿賴 爻丕賱 鬲賲丕賲 丕夭 丕賵 丿賵乇 亘賵丿 賵 丿乇 爻丕賱 郾酃鄹郯 丕夭 乇賵爻蹖賴 丕禺乇丕噩 卮丿. 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 爻丕賱鈥屬囏� 亘賴 氐賵乇鬲 爻丕賲蹖夭丿丕鬲 (賳卮乇 夭蹖乇夭賲蹖賳蹖) 丿乇 乇賵爻蹖賴 趩丕倬 賵 爻倬爻 亘賴 亘蹖卮鬲乇 夭亘丕賳鈥屬囏й� 丿賳蹖丕 鬲乇噩賲賴 卮丿.
*
This book is based on the memoirs of Eugenia Ginsburg; A writer and poet who was a communist, but Stalin's security apparatus became suspicious of her and sent her to prison and forced labor camps after many persecutions she caused to her and her family. She spent eighteen years of her life in such conditions. In that period, the general administration of disciplinary labor camps was called "Gulag". She was just one of the millions who were exiled there. She lost her first son during her exile and her second son is Vasily Aksyanov, a famous Russian writer who was away from her for fourteen years and was expelled from Russia in 1980.
This book was published as a samizdat (underground publication) in Russia for many years and then translated into most languages of the world.
丕賲賳蹖鬲蹖 丕爻鬲丕賱蹖賳 亘賴 丕賵 馗賳蹖賳 卮丿 賵 倬爻 丕夭 丌夭丕乇 賵 丕匕蹖鬲鈥屬囏й� 亘爻蹖丕乇蹖 讴賴 亘乇丕蹖 丕賵 賵 禺丕賳賵丕丿賴鈥屫ж� 丕蹖噩丕丿 讴乇丿貙 賵蹖 乇丕 亘賴 夭賳丿丕賳 賵 丕乇丿賵诏丕賴鈥屬囏й� 讴丕乇 丕噩亘丕乇蹖 賮乇爻鬲丕丿. 丕賵 賴噩丿賴 爻丕賱 丕夭 毓賲乇卮 乇丕 丿乇 趩賳蹖賳 卮乇丕蹖胤蹖 诏匕乇丕賳丿. 丿乇 丌賳 丿賵乇賴 亘賴 丕丿丕乇賴贁 讴賱 丕乇丿賵诏丕賴鈥屬囏й� 讴丕乇 丕賳囟亘丕胤蹖 芦诏賵賱丕诏禄 賲蹖鈥屭佖嗀�. 丕賵 鬲賳賴丕 蹖讴蹖 丕夭 賲蹖賱蹖賵賳鈥屬囏� 賳賮乇蹖 亘賵丿 讴賴 亘賴 丌賳鈥屫� 鬲亘毓蹖丿 卮丿賴 亘賵丿賳丿. 倬爻乇 丕賵賱卮 乇丕 丿乇 丿賵乇賴贁 鬲亘毓蹖丿卮 丕夭 丿爻鬲 丿丕丿 賵 倬爻乇 丿賵賲卮 賵丕爻蹖賱蹖 丌讴爻蹖丕賳賵賮貙 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴贁 賲毓乇賵賮 乇賵爻蹖賴 丕爻鬲 讴賴 趩賴丕乇丿賴 爻丕賱 鬲賲丕賲 丕夭 丕賵 丿賵乇 亘賵丿 賵 丿乇 爻丕賱 郾酃鄹郯 丕夭 乇賵爻蹖賴 丕禺乇丕噩 卮丿. 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 爻丕賱鈥屬囏� 亘賴 氐賵乇鬲 爻丕賲蹖夭丿丕鬲 (賳卮乇 夭蹖乇夭賲蹖賳蹖) 丿乇 乇賵爻蹖賴 趩丕倬 賵 爻倬爻 亘賴 亘蹖卮鬲乇 夭亘丕賳鈥屬囏й� 丿賳蹖丕 鬲乇噩賲賴 卮丿.
*
This book is based on the memoirs of Eugenia Ginsburg; A writer and poet who was a communist, but Stalin's security apparatus became suspicious of her and sent her to prison and forced labor camps after many persecutions she caused to her and her family. She spent eighteen years of her life in such conditions. In that period, the general administration of disciplinary labor camps was called "Gulag". She was just one of the millions who were exiled there. She lost her first son during her exile and her second son is Vasily Aksyanov, a famous Russian writer who was away from her for fourteen years and was expelled from Russia in 1980.
This book was published as a samizdat (underground publication) in Russia for many years and then translated into most languages of the world.
532 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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About the author
Eugenia Ginzburg
3听books63听followersEugenia Ginzburg (Russian: 袝胁谐械薪懈褟 袚懈薪蟹斜褍褉谐) was a Russian historian and writer. Soon after Eugenia Ginzburg was born into the family of a Jewish pharmacist in Moscow, her family moved to Kazan. In 1920 she entered the social sciences department of Kazan State University, later switching to pedagogy.
She worked as a rabfak (worker's faculty) teacher, then as an assistant at the University. Shortly thereafter, she married Pavel Aksyonov, the mayor of Kazan and a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. After becoming a Communist Party member, Ginzburg continued her successful career as educator, journalist and administrator. Her oldest son, Alexei Fedorov, from her first marriage to Doctor Fedorov, was born in 1926 and died in the Great Patriotic War. Her younger son Vasily Aksyonov, born in 1932, went on to become a famous writer.
In February 1937, she was expelled from the party ranks and soon arrested for her alleged connections to the Trotskyists. (See also Great Purge). Her parents were also arrested but released two months later. Her husband was arrested in July and sentenced to 15 years of "corrective labor" with the confiscation of his property. (Articles 58-7 and 11). In August, Eugenia was also sentenced to ten years.
Eugenia Ginzburg experienced first-hand the infamous Moscow Lefortovo and Butyrka prisons, the Yaroslavl "Korovniki", as well as the journey on a prison train across the country to Vladivostok, and finally to Kolyma in the cargo hold of the steamer Jurma (袛卸褍褉屑邪). At Magadan, she worked at a camp hospital, but was soon sent into the cold depths of the Gulag and assigned to so-called common jobs, where she quickly became an emaciated dokhodyaga ("goner"). A Crimean German doctor, Anton Walter, probably saved her life by recommending her for a nursing position. Anton had been deported due to his German heritage, Eugenia due to her allegedly critical attitude to the Soviet system. They married later.
In February 1949, Ginzburg was formally released but had to stay in Magadan for five more years. She found a position at a kindergarten and secretly started to work on her memoirs. In October 1950 she was arrested again and exiled to Krasnoyarsk region, but before she left, her destination was changed to Kolyma. After Stalin's death in 1953, Ginzburg was able to visit Moscow and was fully rehabilitated in 1955, as were millions of wrongly convicted, many posthumously.
She returned to Moscow, worked as a reporter and continued her work on her magnum opus memoir, Journey into the Whirlwind (English title). After the book was completed (1967), all attempts to publish it in the USSR failed for political reasons and the manuscript was smuggled abroad, where it was widely published. Eventually, her book included 2 parts, in original Russian named "Krutoi marshrut I" and "Krutoi marshrut II" -- "Harsh Route" or "Steep Route."
She worked as a rabfak (worker's faculty) teacher, then as an assistant at the University. Shortly thereafter, she married Pavel Aksyonov, the mayor of Kazan and a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. After becoming a Communist Party member, Ginzburg continued her successful career as educator, journalist and administrator. Her oldest son, Alexei Fedorov, from her first marriage to Doctor Fedorov, was born in 1926 and died in the Great Patriotic War. Her younger son Vasily Aksyonov, born in 1932, went on to become a famous writer.
In February 1937, she was expelled from the party ranks and soon arrested for her alleged connections to the Trotskyists. (See also Great Purge). Her parents were also arrested but released two months later. Her husband was arrested in July and sentenced to 15 years of "corrective labor" with the confiscation of his property. (Articles 58-7 and 11). In August, Eugenia was also sentenced to ten years.
Eugenia Ginzburg experienced first-hand the infamous Moscow Lefortovo and Butyrka prisons, the Yaroslavl "Korovniki", as well as the journey on a prison train across the country to Vladivostok, and finally to Kolyma in the cargo hold of the steamer Jurma (袛卸褍褉屑邪). At Magadan, she worked at a camp hospital, but was soon sent into the cold depths of the Gulag and assigned to so-called common jobs, where she quickly became an emaciated dokhodyaga ("goner"). A Crimean German doctor, Anton Walter, probably saved her life by recommending her for a nursing position. Anton had been deported due to his German heritage, Eugenia due to her allegedly critical attitude to the Soviet system. They married later.
In February 1949, Ginzburg was formally released but had to stay in Magadan for five more years. She found a position at a kindergarten and secretly started to work on her memoirs. In October 1950 she was arrested again and exiled to Krasnoyarsk region, but before she left, her destination was changed to Kolyma. After Stalin's death in 1953, Ginzburg was able to visit Moscow and was fully rehabilitated in 1955, as were millions of wrongly convicted, many posthumously.
She returned to Moscow, worked as a reporter and continued her work on her magnum opus memoir, Journey into the Whirlwind (English title). After the book was completed (1967), all attempts to publish it in the USSR failed for political reasons and the manuscript was smuggled abroad, where it was widely published. Eventually, her book included 2 parts, in original Russian named "Krutoi marshrut I" and "Krutoi marshrut II" -- "Harsh Route" or "Steep Route."
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September 20, 2022
BUIO A MEZZOGIORNO
Nel 1937, quando tutto ebbe inizio, avevo poco pi霉 di trent鈥檃nni; ora ho di parecchio superato i cinquanta. Diciotto degli anni compresi in questo periodo li ho trascorsi l脿.
尝脿 猫 dove viene confinata dalla repressione staliniana (di solito si usa l鈥檈spressione 鈥減urghe staliniane鈥� che mi pare infinitamente riduttiva) che per Evgenija inizia nel 1937, ma per tanti altri era gi脿 iniziata da tempo.
尝脿 猫 il carcere duro e il lager, la Kolyma, mitica parola che evoca terrore.
Emily Watson nel ruolo di Evgenija Ginzburg 猫 la protagonista del film omonimo del 2009 diretto da Marleen Gorris.
Ma Evgenija non si lasci貌 schiacciare dal tormento e dallo sconforto: il senso di stupore per l鈥檃ssurdit脿 cosmica che stava subendo l鈥檃iut貌 a sopravvivere, la sua spiccata curiosit脿 per gli uomini e gli aspetti della vita la port貌 a essere vittima e osservatrice al contempo.
E da osservatrice e vittima, da protagonista e commentatrice, regala 700 meravigliose pagine che sono proprio quello che il titolo promette e mantiene: non solo una grande preziosa e spietata testimonianza, ma un autentico viaggio nel gorgo.
Vertigine interiore ed esteriore: fine di qualsiasi logica e regola di buon senso, dilagare della paura e della violenza che genera terrore, smarrimento nel sentirsi improvvisamente insignificante e annullato, morte dell鈥檌ndividuo che diventa soltanto una moltitudine di un milione divisa per un milione (A.Koestler).
Eppure, Evgenija non 猫 Rubasciov, il protagonista di Buio a mezzogiorno, non ha ancora cominciato a preporre l鈥檜omo all鈥檜manit脿, non 猫 ancora colpevole di aver dato voce a quella "finzione grammaticale" che nell'universo concentrazionario stalinista risponde alla prima persona singolare, all' "io" - non ha ancora cominciato ad ascoltare la propria voce interiore e dunque a farsi domande su domande.
Tutto questo avverr脿 solo in seguito, conseguenza dei fatti che la travolgono.
Nel 1937 猫 un fedele convinto entusiasta membro del Partito Comunista russo: ma la macchina 猫 gi脿 in moto da tempo (socialrivoluzionari e menscevichi e ucraini鈥�), anche se lei non se ne 猫 ancora accorta, e la macchina ha bisogno di tritare corpi e anime per mantenere il passo.
Evgenija viene accusata di attivit脿 anti-rivoluzionarie, e processata per trotzkismo, condannata a dieci anni, che diventeranno circa 18 prima di poter tornare sul 鈥渃ontinente鈥�.
Il racconto segue passo passo gli accadimenti, dalle prime accuse, al processo, al carcere e infine al lager.
Sono tante le scoperte che aspettano Evgenija, e noi spettatori: per esempio, che anche tra i detenuti esistesse un culto quasi religioso di Stalin 鈥� c鈥檈rano condannati che si rifiutavano di credere Stalin sapesse quello che accadeva nei tribunali, nelle prigioni, nei lager 鈥� il Grande Umanitario, nonch茅 il Migliore Amico dei Bambini, era al di sopra di ogni sospetto anche per qualcuno dei relitti umani che la Kolyma produceva e distruggeva.
Intanto la gente veniva eliminata a strati.
La scoperta che il trasferimento nel lager pu貌 suscitare attesa ed eccitazione: la parola Kolyma infondeva speranza, laggi霉 cibo, aria aperta, lavoro per sentirsi utili, fine dell鈥檃fa - finalmente vita in comune, fine dell鈥檌solamento, il cielo, la luce, fine della reclusione sigillata.
Si esprimeva l鈥檃ntica esigenza dell鈥檃nimo umano di coltivare speranza, annota Evgenija, che non poteva certo scrivere in quei frangenti, ma conservava nella memoria per consegnare alla carta i suoi preziosi ricordi molti anni dopo.
La scoperta che all鈥檃rrivo nel campo di smistamento, le donne che viaggiano con lei vedono gli uomini dopo anni di carcere e iniziano subito storie d鈥檃more appassionate: quegli esseri umani, ormai privi quasi di corpo, venuti a contatto l鈥檜no con l鈥檃ltro, improvvisamente, come per magia, riacquistarono l鈥檌ntensit脿 di percezioni smarrita a causa delle smisurate sofferenze patite. Domani li manderanno in direzioni diverse e non si vedranno mai pi霉. Ma oggi si guardano commossi negli occhi attraverso il filo spinato arrugginito, e parlano, parlano鈥� Non ho mai visto un amore pi霉 elevato e pieno di abnegazione di quello che un矛 per un solo giorno quegli sconosciuti. Forse perch茅 davvero, in quel momento, l鈥檃more era accanto alla morte.
Ogni giorno di vita in pi霉 va festeggiato ripetendosi oggi vi 猫 andata male, cara signora morte, addio, alla prossima occasione, ogni attimo ci si ripete soffro, dunque vivo.
Basta poco tempo nel lager per capire che si 猫 atteso invano di arrivarci, la realt脿 猫 ben diversa, e si 猫 lasciato alle spalle qualcosa che pu貌 addirittura valere la pena rimpiangere, il carcere, soprattutto quello di rigore, eleva i detenuti, li spinge verso la purificazione morale, riesce a tirare fuori i tesori nascosti nel nostro animo 鈥� mentre il lager presentava personalit脿 stravolte dalla lotta per la sopravvivenza.
Il ricordo di Evgenija 猫 nitido anche anni dopo e riesce a esprimerlo con parole ferme, lucide, semplici.
Non posso che lasciare parlare ancora direttamente lei, maestra di vita:
La particolarit脿 del nostro inferno stava nel fatto che al suo ingresso non c鈥檈ra l鈥檌scrizione LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA O VOI CHE ENTRATE. Al contrario, la speranza c鈥檈ra. Non ci mandavano nelle camere a gas o alla forca. C鈥檈rano lavori che portavano presto alla morte, sia lavori ai quali era possibile sopravvivere. Era molto pi霉 probabile morire che vivere, 猫 vero, tuttavia speranze di farcela ce n鈥檈rano. Seppure illusorie, vacillanti come una fiammella al vento. Ma come esiste la speranza, esiste anche il terrore.
E ancora, sempre parole sue, sempre belle e preziose:
La cosa pi霉 terribile 猫 quando l鈥檌ngiustizia diventa quotidianit脿, prosaica routine che si protrae per decenni. Nel 鈥�37 l鈥檌ngiustizia aveva preso forme monumentali e tragiche. Ora nel 鈥�49, sapevo che la sofferenza purifica solo in una certa misura, quando si protrae per decenni e diventa quotidianit脿 non purifica pi霉, ma ci trasforma semplicemente in pezzi di legno.
Non riesco a non riportare qui frasi intere prese dalle sue pagine, mi sembrano troppo importanti, mi sembrano imperdibili:
Nella nostra epoca, caratterizzata dalla labilit脿 della linea che separa i carnefici dalle vittime (quante persone prima di andare a finire nel tritacarne staliniano, avevano collaborato con impegno a tritare la carne degli altri!), non esiste pi霉 quella solida barricata che, ad esempio nel 1905, separava nettamente i due eserciti: da una parte loro, dall鈥檃ltra noi. L鈥檌naudito sistema di corruzione delle anime messo in atto attraverso la Grande Menzogna ha fatto s矛 che migliaia e migliaia di uomini e donne semplici cadessero nell鈥檌nganno. E adesso che cosa avremmo potuto fare, farla pagare a tutti? Rivaleggiare con il tiranno in crudelt脿? Prolungare senza fine il trionfo dell鈥檕dio?
Anche quando le cose cominciano ad andare meglio, Evgenija ha riflessioni su cui vale la pena fermarsi:
La sorprendente facilit脿 a dimenticare, a cancellare tutto nella memoria per tornare alle posizioni di partenza, senza minimamente rivedere i propri valori alla luce della crudele esperienza vissuta, senza alcuna compassione per coloro con i quali ancora ieri si era fratelli. Ma come si possono comprendere, e quindi perdonare, coloro che per amore della carriera, per la fiera della verit脿, vogliono dimenticare tutto, soffocare in se stessi quanto hanno scoperto attraverso la sofferenza, e proseguire come se niente fosse successo la strada che stavano percorrendo prima dell鈥檃rresto?!
E quando Evgenija e la Russia sembra che possano ricominciare a respirare e sperare, Stalin 猫 finalmente sepolto, il XX Congresso con le parole di Kruscev riabilita le vittime (non tutte) e condanna i carnefici (alcuni), altrove invece (Ungheria, Cecoslovacchia) il tritacarne sta lavorando alla grande, proprio in quella notte per me benedetta, quando mi sembrava che fosse arrivata la fine delle nostre sofferenze, ai nostri confini, in Cecoslovacchia, si continuavano a torturare degli uomini, a umiliarli, a obbligarli a recitare le infami commedie dei processi, si continuano a impiccare degli uomini senza motivo.
Un libro per ricordarci che apparteniamo ancora al genere umano.
Se non altro, per sperarlo.
IL FILM DI MARLEEN GORRIS (2009):
Il linguaggio visivo (quello delle immagini in movimento perlomeno) 猫 cambiato cos矛 tanto negli ultimi tempi, grazie anche alle serie tv, che questo film del 2009 sembra appartenere al millennio precedente: pulitino, educato, scolastico. Un adattamento diligente. In certi momenti fin troppo stile tv movie d鈥檃ntan. Salvo un buon attacco di montaggio che salta anni e situazioni.
Non era facile condensare settecento e passa pagine in un film di durata standard (cento minuti scarsi), ma serviva altra direzione, altra interprete, altro cast intorno (in qualche momento quasi imbarazzante).
Serviva essere pi霉 freddi, meno melo: una situazione che parla da sola non ha bisogno di tinte spinte. Salvo poi non spingerle davvero quando servirebbe. Era necessario un approccio pi霉 documentaristico, meno ricostruito, meno di finzione.
Troppo spesso purtroppo il dialogo ha funzione di spiegazione, o di didascalia.
Nel 1937, quando tutto ebbe inizio, avevo poco pi霉 di trent鈥檃nni; ora ho di parecchio superato i cinquanta. Diciotto degli anni compresi in questo periodo li ho trascorsi l脿.
尝脿 猫 dove viene confinata dalla repressione staliniana (di solito si usa l鈥檈spressione 鈥減urghe staliniane鈥� che mi pare infinitamente riduttiva) che per Evgenija inizia nel 1937, ma per tanti altri era gi脿 iniziata da tempo.
尝脿 猫 il carcere duro e il lager, la Kolyma, mitica parola che evoca terrore.
Emily Watson nel ruolo di Evgenija Ginzburg 猫 la protagonista del film omonimo del 2009 diretto da Marleen Gorris.
Ma Evgenija non si lasci貌 schiacciare dal tormento e dallo sconforto: il senso di stupore per l鈥檃ssurdit脿 cosmica che stava subendo l鈥檃iut貌 a sopravvivere, la sua spiccata curiosit脿 per gli uomini e gli aspetti della vita la port貌 a essere vittima e osservatrice al contempo.
E da osservatrice e vittima, da protagonista e commentatrice, regala 700 meravigliose pagine che sono proprio quello che il titolo promette e mantiene: non solo una grande preziosa e spietata testimonianza, ma un autentico viaggio nel gorgo.
Vertigine interiore ed esteriore: fine di qualsiasi logica e regola di buon senso, dilagare della paura e della violenza che genera terrore, smarrimento nel sentirsi improvvisamente insignificante e annullato, morte dell鈥檌ndividuo che diventa soltanto una moltitudine di un milione divisa per un milione (A.Koestler).
Eppure, Evgenija non 猫 Rubasciov, il protagonista di Buio a mezzogiorno, non ha ancora cominciato a preporre l鈥檜omo all鈥檜manit脿, non 猫 ancora colpevole di aver dato voce a quella "finzione grammaticale" che nell'universo concentrazionario stalinista risponde alla prima persona singolare, all' "io" - non ha ancora cominciato ad ascoltare la propria voce interiore e dunque a farsi domande su domande.
Tutto questo avverr脿 solo in seguito, conseguenza dei fatti che la travolgono.
Nel 1937 猫 un fedele convinto entusiasta membro del Partito Comunista russo: ma la macchina 猫 gi脿 in moto da tempo (socialrivoluzionari e menscevichi e ucraini鈥�), anche se lei non se ne 猫 ancora accorta, e la macchina ha bisogno di tritare corpi e anime per mantenere il passo.
Evgenija viene accusata di attivit脿 anti-rivoluzionarie, e processata per trotzkismo, condannata a dieci anni, che diventeranno circa 18 prima di poter tornare sul 鈥渃ontinente鈥�.
Il racconto segue passo passo gli accadimenti, dalle prime accuse, al processo, al carcere e infine al lager.
Sono tante le scoperte che aspettano Evgenija, e noi spettatori: per esempio, che anche tra i detenuti esistesse un culto quasi religioso di Stalin 鈥� c鈥檈rano condannati che si rifiutavano di credere Stalin sapesse quello che accadeva nei tribunali, nelle prigioni, nei lager 鈥� il Grande Umanitario, nonch茅 il Migliore Amico dei Bambini, era al di sopra di ogni sospetto anche per qualcuno dei relitti umani che la Kolyma produceva e distruggeva.
Intanto la gente veniva eliminata a strati.
La scoperta che il trasferimento nel lager pu貌 suscitare attesa ed eccitazione: la parola Kolyma infondeva speranza, laggi霉 cibo, aria aperta, lavoro per sentirsi utili, fine dell鈥檃fa - finalmente vita in comune, fine dell鈥檌solamento, il cielo, la luce, fine della reclusione sigillata.
Si esprimeva l鈥檃ntica esigenza dell鈥檃nimo umano di coltivare speranza, annota Evgenija, che non poteva certo scrivere in quei frangenti, ma conservava nella memoria per consegnare alla carta i suoi preziosi ricordi molti anni dopo.
La scoperta che all鈥檃rrivo nel campo di smistamento, le donne che viaggiano con lei vedono gli uomini dopo anni di carcere e iniziano subito storie d鈥檃more appassionate: quegli esseri umani, ormai privi quasi di corpo, venuti a contatto l鈥檜no con l鈥檃ltro, improvvisamente, come per magia, riacquistarono l鈥檌ntensit脿 di percezioni smarrita a causa delle smisurate sofferenze patite. Domani li manderanno in direzioni diverse e non si vedranno mai pi霉. Ma oggi si guardano commossi negli occhi attraverso il filo spinato arrugginito, e parlano, parlano鈥� Non ho mai visto un amore pi霉 elevato e pieno di abnegazione di quello che un矛 per un solo giorno quegli sconosciuti. Forse perch茅 davvero, in quel momento, l鈥檃more era accanto alla morte.
Ogni giorno di vita in pi霉 va festeggiato ripetendosi oggi vi 猫 andata male, cara signora morte, addio, alla prossima occasione, ogni attimo ci si ripete soffro, dunque vivo.
Basta poco tempo nel lager per capire che si 猫 atteso invano di arrivarci, la realt脿 猫 ben diversa, e si 猫 lasciato alle spalle qualcosa che pu貌 addirittura valere la pena rimpiangere, il carcere, soprattutto quello di rigore, eleva i detenuti, li spinge verso la purificazione morale, riesce a tirare fuori i tesori nascosti nel nostro animo 鈥� mentre il lager presentava personalit脿 stravolte dalla lotta per la sopravvivenza.
Il ricordo di Evgenija 猫 nitido anche anni dopo e riesce a esprimerlo con parole ferme, lucide, semplici.
Non posso che lasciare parlare ancora direttamente lei, maestra di vita:
La particolarit脿 del nostro inferno stava nel fatto che al suo ingresso non c鈥檈ra l鈥檌scrizione LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA O VOI CHE ENTRATE. Al contrario, la speranza c鈥檈ra. Non ci mandavano nelle camere a gas o alla forca. C鈥檈rano lavori che portavano presto alla morte, sia lavori ai quali era possibile sopravvivere. Era molto pi霉 probabile morire che vivere, 猫 vero, tuttavia speranze di farcela ce n鈥檈rano. Seppure illusorie, vacillanti come una fiammella al vento. Ma come esiste la speranza, esiste anche il terrore.
E ancora, sempre parole sue, sempre belle e preziose:
La cosa pi霉 terribile 猫 quando l鈥檌ngiustizia diventa quotidianit脿, prosaica routine che si protrae per decenni. Nel 鈥�37 l鈥檌ngiustizia aveva preso forme monumentali e tragiche. Ora nel 鈥�49, sapevo che la sofferenza purifica solo in una certa misura, quando si protrae per decenni e diventa quotidianit脿 non purifica pi霉, ma ci trasforma semplicemente in pezzi di legno.
Non riesco a non riportare qui frasi intere prese dalle sue pagine, mi sembrano troppo importanti, mi sembrano imperdibili:
Nella nostra epoca, caratterizzata dalla labilit脿 della linea che separa i carnefici dalle vittime (quante persone prima di andare a finire nel tritacarne staliniano, avevano collaborato con impegno a tritare la carne degli altri!), non esiste pi霉 quella solida barricata che, ad esempio nel 1905, separava nettamente i due eserciti: da una parte loro, dall鈥檃ltra noi. L鈥檌naudito sistema di corruzione delle anime messo in atto attraverso la Grande Menzogna ha fatto s矛 che migliaia e migliaia di uomini e donne semplici cadessero nell鈥檌nganno. E adesso che cosa avremmo potuto fare, farla pagare a tutti? Rivaleggiare con il tiranno in crudelt脿? Prolungare senza fine il trionfo dell鈥檕dio?
Anche quando le cose cominciano ad andare meglio, Evgenija ha riflessioni su cui vale la pena fermarsi:
La sorprendente facilit脿 a dimenticare, a cancellare tutto nella memoria per tornare alle posizioni di partenza, senza minimamente rivedere i propri valori alla luce della crudele esperienza vissuta, senza alcuna compassione per coloro con i quali ancora ieri si era fratelli. Ma come si possono comprendere, e quindi perdonare, coloro che per amore della carriera, per la fiera della verit脿, vogliono dimenticare tutto, soffocare in se stessi quanto hanno scoperto attraverso la sofferenza, e proseguire come se niente fosse successo la strada che stavano percorrendo prima dell鈥檃rresto?!
E quando Evgenija e la Russia sembra che possano ricominciare a respirare e sperare, Stalin 猫 finalmente sepolto, il XX Congresso con le parole di Kruscev riabilita le vittime (non tutte) e condanna i carnefici (alcuni), altrove invece (Ungheria, Cecoslovacchia) il tritacarne sta lavorando alla grande, proprio in quella notte per me benedetta, quando mi sembrava che fosse arrivata la fine delle nostre sofferenze, ai nostri confini, in Cecoslovacchia, si continuavano a torturare degli uomini, a umiliarli, a obbligarli a recitare le infami commedie dei processi, si continuano a impiccare degli uomini senza motivo.
Un libro per ricordarci che apparteniamo ancora al genere umano.
Se non altro, per sperarlo.
IL FILM DI MARLEEN GORRIS (2009):
Il linguaggio visivo (quello delle immagini in movimento perlomeno) 猫 cambiato cos矛 tanto negli ultimi tempi, grazie anche alle serie tv, che questo film del 2009 sembra appartenere al millennio precedente: pulitino, educato, scolastico. Un adattamento diligente. In certi momenti fin troppo stile tv movie d鈥檃ntan. Salvo un buon attacco di montaggio che salta anni e situazioni.
Non era facile condensare settecento e passa pagine in un film di durata standard (cento minuti scarsi), ma serviva altra direzione, altra interprete, altro cast intorno (in qualche momento quasi imbarazzante).
Serviva essere pi霉 freddi, meno melo: una situazione che parla da sola non ha bisogno di tinte spinte. Salvo poi non spingerle davvero quando servirebbe. Era necessario un approccio pi霉 documentaristico, meno ricostruito, meno di finzione.
Troppo spesso purtroppo il dialogo ha funzione di spiegazione, o di didascalia.
July 27, 2020
Journey into the Whirlwind, Evgenia Ginzburg
Journey into the Whirlwind is the English title of the memoir by Eugenia Ginzburg. It was published in English in 1967, some thirty years after the story begins.
The two-part book is a highly detailed first-hand account of her life and imprisonment in the Soviet Union during the rule of Joseph Stalin in the 1930's.
Although Ginzburg sought to have the manuscript published in the Soviet Union, she was turned down. The manuscript was smuggled out of the country and later sold in many different languages. The first volume was published in 1967 and the second volume was published in 1979 two years after Ginzburg's death. A copy would not be published by a Russian publisher until 1990.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 爻丕賱 1992 賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 丿乇 丿賱 诏乇丿亘丕丿貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 蹖賵诏鈥嵺屸€嵸嗏€嵷� (蹖賵诏賳蹖丕 爻蹖賲賵賳賵賵賳丕) 诏鈥嵺屸€嵸嗏€嵷藏ㄢ€嵷壁� 亘鈥嵷� 賲鈥嵸傗€嵷呪€嵸�: 賴鈥嵷й屸€嵸嗏€嵷臂屸€嵷� 亘鈥嵸勜� 賲鬲鈥嵷必€嵸� 賮鈥嵷必藏з嗏€嵸� 胤丕賴鈥嵷臂屫� 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 爻乇賵卮貙 1369貨 丿乇 亘蹖爻鬲 賵 蹖讴 賵 485氐貨 趩丕倬 丿蹖诏乇: 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳蹖賱賵賮乇貙 1385貨 丿乇 532氐貨 卮丕亘讴 9644482980貨 趩丕倬 倬賳噩賲 1395貨 賲賵囟賵毓 爻乇诏匕卮鬲賳丕賲賴 蹖賵诏鈥嵺屸€嵸嗏€嵷� (蹖賵诏賳蹖丕 爻蹖賲賵賳賵賵賳丕) 诏鈥嵺屸€嵸嗏€嵷藏ㄢ€嵷壁� 丕夭 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 乇賵爻蹖賴 - 爻丿賴 20賲
丕蹖鈥嵸嗏€� 讴鈥嵷€嵷жㄢ€� 鬲鈥嵷必€嵸呪€嵸団€� 蹖 亘禺卮 丿賵賲鈥� 蹖丕丿賲丕賳賴丕蹖 賳鈥嵸堐屸€嵷斥€嵸嗏€嵷団€� 丕爻鈥嵷€屫� 亘禺卮 賳禺爻鬲 亘鈥嵷� 毓賳賵丕賳: 芦爻鈥嵸佲€嵷臂屸€� 丿乇 诏鈥嵷必ㄢ€嵷ж回� 丿乇 爻鈥嵷з勨€� 1348賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貙 丿乇 454氐貙 亘鈥嵷� 鬲鈥嵷必€嵸呪€嵸� 噩賳丕亘 芦賲鈥嵸団€嵷屸€� 爻鈥嵸呪€嵷斥€嵷ж甭回� 鬲鈥嵸堌斥€嵷� 丕賳鈥嵷€嵷粹€嵷ж必ж€� 芦禺鈥嵸堌ж必操呪€嵺屸€屄� 賲鈥嵸嗏€嵷€嵷粹€嵷� 賵 亘丕 趩丕倬 丿賵賲 丿乇 爻丕賱 1361 鬲噩丿蹖丿 卮鈥嵷団€� 丕爻鈥嵷€屫�
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鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 05/05/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
Journey into the Whirlwind is the English title of the memoir by Eugenia Ginzburg. It was published in English in 1967, some thirty years after the story begins.
The two-part book is a highly detailed first-hand account of her life and imprisonment in the Soviet Union during the rule of Joseph Stalin in the 1930's.
Although Ginzburg sought to have the manuscript published in the Soviet Union, she was turned down. The manuscript was smuggled out of the country and later sold in many different languages. The first volume was published in 1967 and the second volume was published in 1979 two years after Ginzburg's death. A copy would not be published by a Russian publisher until 1990.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 爻丕賱 1992 賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
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讴鬲丕亘 亘乇丕爻丕爻 蹖丕丿賲丕賳賴丕蹖 芦蹖賵诏蹖賳蹖丕 诏蹖賳夭亘賵乇诏禄 賳賵卮鬲賴 卮丿賴貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 賵 卮丕毓乇蹖 讴賴 讴賲賵賳蹖爻鬲 亘賵丿貙 賵賱蹖 丿爻鬲诏丕賴 丕賲賳蹖鬲蹖 芦丕爻鬲丕賱蹖賳禄 亘賴 丕賵 馗賳蹖賳 卮丿貙 賵 倬爻 丕夭 丌夭丕乇 賵 丕匕蹖鬲鈥屬囏й� 亘爻蹖丕乇貙 讴賴 亘乇丕蹖 丕賵 賵 禺丕賳賵丕丿賴鈥� 丕卮 丕蹖噩丕丿 讴乇丿貙 賵蹖 乇丕 亘賴 夭賳丿丕賳 賵 丕乇丿賵诏丕賴鈥屬囏й� 讴丕乇 丕噩亘丕乇蹖 賮乇爻鬲丕丿貨 丕賵 賴噩丿賴 爻丕賱 丕夭 毓賲乇卮 乇丕 丿乇 趩賳丕賳 卮乇丕蹖胤蹖 诏匕乇丕賳丿貨 丿乇 丌賳 丿賵乇賴貙 亘賴 丕丿丕乇賴鈥� 蹖 讴賱 丕乇丿賵诏丕賴鈥屬囏й� 讴丕乇 丕賳囟亘丕胤蹖 芦诏賵賱丕诏禄 賲蹖鈥屭佖嗀� 丕賵 鬲賳賴丕 蹖讴蹖 丕夭 賲蹖賱蹖賵賳鈥屬囏� 賳賮乇蹖 亘賵丿貙 讴賴 亘賴 丌賳鈥屫� 鬲亘毓蹖丿 卮丿賴 亘賵丿賳丿.貨 倬爻乇 丕賵賱卮 乇丕 丿乇 丿賵乇賴鈥� 蹖 鬲亘毓蹖丿卮 丕夭 丿爻鬲 丿丕丿貙 賵 倬爻乇 丿賵賲卮 芦賵丕爻蹖賱蹖 丌讴爻蹖丕賳賵賮禄貙 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴鈥� 蹖 賲毓乇賵賮 乇賵爻蹖賴 丕爻鬲貙 讴賴 趩賴丕乇丿賴 爻丕賱 鬲賲丕賲貙 丕夭 丕賵 丿賵乇 亘賵丿貙 賵 丿乇 爻丕賱 1980賲蹖賱丕丿蹖貙 丕夭 乇賵爻蹖賴 丕禺乇丕噩 卮丿.貨 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 爻丕賱鈥屬囏� 亘賴 氐賵乇鬲 芦爻丕賲蹖夭丿丕鬲 (賳卮乇 夭蹖乇夭賲蹖賳蹖)禄 丿乇 乇賵爻蹖賴 趩丕倬貙 賵 爻倬爻 亘賴 亘蹖卮鬲乇 夭亘丕賳鈥屬囏й� 丿賳蹖丕 鬲乇噩賲賴 卮丿
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 05/05/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
September 12, 2024
Eugenia Ginzburg was one of millions of dedicated Communists and ordinary Soviet citizens swept up in the colossal purges carried out during the 1930's. Ginzburg, who was a teacher and wrote for the newspaper Red Tartary, was arrested by Stalin's secret police early in 1937, and sentenced to a ten-year term for being an active member of a non-existent Trotskyite conspiracy. She survived, often only by a hair's breadth, the gruelling time spent in prisons and labor camps, living through some of the harshest conditions known to man. Ginzburg would go to write, what is possibly, the single most vivid report on Stalin's epoch of terror.
Her story is told over two books (this is basically both books in one review to save time). The first covering the period from her arrest up to 1939, when, on the eve of the Second World War, she arrived at the Kolyma gold fields of Eastern Siberia, which was the most desolate and foreboding of Stalin's camps. The second part 'Within the Whirlwind', which was released later in 1977, the year of Ginzburg's death, focuses solely with more detail on the inner circles of Kolyma, and is told with a greater frankness and a deeper feeling of pessimism at ever seeing a change of leadership in the Soviet Union. The chances of survival, especially at Kolyma, were certainly no better than one in several hundred, and living on a diet mostly consisting of potato peelings, stomach-churning soup, rancid water, and mouldy bread, added to the fact of extreme temperatures both uncomfortably hot and bone-chillingly cold, plus the lack of any decent sleep, its little surprise really. She owed her life to her quick wits, the reciting of poetry which managed to pierce the darkness, and to the kindness and aid of fellow inmates, most notably Anton Walter, a German Doctor from the Crimea, with whom she fell in love.
I basically picked from these on the subject - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 'The Gulag Archipelago', Varlam Shalamov's 'Kolyma Tales', and this. I went for this because it's told from a female perspective, and I've lost track of the amount of times I've read similar books dealing with captivity written by men. And there are obvious differences here, one most noticeably being menstruation, something that didn't even cross my mind until it first gets mentioned.
What I found most striking about Ginzburg鈥檚 narrative, is that it's not just simply recounting the day to day events she and her fellow inmates had to endure, but more to do with the fact that Ginzburg had such a powerful personality you pick up through her writing, and her strong beliefs in Communism and the Party aren't weakened. True, she had refused to join in denouncing a fellow academic as a Trotskyite spy. and she never saw Stalin as a God, but she truly believed in what she took to be the ideals of the Communist system. To think a faithful Party member could be subjected to eighteen years of incarceration in brutal Soviet prisons and concentration camps, and still remain loyal to the Party is difficult to get my head around, but it's something that was not uncommon.
Ginzburg鈥檚 remarkable story is an incredible example of human stamina and perseverance, and a stark reminder that we should all appreciate our comforts a whole lot more; relish the little things that bring joy within our lifetimes. As well as detailing the cruel regime of the time, her account challenges the reader, and offers a different perspective on life, when all that matters is trying to survive, a perspective most of us will never have to experience.
August 29, 2009
After beavering away like a good little boy on a review of Into the Whirlwind, I got so disgusted with the falseness and inadequacy of my response (even more so than usual) that I eventually gave up in despair. Instead, I鈥檒l take this opportunity to elaborate on some comments I made below, since I鈥檓 still kind of hung up on the ethics of reading 鈥榮urvivor literature鈥� 鈥� a topic of zero interest to anyone who鈥檚 not a complete tool like myself. So fair warning.
Despite all my prissy scruples, I think I could offer a plausible justification for this weird gulag obsession I鈥檝e developed. The standard defence would be to claim that books such as Into the Whirlwind are educational in the truest sense, admitting us into a reality so incredibly, so monstrously alien to our own.
And there鈥檚 something to this argument. Speaking personally, I am 鈥� I have to face it 鈥� the spoiled and sheltered product of a relatively enlightened society. Don鈥檛 get me wrong: I鈥檓 grateful, extremely grateful. But what, frankly, do I know about evil? About suffering, injustice, degradation? As a matter of real, lived experience, almost nothing. When it comes to moral knowledge, I鈥檓 a mere child, a big, happy, thirty-something child. Of course, many of the people I see around me every day are similarly infantilized, but that doesn鈥檛 give me much comfort, since it only means there are fewer viable models out there. Lacking what you might call the 鈥榯ragic sense of life鈥�, I compensate by getting it second-hand from those who鈥檝e acquired it the hard way -- in a Soviet labour camp, for instance.
It鈥檚 very tempting to just leave it at that, writing off my gulag fascination as a tax-deductible, personal improvement expense. But the very neatness of the self-justification makes me suspicious. I love literature; I take it more seriously than almost anything else in the world, but I鈥檓 very sceptical of the proposition that we can learn anything essential about life just by ingesting a certain quantity and quality of printed matter. It鈥檚 an illusion to which intellectuals are prone: the idea that all the answers are buried away in books, waiting to be excavated 鈥� when the really important lessons are the ones that are branded and beaten into you by life itself.
Conclusion? Dunno 鈥� I haven鈥檛 got that far in my thinking yet. I鈥檓 certainly not giving up on books, nor am I abandoning the gulag just yet. I suppose I鈥檇 just like to live a little more in the world and a little less in my head, to keep literature in its place.
Somebody should write a book about that.
____________________________________
What does it say about me that I've created a separate shelf for Soviet prison memoirs? And that I can think of at least three others I want to read? This can't be healthy.
Despite all my prissy scruples, I think I could offer a plausible justification for this weird gulag obsession I鈥檝e developed. The standard defence would be to claim that books such as Into the Whirlwind are educational in the truest sense, admitting us into a reality so incredibly, so monstrously alien to our own.
And there鈥檚 something to this argument. Speaking personally, I am 鈥� I have to face it 鈥� the spoiled and sheltered product of a relatively enlightened society. Don鈥檛 get me wrong: I鈥檓 grateful, extremely grateful. But what, frankly, do I know about evil? About suffering, injustice, degradation? As a matter of real, lived experience, almost nothing. When it comes to moral knowledge, I鈥檓 a mere child, a big, happy, thirty-something child. Of course, many of the people I see around me every day are similarly infantilized, but that doesn鈥檛 give me much comfort, since it only means there are fewer viable models out there. Lacking what you might call the 鈥榯ragic sense of life鈥�, I compensate by getting it second-hand from those who鈥檝e acquired it the hard way -- in a Soviet labour camp, for instance.
It鈥檚 very tempting to just leave it at that, writing off my gulag fascination as a tax-deductible, personal improvement expense. But the very neatness of the self-justification makes me suspicious. I love literature; I take it more seriously than almost anything else in the world, but I鈥檓 very sceptical of the proposition that we can learn anything essential about life just by ingesting a certain quantity and quality of printed matter. It鈥檚 an illusion to which intellectuals are prone: the idea that all the answers are buried away in books, waiting to be excavated 鈥� when the really important lessons are the ones that are branded and beaten into you by life itself.
Conclusion? Dunno 鈥� I haven鈥檛 got that far in my thinking yet. I鈥檓 certainly not giving up on books, nor am I abandoning the gulag just yet. I suppose I鈥檇 just like to live a little more in the world and a little less in my head, to keep literature in its place.
Somebody should write a book about that.
____________________________________
What does it say about me that I've created a separate shelf for Soviet prison memoirs? And that I can think of at least three others I want to read? This can't be healthy.
Read
September 1, 2020A fantastic and heart rendering book. Evgenia Ginzberg had a comfortable life in the 1920s and into the 1930s in Kazan, For reasons unknown she was arrested in one of the early purges and sentenced to prison. Due to the continuing purges and concomitant necessary changes to accommodate all the people who were imprisoned, her solitary confinement was interrupted and she was forced to share a cell (prison wasn't bad - there was a library service), later the two are deported, along with many others, to a labour camp in Siberia. The train journey is something almost magical for somebody who has been in a cell with one other person for several years - of a sudden there is a railway wagon full of women, one of whom slightly bizarrely declares herself to be a Menshevik, though it seems to me highly unlikely that anything of Menshevik party structures could have survived that long. In Siberia, rations are proportional to work completed and the work they are set to is felling trees with an axe and dragging them back to a central point. Everyday working in deep cold Ginzburg finds herself weaker and weaker, she fells less and gets less food as her productivity decreases eventually she realises that she will die. Instead due to luck and kindness she becomes a nurse. At which point the translation abruptly ends. There is a second part to Ginzburg's autobiography, I believe untranslated, detailing her years as a nurse in the labour camp, relationship with the Doctor (who if I recall correctly was a homoeopath and seventh day Adventist) and their eventual release and settlement in 'Golden Magadan'. Ginzburg drags the reader with her from a comfortable life through accusation and imprisonment, solitary confinement to Siberian labour camp up to the point of impending death, it is quite a reading experience.
Because this is an autobiographical account it contain a lot that who seem too impossible or ridiculous for fiction. For example having to share her prison cell despite being in solitary confinement or the brief intense romances between the male and female prisoners while they were waiting to be transported up the pacific coast to the labour camp.
Because this is an autobiographical account it contain a lot that who seem too impossible or ridiculous for fiction. For example having to share her prison cell despite being in solitary confinement or the brief intense romances between the male and female prisoners while they were waiting to be transported up the pacific coast to the labour camp.
January 22, 2018
Over the last few days Evgenia Ginzburg's autobiography 'Journey into the Whirlwind' has been a constant companion. Her book is one of the more well known biographies describing the insanity of the Stalin era as it follows her descent into a bureaucratic and inhumane machine of torture and imprisonment seemingly designed to devour the strength and humanity of an individual's existence. She starts out as a devoted journalist, communist, spouse and mother of two small children that innocently becomes accused of political crimes. She was arrested in 1937. From a modern perspective the situation is Kafkaesque in its surreal embrace. However, as the pages and hours pass Ginzburg's voice describes a dizzying array of psychological and physical horror ranging from her interrogation, isolation and transfer to the Gulag, where the book abruptly ends. It is a painting of inferno and human misery although the glow of hope glimmers constantly through the memories she evokes. Her humanity shines through every page as she describes the life she is forced to endure. There are numerous moments that are luminous in allowing us to appreciate the simple things in life. Ginzburg's love of poetry and literature in general permeates her memoirs as it is one of the strengths that lifts her above the situation she is immersed in and allows her to keep struggling through the ruthless inferno.
I felt such an injustice in my heart that this woman had to be dealt such a fate. The horror is of course that millions of innocent people endured similar experiences as the ones Ginzburg describe. Beyond the human qualities in Ginzburg's writing a sense to explore the time of the Gulag is awakened. Ginzburg did indeed write a second part to her autobiography ("In the Whirlwind") that I am looking forward to read. Of course, Solzhenitsyn's "The First Circle" and "The Gulag Archipelago" beckon in conjunction with Applebaum's study 'Gulag'. The book was not translated into English until 1975, and its sequel is currently out of print in the UK as well as the US. I am surprised that such a work has not received greater attention. Ginzburg's memoirs certainly makes one appreciate living in peace although it also makes one realize that such 'peace' cannot be taken for granted. Her voice and character lingers in my mind. Highly recommended!
I felt such an injustice in my heart that this woman had to be dealt such a fate. The horror is of course that millions of innocent people endured similar experiences as the ones Ginzburg describe. Beyond the human qualities in Ginzburg's writing a sense to explore the time of the Gulag is awakened. Ginzburg did indeed write a second part to her autobiography ("In the Whirlwind") that I am looking forward to read. Of course, Solzhenitsyn's "The First Circle" and "The Gulag Archipelago" beckon in conjunction with Applebaum's study 'Gulag'. The book was not translated into English until 1975, and its sequel is currently out of print in the UK as well as the US. I am surprised that such a work has not received greater attention. Ginzburg's memoirs certainly makes one appreciate living in peace although it also makes one realize that such 'peace' cannot be taken for granted. Her voice and character lingers in my mind. Highly recommended!
December 5, 2011
Journey into the whirlwind recounts the story of active member of the communist Party for many years, Eugenia Semonovna Ginzburg, who was arrested like many of her fellow citizens during Stalin's reign of terror on trumped up charges of being a Trotskyist terrorist counter-revolutionary and sentenced to prison. This book recounts her many years spent in prison and labour camps.
This is a insightful story and sometimes while reading this book you may sometimes think " This has to be exaggerated somewhat as it could not possibly have happened to this extent" but the sad fact is, it did happen to millions of people and these are the sort of books that reminds us that;
鈥淐ruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.鈥�
George Eliot
This book give a good insight into the prison system of the time and to arrests of ordinary people during Stalin's reign of terror.
A difficult book to rate, I did find it lacked the emotion I had expected from a memoir of this nature and I found the story ended rather abruptly.
This is a insightful story and sometimes while reading this book you may sometimes think " This has to be exaggerated somewhat as it could not possibly have happened to this extent" but the sad fact is, it did happen to millions of people and these are the sort of books that reminds us that;
鈥淐ruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.鈥�
George Eliot
This book give a good insight into the prison system of the time and to arrests of ordinary people during Stalin's reign of terror.
A difficult book to rate, I did find it lacked the emotion I had expected from a memoir of this nature and I found the story ended rather abruptly.
December 11, 2018
At the outset of this memoir I was wondering how it could be so long... how could there be so much to say about the monotony of solitary confinement or the struggle to survive in a labour camp without the account itself becoming tedious? One reason is Jenny's incredible memory. She never talks about her abilities or experiences as exceptional, but a number of episodes in the story reveal her literary knowledge and memory as outstanding. These talents, as well as resourcefulness, good luck, and the help of people who like her somehow kept their integrity, helped her to survive, sustaining her will, feeding her spirit. This book is one of those that shows you how much a person can survive and how much you the reader have to be grateful for. I felt every scene of it in my own body.
July 17, 2012
This was a curious book, I've read several others by Gulag survivors.
But there was an ambiguity in this book that puzzled me to the end.
Starting out, I thought, she thought,
that the entire insanity of the purges was the fault of Stalin.
And that she still believed in communism,
But as I continued through the book,
more and more I began to wonder if she was hiding her real feelings,
perhaps because, while it was possible to denounce Stalin in the 1960's,
it still wasn't possible to denounce communism.
She died in 1977 while the Soviet Union was still riding high.
She never saw the disintegration and repudiation of Marxism.
If she had written the book after 1990, how would it have been different?
In other words, was she to some extent an unreliable narrator?
I have no doubt that the horrors she describes happened,
if not to her, then to someone she met along the way.
But what was going on in her mind?
Was she a communist of pure heart?
or merely another opportunist who joined the party to get a better education, job, housing, and the right to buy in the special stores for party members?
And when the benefits were taken away, what use was the communist party to her?
Another reason I wonder if she was an unreliable narrator is because
she always makes herself out to be such a perfect human being.
People who make up psychology tests often use several techniques for determining if a person is lying.
Perhaps the most common is to include absolute questions that make a person seem too good to be true.
Like: I have never told a lie. Or, I have never stolen anything.
In never showing a dark side, she seems unrealistic.
One comment of her's I really liked was:
"how thin the line is between high principles and blinkered intolerance,
and also how relative are all human systems and ideologies
and how absolute the tortures which human beings inflict on one another."
Is there much difference between the US political parties and the communist party in their determination to impose their will on others?
When she found out she was only going to get 10 years in prison and loss of all personal property, she was ecstatic!
She had thought she was going to be shot.
How unstable our feelings can be depending on circumstances!
A few lines from the book I liked include:
"Thus, in full accordance with Marxist theory,
the business of replacing the rules began as a tragedy
and was then twice repeated as a farce."
"It was long ago and it never happened anyway"
This book only covers the first few years,
she wrote a second book "Within the Whirlwind", about the later years.
She likes to use the word "whirlwind" in her book titles,
is she referring to:
"The wicked sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."
But there was an ambiguity in this book that puzzled me to the end.
Starting out, I thought, she thought,
that the entire insanity of the purges was the fault of Stalin.
And that she still believed in communism,
But as I continued through the book,
more and more I began to wonder if she was hiding her real feelings,
perhaps because, while it was possible to denounce Stalin in the 1960's,
it still wasn't possible to denounce communism.
She died in 1977 while the Soviet Union was still riding high.
She never saw the disintegration and repudiation of Marxism.
If she had written the book after 1990, how would it have been different?
In other words, was she to some extent an unreliable narrator?
I have no doubt that the horrors she describes happened,
if not to her, then to someone she met along the way.
But what was going on in her mind?
Was she a communist of pure heart?
or merely another opportunist who joined the party to get a better education, job, housing, and the right to buy in the special stores for party members?
And when the benefits were taken away, what use was the communist party to her?
Another reason I wonder if she was an unreliable narrator is because
she always makes herself out to be such a perfect human being.
People who make up psychology tests often use several techniques for determining if a person is lying.
Perhaps the most common is to include absolute questions that make a person seem too good to be true.
Like: I have never told a lie. Or, I have never stolen anything.
In never showing a dark side, she seems unrealistic.
One comment of her's I really liked was:
"how thin the line is between high principles and blinkered intolerance,
and also how relative are all human systems and ideologies
and how absolute the tortures which human beings inflict on one another."
Is there much difference between the US political parties and the communist party in their determination to impose their will on others?
When she found out she was only going to get 10 years in prison and loss of all personal property, she was ecstatic!
She had thought she was going to be shot.
How unstable our feelings can be depending on circumstances!
A few lines from the book I liked include:
"Thus, in full accordance with Marxist theory,
the business of replacing the rules began as a tragedy
and was then twice repeated as a farce."
"It was long ago and it never happened anyway"
This book only covers the first few years,
she wrote a second book "Within the Whirlwind", about the later years.
She likes to use the word "whirlwind" in her book titles,
is she referring to:
"The wicked sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."
April 19, 2012
In places, Ginzburg's tone seems oddly casual for a memoir with such horrifying subject matter. Maybe this is of-a-piece with her stating several times that prisoners laughed, joked, or were gleeful in certain situations, even prisoners who had been ripped from their families and small children. It's not my place to judge....and I don't fully understand human behavior. It just seems to me that laughter and glee might be hard to come by if you hadn't seen your kids in three years. And Ginzburg does mention several times how difficult it is to be away from her children, and that during the gulag she tried not to talk about them because it was too emotionally destabilizing. Understood.
Another issue with the book is that it's advertised as a memoir of Ginzburg's "harrowing eighteen-year odyssey" through the gulag. Yet it covers only the first three years, and ends abruptly, finishing with an Epilogue stating "Now I am in my fifties." (She was incarcerated in her early 30s.) She also wants us to know that she has "lived to see the Twentieth and the Twenty-second Party Congress" and that she tried to remember every detail of her experiences "in the hope of recounting them to honest people and true Communists, such as I was sure would listen to me one day." "How wonderful...that the great Leninist truths have again come into their own in our country and Party!" she enthuses, apparently in 1967. Oh dear.
It's always interesting to compare and contrast what was going on under Stalin with what was happening under Hitler. In Germany, if you were packed onto a freight car, it was very bad news. For Ginzburg, the freight car was so crowded "there was scarcely room to stand. But this cheered us up, in view of the prison rule: the more dirty, crowded, and hungry you are, and the more unpleasant the guards, the more likely you are to stay alive." If you were going to be shot, it would usually happen back at the prison before you were transported to the gulag. And in both countries there were those sad, deluded folks who believed that, if only Hitler knew about the horrors of Auschwitz, or Stalin about those of the gulag, they would put a stop to it! Why wasn't someone telling them?
Maybe other editions supply more information, but this one had no introduction or editorial content and left me wondering who Ginzburg was. I needed some context, both of her life before, and after her arrest and imprisonment. I have no idea from this memoir alone what happened to her husband, her two sons, and her stepdaughter. All the same, this is clearly a necessary first-person account of life in the Stalin-era prison system.
Another issue with the book is that it's advertised as a memoir of Ginzburg's "harrowing eighteen-year odyssey" through the gulag. Yet it covers only the first three years, and ends abruptly, finishing with an Epilogue stating "Now I am in my fifties." (She was incarcerated in her early 30s.) She also wants us to know that she has "lived to see the Twentieth and the Twenty-second Party Congress" and that she tried to remember every detail of her experiences "in the hope of recounting them to honest people and true Communists, such as I was sure would listen to me one day." "How wonderful...that the great Leninist truths have again come into their own in our country and Party!" she enthuses, apparently in 1967. Oh dear.
It's always interesting to compare and contrast what was going on under Stalin with what was happening under Hitler. In Germany, if you were packed onto a freight car, it was very bad news. For Ginzburg, the freight car was so crowded "there was scarcely room to stand. But this cheered us up, in view of the prison rule: the more dirty, crowded, and hungry you are, and the more unpleasant the guards, the more likely you are to stay alive." If you were going to be shot, it would usually happen back at the prison before you were transported to the gulag. And in both countries there were those sad, deluded folks who believed that, if only Hitler knew about the horrors of Auschwitz, or Stalin about those of the gulag, they would put a stop to it! Why wasn't someone telling them?
Maybe other editions supply more information, but this one had no introduction or editorial content and left me wondering who Ginzburg was. I needed some context, both of her life before, and after her arrest and imprisonment. I have no idea from this memoir alone what happened to her husband, her two sons, and her stepdaughter. All the same, this is clearly a necessary first-person account of life in the Stalin-era prison system.
August 3, 2017
Hailed an important work upon it's publication in 1967,听Journey into the Whirlwind is Ginzburg's personal account her years in a Soviet prison during the reign of Josef Stalin.
As a teenager I read Solhenitsyn's听Gulag Archipelago,听and was stunned at the brutality and inhumane treatment of political prisoners during the Stalin era. 听Ginzburg's work brought back all those memories and more. 听It's a detailed narrative of how easily a public can be manipulated to turn on their friends and neighbors, through fear, and also through propaganda. 听This alone makes it a valuable piece of literature - the fact that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
But Ginzburg also reveals a few equally important messages. 听First, that hope springs eternal. 听Even in the darkest moments, the prisoners held onto the belief that something good was going to happen, and to appreciate even the smallest of blessings. 听And second, human kindness doesn't cease to exist - even in the hell of a Soviet prison.
As a teenager I read Solhenitsyn's听Gulag Archipelago,听and was stunned at the brutality and inhumane treatment of political prisoners during the Stalin era. 听Ginzburg's work brought back all those memories and more. 听It's a detailed narrative of how easily a public can be manipulated to turn on their friends and neighbors, through fear, and also through propaganda. 听This alone makes it a valuable piece of literature - the fact that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
But Ginzburg also reveals a few equally important messages. 听First, that hope springs eternal. 听Even in the darkest moments, the prisoners held onto the belief that something good was going to happen, and to appreciate even the smallest of blessings. 听And second, human kindness doesn't cease to exist - even in the hell of a Soviet prison.
May 10, 2015
I started to read this book without knowing it was an autobiography. After a few chapters I started doing some research about Kazan, Tatarstan, Stalin and the Gulag. It was then that I realized the book was real: people were actually send to labor camp for 10 years after fake trials. Innocent people, whose only fault was being born in the wrong time, were caught 'into the whirlwind' and they could not do anything else but go with the flow.
What impressed me the most about Genia, the women telling her story, other than her resilience, was her believe in the Party. Like most of the prisoners, she did not doubt the Party. She kept on hoping someone would come one day and say 'all this is a mistake, you are free' and all will be forgiven and forgot.
What impressed me the most about Genia, the women telling her story, other than her resilience, was her believe in the Party. Like most of the prisoners, she did not doubt the Party. She kept on hoping someone would come one day and say 'all this is a mistake, you are free' and all will be forgiven and forgot.
November 16, 2017
Most prison camp memoirs have a monotonous sameness about them. There are the inevitable discussions of makeshift tools, bone needles, paper shoes, and such. There is the constant yearning for food, water, sleep, and family. There is the surprising ingenuity of prisoners communicating under censorship, such as, in this book, the special prisoners' Morse code tapped through stone walls, or the prisoners' use of song tunes with substitute words to explain to each other about a new warden. This book has all of the usual variations of these survival stories in spades.
What makes this a special book, however, is both Eugenia Ginzburg's fantastic writing, and the bizarro Soviet camp world she describes. Most of all, Ginzburg has an eye for telling detail and for describing human personalities under pressure. She explains how some imprisoned women dreamed of nothing but beautiful dresses they had lost, which might very well help them keep touch with the outside world, while others lost all connection with their former lives and became nothing but amoral prison cynics. Some women fought to preserve every inch of their dignity, such as by refusing to walk naked past the male guards, and failed, while others preserved their dignity by refusing to treat their position and their degradation as a source of shame. Ginzburg shows that there were many ways to live and die in the camps, but that some tactics succeeded better than others.
Ginzburg also shows how the Soviets demanded things that other autocratic governments imprisoning their citizens didn't. The NKVD secret police not only wanted you in prison, they wanted you to admit you wanted to be in prison, and that everyone you knew deserved to be there as well. They wanted not just obedience, but hearty acceptance. The more outrageous the lie about your "terrorist" actions, the greater necessity for you to admit they were true (one peasant woman accused of being a Trotskyite said she didn't even know what a "tractorite" did, she hardly had even seen such machines). So the whole essentially violent, random and hateful system was papered over with the false image of bureaucratic regularity, trials, confessions, and transparent rules, even if all of them could be broken in a second. Prosecutors accusing people of violating the law knew they were spouting lies, as did the people who confessed to their crimes, as did the people who arrested and assailed them. As Ginzburg says, everyone had their own part to play in this grotesque pantomime, and yet everyone knew all the lines to be complete fantasy. Her story shows the strange desire of the Soviet Union to make even its most outlandish oppression appear as consent.
For its penetrating insights into human beings under maniacal autocracy, this work deserves its plaudits. It also deserves to be in the top rank of memoirs of 20th century totalitarianism.
What makes this a special book, however, is both Eugenia Ginzburg's fantastic writing, and the bizarro Soviet camp world she describes. Most of all, Ginzburg has an eye for telling detail and for describing human personalities under pressure. She explains how some imprisoned women dreamed of nothing but beautiful dresses they had lost, which might very well help them keep touch with the outside world, while others lost all connection with their former lives and became nothing but amoral prison cynics. Some women fought to preserve every inch of their dignity, such as by refusing to walk naked past the male guards, and failed, while others preserved their dignity by refusing to treat their position and their degradation as a source of shame. Ginzburg shows that there were many ways to live and die in the camps, but that some tactics succeeded better than others.
Ginzburg also shows how the Soviets demanded things that other autocratic governments imprisoning their citizens didn't. The NKVD secret police not only wanted you in prison, they wanted you to admit you wanted to be in prison, and that everyone you knew deserved to be there as well. They wanted not just obedience, but hearty acceptance. The more outrageous the lie about your "terrorist" actions, the greater necessity for you to admit they were true (one peasant woman accused of being a Trotskyite said she didn't even know what a "tractorite" did, she hardly had even seen such machines). So the whole essentially violent, random and hateful system was papered over with the false image of bureaucratic regularity, trials, confessions, and transparent rules, even if all of them could be broken in a second. Prosecutors accusing people of violating the law knew they were spouting lies, as did the people who confessed to their crimes, as did the people who arrested and assailed them. As Ginzburg says, everyone had their own part to play in this grotesque pantomime, and yet everyone knew all the lines to be complete fantasy. Her story shows the strange desire of the Soviet Union to make even its most outlandish oppression appear as consent.
For its penetrating insights into human beings under maniacal autocracy, this work deserves its plaudits. It also deserves to be in the top rank of memoirs of 20th century totalitarianism.
August 29, 2019
4.5/5
I do not want to sound like a heroine or a martyr. I am very far from thinking that my refusal to sign their lying records was due to any special courage on my part. Nor do I judge those comrades who, tortured beyond endurance, signed whatever was put before them.There's a certain phenomenon that seems to be less common these days, or perhaps is simply more derided and/or denormalized, amongst self-professed cultural connoisseurs: the -phile. Anglo, Franco, Asia getting its own specifically othering title under the name of "Orientalist", all those crop up every so often amongst nonfictions and even fictions to evoke a feeling of devotion/obsession with a country/culture/populace external to that of one's origins. Less often, I've come across a form known as "Russophile" and at the end of this book, I can see how one could be struck, as if by lightning, and subsequently set upon a path in almost worship of such a huge, foreboding landscape and its historical figures both real and fiction, sprung straight from the Opera or the Ballet. This may be a wildly digressive proclamation to make in view of the solitary confinements and the gulags of these pages, but Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg recites the entirety of on prison trains and commiserates with imposter Tsarina's in the same buildings that once incarcerated enemies of Tsar Alexander II, until all the events of the years ripped away from her attest, with blood and bone and agony, that Stalin was not capable of executing Russian culture by firing squad. It is still heartbreaking to wonder, though, what could have been, had all that this book contained not spawned into harrowing, idiotic existence on the eve of 1939, the dawn of World War II and all the violations that Ginzburg, in myany ways, had been witnessing for two full years, with sixteen more to go.
On the march back, numbers of them had died like鈥擨 was going to say "like flies," but at Kolyma it was truer to say that flies died like people.
May I never experience all that it is possible to get used to.Some may be wondering why, despite the five stars, I've knocked off a half up above. It's because, in the midst of all the comradery birthed in the face of abject fear and looming annihilation, Ginzburg managed to hang onto in spots antisemitism, classicism (in a socialist state, but honestly, that's no surprise if people haven't done the anti-bigotry work in all realms instead of one), and ableism. It's blink and you'll miss it at times and does alleviate near the end when Ginzburg is forced into close quarters with several of her maligned demographics, but it was immensely jarring to go less than 20 pages in and be confronted with "Who's the red-haired Motele [(A common Jewish first name)]...while he exercised his Talmudic subtlety", and even more baffling upon my looking up the author's bio and finding out that her father was Jewish. I don't expect her to be a saint, but as marvelous a document as this is, it's hard to sympathize with, and even glory in it at times, when the author falls into so many of the traps that her tormentors fell into that led directly to her persecution in the first place. Beyond this, this work is an extraordinarily full bodied testimony that interweaves grueling treks made by skeletons riddled with scurvy and diarrhea and with recitations of Tsvetayeva and Blok, to the point that I noted down several reading recommendations and have a new urgency to my desire to read Pasternak's . Yes, my heart leapt into my throat with every starvation and execution, but to succumb momentarily to the language of stereotype, Russia and its people are really something else at times, and so to is their culture. I still plan on reading what books of Solzhenitsyn I have on hand about the subject of the gulags, but after this, it's hard not to wonder whether he may be redundant, or even not measure up.
Strange to say, one could obtain freely in prison a number of books which had long since been withdrawn from public libraries.This work was a surprise in some ways, but then again, every genuine five star awarded is a surprise at this stage of my reading career, and two in about one week is astonishing, to say the least. I simply have to give a magnificent work that records the wounds struck into the body of a people its due, a body that, for all intents and purposes, is still rising from the ashes today. On my side of the ocean, I'd like to think that Trump is no Stalin, but there are concentration camps on US soil, and just because the topic has mostly passed out of the media focus doesn't mean that there aren't still children dying from treatable diseases within barbed wire compounds, much as Anne Frank died of typhus long ago in Bergen-Belsen. I'm not the on in solitary confinement, but the one passing just beyond the shuttered windows and desperate tapping on prison walls. It therefore falls to me to do something.
What a good thing for us that in modern times all processes have been speeded up. Those who devised and carried out the operations of 1937 found that it was simply not practical to keep such multitudes in prison for ten or twenty years: it was inconsistent with the tempo of the age and with its economy. Things were moving about ten times as fast as in the old days; and thus, instead of 's twenty years in solitary, I served two.
"Do not speak for all of us," said someone from the top bunk.
"Naturally," Tamara went on, "I do not include those who are willing not only to knuckle under, but to justify it all in the bargain."
"And to produce theoretical arguments why it must be so,"[...]
"I repeat: I am not addressing all of you, but only those who have not lost their human dignity and self-respect."
June 3, 2016
丿乇 丿賱 诏乇丿亘丕丿(賷賵诏賷賳丕 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏):
禺賵丕賳丿賳賷 爻鬲...亘丕賷爻鬲 禺賵丕賳丿 鬲丕 亘賮賴賲賷丿 丿乇丿 賵 乇賳噩 鬲丕 賰噩丕 賲賷鬲賵丕賳丿 賲毓賳丕 倬賷丿丕 賰賳丿..賵 丕賲賷丿 鬲丕 賰噩丕 倬丕 亘賴 倬丕賷卮 倬賷卮 賲賷 丕賷丿.禺賵丕賳丿賳賷 爻鬲 賲禺氐賵氐丕 亘乇丕賷 趩賵賳 賲賳賷 賰賴 丕丿亘賷丕鬲 乇賵爻賷賴 乇丕 賲賷 倬爻賳丿賲..亘乇丕賷 賴賲趩賵賳 賲賳賷 賰賴 卮乇丕賷胤賷 趩賵賳 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 乇丕 丕夭 爻乇 賲賷 诏匕乇丕賳賲 賲賳鬲賴丕 丿乇 賲賯賷丕爻賷 賰賱賷 鬲乇...丿乇 夭賳丿丕賳 丕賷乇丕賳 賵 賳賴 丿乇 诏賵賱丕诏..丕賷賳 賰鬲丕亘 乇丕 亘賴 賴賷趩 賵噩賴 賵 賳賴 丕亘丿丕 賳亘丕賷丿 賳賯丿 丕丿亘賷 賰乇丿..夭賷乇丕 禺賵丿 賳賵賷爻賳丿賴 丕毓鬲乇丕賮 賰乇丿賴 亘乇丕賷 丕賷賳賰賴 氐丿丕賯鬲 賰賱丕賲卮 丕夭 亘賷賳 賳乇賵丿 賴賲丕賳 趩賷夭賴丕賷賷 賰賴 丿乇 賵賴賱賴 丕賵賱 亘賴 匕賴賳卮 丕賲丿賴 乇丕 賳賵卮鬲賴 賵 丿賷诏乇 丿乇 丕賷賳丿賴 丕賳賴丕 乇丕 鬲睾賷賷乇 賳丿丕丿賴...賵 丕賱亘鬲賴 丕賷賳 亘丿丕賳 賲毓賳丕 賳賷爻鬲 賰賴 賰鬲丕亘 丕夭 賱丨丕馗 丕丿亘賷 囟毓賷賮 丕爻鬲 賵 賮賯胤 爻乇诏匕卮鬲 卮诏賮鬲 丕賳诏賷夭 丕賷賳 夭賳 丕爻鬲 賰賴 賲噩丕亘賲丕賳 賲賷賰賳丿 丕賳 乇丕 丕丿丕賲賴 丿賴賷賲..丕賷賳 丕鬲賵 亘賷賵诏乇丕賮賷 賲孬賱 賷賰 乇賲丕賳 禺賵亘 鬲毓賱賷賯 丿丕乇丿...毓卮賯貙賳賮乇鬲貙賰賷賳賴貙丕賲賷丿 賵 鬲乇爻 丿丕乇丿..賵 賲賴賲 鬲乇 卮禺氐賷鬲賴丕賷賷 亘丕 爻乇賳賵卮鬲賷 毓噩賷亘 丿丕乇丿..賲丕 丕夭 丕賵丕爻胤 賰鬲丕亘 賲賷 賮賴賲賷賲 賰賴 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 夭賳丿賴 噩丕賳 丕夭 诏賵賱丕诏 亘賴 丿乇 賲賷亘乇丿 賵 丨鬲賷 趩賳丿 爻丕賱賷 亘丕 賴賲爻乇 丿賵賲卮 賰賴 丕賵 賴賲 夭賳丿丕賳賷 亘賵丿賴 倬爻 丕夭 賲乇诏 丕賮毓賷 诏乇噩賷 亘賴 賯賵賱 禺賵丿 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 亘賴 賴賲乇丕賴 倬爻乇卮 賵丕爻賷丕 賵 丿禺鬲乇卮 鬲賵賳賷丕 丿乇 丕夭丕丿賷 夭賳丿诏賷 賲賷賰賳賳丿..賵賱賷 丿乇 鬲賲丕賲 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 賲賷鬲乇爻賷賲 賰賴 丕鬲賮丕賯 亘丿鬲乇賷 亘乇丕賷卮丕賳 賳賷賮鬲丿..丨鬲賷 亘丕 丕賷賳賰賴 賲賷丿丕賳賷賲 丕賷賳 丕鬲賮丕賯賴丕 诏匕卮鬲賴 賵 乇賮鬲賴 賵 鬲賲丕賲 卮丿賴 丕賳丿 亘丕夭 賴賵賱 賵 賴乇丕爻 丿丕乇賷賲...诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 噩丕賳 亘賴 丿乇 亘乇丿 鬲丕 亘亘賷賳丿 賵 亘賳賵賷爻丿 賴賲丕賳胤賵乇 賰賴 禺賵丿卮 賲賷 诏賵賷丿:卮賴丕丿鬲 丨賯賷賯賷 賲賳 亘賴 丕賳賴丕賷賷 賰賲賰 賲賷賰乇丿 賰賴 賲賷 禺賵丕爻鬲賳丿 賲丕賳毓 鬲賰乇丕乇 诏匕卮鬲賴 賵丨卮鬲賳丕賰 賵 卮乇賲 丕賵乇 賲賱鬲賲丕賳 卮賵賳丿...賵 趩诏賵賳賴 丕夭 趩賳賷賳 噩賴賳賲賷 噩丕賳 亘賴 丿乇 亘乇丿..诏丕賴賷 丕賵賯丕鬲 賲賷亘賷賳賷賲 丕鬲賮丕賯賴丕賷賷 賰賴 亘乇丕賷 丕賵 乇賯賲 禺賵乇丿賴 丕夭 丿乇 氐丿 亘爻賷丕乇 亘丕賱丕賷賷 卮丕賳爻 亘賴乇賴 丿丕卮鬲賴..賵賱賷 丿賱賷賱卮 卮丕賳爻 賳賷爻鬲..丿賱賷賱卮 丕賲賷丿 亘夭乇诏 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 丕爻鬲 賰賴 賳诏匕丕卮鬲 卮乇丕賷胤 丕夭 倬丕 丿乇卮 丕賵乇丿 賴賲丕賳胤賵乇 賰賴 丕賷賳賰丕乇 乇丕 亘丕 亘爻賷丕乇賷 丕夭 丿賵爻鬲丕賳 禺賵丿 丕賵 賰乇丿..丕賵 賲賷诏賵賷丿:
賵賷跇诏賷 噩賴賳賲 丕賱诏賳 賲丕 丕賷賳 亘賵丿 賰賴 亘乇 爻乇 丿乇卮 賳賳賵卮鬲賴 亘賵丿賳丿:丕賷 賰賴 亘丿賷賳 噩丕 賯丿賲 賲賷 賳賴賷貙丕賲賷丿 丕夭 賰賮 亘賳賴.(賰賲丿賷 丕賱賴賷). 亘乇 毓賰爻 丕賲賷丿 賵噩賵丿 丿丕卮鬲.賲丕 乇丕 乇賵丕賳賴 丕鬲丕賯賴丕賷 诏丕夭 賷丕 趩賵亘賴 丕毓丿丕賲 賳賲賷賰乇丿賳丿..賰丕乇賷 賰賴 丿乇 丕賳 賴賱丕賰 丕丿賲 賲丨鬲賵賲 亘賵丿 丿乇 賰賳丕乇 賰丕乇賷 亘賵丿 賰賴 亘賯丕 乇丕 賲賲賰賳 賲賷爻丕禺鬲.丕賱亘鬲賴 丕丨鬲賲丕賱 噩丕賳 亘賴 丿乇 亘乇丿賳 亘爻賷丕乇 賰賲鬲乇 丕夭 賲乇诏 亘賵丿 丕賲丕 亘賴 賴乇 丨丕賱 丕賲賰丕賳 倬匕賷乇 亘賵丿.
賲賷 亘賷賳賷丿 丕賵 禺賵丿卮 乇丕 亘丕 賲乇丿賲 丕夭丕丿 丨鬲賷 禺賵丿 乇賵爻賷賴 賴賲 賲賯丕賷爻賴 賳賲賷賰賳丿 亘賱賰賴 亘丕 亘賷趩丕乇诏丕賳賷 賰賴 丿乇 丕卮賵賷賷鬲爻 亘賴 丕鬲丕賯賴丕賷 诏丕夭 賲賷 丕賳丿丕禺鬲賳丿 賲賯丕賷爻賴 賲賷賰賳丿 賵 賲賷 诏賵賷丿 丌乇賷 丕賳賴賲 賲賲賰賳 亘賵丿..丿乇 賲賵乇丿 丕爻鬲丕賱賷賳 賴賷趩 賳賲賷 诏賵賷賲 噩夭 賷賰賷 丕夭 丿乇賵爻 賰賵丿賰爻鬲丕賳賴丕賷 卮賵乇賵賷 賵賯鬲 丕夭 夭亘丕賳 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏:丿乇 賲亘丨孬 賲乇亘賵胤 亘賴 鬲毓賱賷賲 賮賳 亘賷丕賳貙賲賷 亘丕賷爻鬲 卮毓乇( 賲賳 丿禺鬲乇賷 賰賵趩賵賱賵賷賲貙賲賷 禺賵賳賲 賵 賲賷 乇賯氐賲/丕爻鬲丕賱賷賳賵 賳丿賷丿賲 丕賲丕 丕賵賳賵 賲賷 倬乇爻鬲賲) 乇丕 賲胤丕賱毓賴 賲賷賰乇丿賷賲.诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 賲賷 诏賵賷丿 丕毓鬲賲丕丿 丕亘賱賴丕賳賴 丕賳賴丕 亘賴 鬲亘賱賷睾丕鬲 丿賵賱鬲賷 趩賳丕賳 爻禺鬲 亘賵丿 賰賴 賵丕賯毓丕 丕夭 亘丕賵乇 賰乇丿賳 丕賳趩賴 丕夭 賵丕賯毓賷丕鬲 亘賴 趩卮賲 禺賵丿 賲賷 丿賷丿賳丿 丕賲鬲賳丕毓 賲賷 賰乇丿賳丿.噩丕賷賷 丿禺鬲乇賷 賲賷诏賵賷丿( 賮賰乇卮 乇丕 亘賰賳貙趩胤賵乇 毓丕丿鬲 丿丕卮鬲賳丿 禺丿丕 乇丕 亘倬乇爻鬲賳丿!丕賳诏丕乇 賰賴 丕爻鬲丕賱賷賳 亘丕卮丿!)賵 賷賰 趩賷夭 丿賷诏乇貙诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 賮乇丕賲賵卮 賳賲賷 賰賳丿 亘诏賵賷丿 賰賴 丨鬲賷 丿乇 賲賷丕賳 賳诏賴亘丕賳丕賳 夭賳丿丕賳賴丕賷 丕爻鬲丕賱賷賳 賷丕 丨鬲賷 乇賵爻丕賷卮丕賳 丕賳爻丕賳賴丕賷 亘丕 賵噩丿丕賳賷 倬賷丿丕 賲賷 卮丿賳丿..賴賲賷卮賴 賵 賴賲賴 噩丕 賴賲賴 噩賵乇 丕賳爻丕賳賷 賴爻鬲..
禺賵丕賳丿賳賷 爻鬲...亘丕賷爻鬲 禺賵丕賳丿 鬲丕 亘賮賴賲賷丿 丿乇丿 賵 乇賳噩 鬲丕 賰噩丕 賲賷鬲賵丕賳丿 賲毓賳丕 倬賷丿丕 賰賳丿..賵 丕賲賷丿 鬲丕 賰噩丕 倬丕 亘賴 倬丕賷卮 倬賷卮 賲賷 丕賷丿.禺賵丕賳丿賳賷 爻鬲 賲禺氐賵氐丕 亘乇丕賷 趩賵賳 賲賳賷 賰賴 丕丿亘賷丕鬲 乇賵爻賷賴 乇丕 賲賷 倬爻賳丿賲..亘乇丕賷 賴賲趩賵賳 賲賳賷 賰賴 卮乇丕賷胤賷 趩賵賳 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 乇丕 丕夭 爻乇 賲賷 诏匕乇丕賳賲 賲賳鬲賴丕 丿乇 賲賯賷丕爻賷 賰賱賷 鬲乇...丿乇 夭賳丿丕賳 丕賷乇丕賳 賵 賳賴 丿乇 诏賵賱丕诏..丕賷賳 賰鬲丕亘 乇丕 亘賴 賴賷趩 賵噩賴 賵 賳賴 丕亘丿丕 賳亘丕賷丿 賳賯丿 丕丿亘賷 賰乇丿..夭賷乇丕 禺賵丿 賳賵賷爻賳丿賴 丕毓鬲乇丕賮 賰乇丿賴 亘乇丕賷 丕賷賳賰賴 氐丿丕賯鬲 賰賱丕賲卮 丕夭 亘賷賳 賳乇賵丿 賴賲丕賳 趩賷夭賴丕賷賷 賰賴 丿乇 賵賴賱賴 丕賵賱 亘賴 匕賴賳卮 丕賲丿賴 乇丕 賳賵卮鬲賴 賵 丿賷诏乇 丿乇 丕賷賳丿賴 丕賳賴丕 乇丕 鬲睾賷賷乇 賳丿丕丿賴...賵 丕賱亘鬲賴 丕賷賳 亘丿丕賳 賲毓賳丕 賳賷爻鬲 賰賴 賰鬲丕亘 丕夭 賱丨丕馗 丕丿亘賷 囟毓賷賮 丕爻鬲 賵 賮賯胤 爻乇诏匕卮鬲 卮诏賮鬲 丕賳诏賷夭 丕賷賳 夭賳 丕爻鬲 賰賴 賲噩丕亘賲丕賳 賲賷賰賳丿 丕賳 乇丕 丕丿丕賲賴 丿賴賷賲..丕賷賳 丕鬲賵 亘賷賵诏乇丕賮賷 賲孬賱 賷賰 乇賲丕賳 禺賵亘 鬲毓賱賷賯 丿丕乇丿...毓卮賯貙賳賮乇鬲貙賰賷賳賴貙丕賲賷丿 賵 鬲乇爻 丿丕乇丿..賵 賲賴賲 鬲乇 卮禺氐賷鬲賴丕賷賷 亘丕 爻乇賳賵卮鬲賷 毓噩賷亘 丿丕乇丿..賲丕 丕夭 丕賵丕爻胤 賰鬲丕亘 賲賷 賮賴賲賷賲 賰賴 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 夭賳丿賴 噩丕賳 丕夭 诏賵賱丕诏 亘賴 丿乇 賲賷亘乇丿 賵 丨鬲賷 趩賳丿 爻丕賱賷 亘丕 賴賲爻乇 丿賵賲卮 賰賴 丕賵 賴賲 夭賳丿丕賳賷 亘賵丿賴 倬爻 丕夭 賲乇诏 丕賮毓賷 诏乇噩賷 亘賴 賯賵賱 禺賵丿 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 亘賴 賴賲乇丕賴 倬爻乇卮 賵丕爻賷丕 賵 丿禺鬲乇卮 鬲賵賳賷丕 丿乇 丕夭丕丿賷 夭賳丿诏賷 賲賷賰賳賳丿..賵賱賷 丿乇 鬲賲丕賲 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 賲賷鬲乇爻賷賲 賰賴 丕鬲賮丕賯 亘丿鬲乇賷 亘乇丕賷卮丕賳 賳賷賮鬲丿..丨鬲賷 亘丕 丕賷賳賰賴 賲賷丿丕賳賷賲 丕賷賳 丕鬲賮丕賯賴丕 诏匕卮鬲賴 賵 乇賮鬲賴 賵 鬲賲丕賲 卮丿賴 丕賳丿 亘丕夭 賴賵賱 賵 賴乇丕爻 丿丕乇賷賲...诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 噩丕賳 亘賴 丿乇 亘乇丿 鬲丕 亘亘賷賳丿 賵 亘賳賵賷爻丿 賴賲丕賳胤賵乇 賰賴 禺賵丿卮 賲賷 诏賵賷丿:卮賴丕丿鬲 丨賯賷賯賷 賲賳 亘賴 丕賳賴丕賷賷 賰賲賰 賲賷賰乇丿 賰賴 賲賷 禺賵丕爻鬲賳丿 賲丕賳毓 鬲賰乇丕乇 诏匕卮鬲賴 賵丨卮鬲賳丕賰 賵 卮乇賲 丕賵乇 賲賱鬲賲丕賳 卮賵賳丿...賵 趩诏賵賳賴 丕夭 趩賳賷賳 噩賴賳賲賷 噩丕賳 亘賴 丿乇 亘乇丿..诏丕賴賷 丕賵賯丕鬲 賲賷亘賷賳賷賲 丕鬲賮丕賯賴丕賷賷 賰賴 亘乇丕賷 丕賵 乇賯賲 禺賵乇丿賴 丕夭 丿乇 氐丿 亘爻賷丕乇 亘丕賱丕賷賷 卮丕賳爻 亘賴乇賴 丿丕卮鬲賴..賵賱賷 丿賱賷賱卮 卮丕賳爻 賳賷爻鬲..丿賱賷賱卮 丕賲賷丿 亘夭乇诏 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 丕爻鬲 賰賴 賳诏匕丕卮鬲 卮乇丕賷胤 丕夭 倬丕 丿乇卮 丕賵乇丿 賴賲丕賳胤賵乇 賰賴 丕賷賳賰丕乇 乇丕 亘丕 亘爻賷丕乇賷 丕夭 丿賵爻鬲丕賳 禺賵丿 丕賵 賰乇丿..丕賵 賲賷诏賵賷丿:
賵賷跇诏賷 噩賴賳賲 丕賱诏賳 賲丕 丕賷賳 亘賵丿 賰賴 亘乇 爻乇 丿乇卮 賳賳賵卮鬲賴 亘賵丿賳丿:丕賷 賰賴 亘丿賷賳 噩丕 賯丿賲 賲賷 賳賴賷貙丕賲賷丿 丕夭 賰賮 亘賳賴.(賰賲丿賷 丕賱賴賷). 亘乇 毓賰爻 丕賲賷丿 賵噩賵丿 丿丕卮鬲.賲丕 乇丕 乇賵丕賳賴 丕鬲丕賯賴丕賷 诏丕夭 賷丕 趩賵亘賴 丕毓丿丕賲 賳賲賷賰乇丿賳丿..賰丕乇賷 賰賴 丿乇 丕賳 賴賱丕賰 丕丿賲 賲丨鬲賵賲 亘賵丿 丿乇 賰賳丕乇 賰丕乇賷 亘賵丿 賰賴 亘賯丕 乇丕 賲賲賰賳 賲賷爻丕禺鬲.丕賱亘鬲賴 丕丨鬲賲丕賱 噩丕賳 亘賴 丿乇 亘乇丿賳 亘爻賷丕乇 賰賲鬲乇 丕夭 賲乇诏 亘賵丿 丕賲丕 亘賴 賴乇 丨丕賱 丕賲賰丕賳 倬匕賷乇 亘賵丿.
賲賷 亘賷賳賷丿 丕賵 禺賵丿卮 乇丕 亘丕 賲乇丿賲 丕夭丕丿 丨鬲賷 禺賵丿 乇賵爻賷賴 賴賲 賲賯丕賷爻賴 賳賲賷賰賳丿 亘賱賰賴 亘丕 亘賷趩丕乇诏丕賳賷 賰賴 丿乇 丕卮賵賷賷鬲爻 亘賴 丕鬲丕賯賴丕賷 诏丕夭 賲賷 丕賳丿丕禺鬲賳丿 賲賯丕賷爻賴 賲賷賰賳丿 賵 賲賷 诏賵賷丿 丌乇賷 丕賳賴賲 賲賲賰賳 亘賵丿..丿乇 賲賵乇丿 丕爻鬲丕賱賷賳 賴賷趩 賳賲賷 诏賵賷賲 噩夭 賷賰賷 丕夭 丿乇賵爻 賰賵丿賰爻鬲丕賳賴丕賷 卮賵乇賵賷 賵賯鬲 丕夭 夭亘丕賳 诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏:丿乇 賲亘丨孬 賲乇亘賵胤 亘賴 鬲毓賱賷賲 賮賳 亘賷丕賳貙賲賷 亘丕賷爻鬲 卮毓乇( 賲賳 丿禺鬲乇賷 賰賵趩賵賱賵賷賲貙賲賷 禺賵賳賲 賵 賲賷 乇賯氐賲/丕爻鬲丕賱賷賳賵 賳丿賷丿賲 丕賲丕 丕賵賳賵 賲賷 倬乇爻鬲賲) 乇丕 賲胤丕賱毓賴 賲賷賰乇丿賷賲.诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 賲賷 诏賵賷丿 丕毓鬲賲丕丿 丕亘賱賴丕賳賴 丕賳賴丕 亘賴 鬲亘賱賷睾丕鬲 丿賵賱鬲賷 趩賳丕賳 爻禺鬲 亘賵丿 賰賴 賵丕賯毓丕 丕夭 亘丕賵乇 賰乇丿賳 丕賳趩賴 丕夭 賵丕賯毓賷丕鬲 亘賴 趩卮賲 禺賵丿 賲賷 丿賷丿賳丿 丕賲鬲賳丕毓 賲賷 賰乇丿賳丿.噩丕賷賷 丿禺鬲乇賷 賲賷诏賵賷丿( 賮賰乇卮 乇丕 亘賰賳貙趩胤賵乇 毓丕丿鬲 丿丕卮鬲賳丿 禺丿丕 乇丕 亘倬乇爻鬲賳丿!丕賳诏丕乇 賰賴 丕爻鬲丕賱賷賳 亘丕卮丿!)賵 賷賰 趩賷夭 丿賷诏乇貙诏賷賳夭亘賵乇诏 賮乇丕賲賵卮 賳賲賷 賰賳丿 亘诏賵賷丿 賰賴 丨鬲賷 丿乇 賲賷丕賳 賳诏賴亘丕賳丕賳 夭賳丿丕賳賴丕賷 丕爻鬲丕賱賷賳 賷丕 丨鬲賷 乇賵爻丕賷卮丕賳 丕賳爻丕賳賴丕賷 亘丕 賵噩丿丕賳賷 倬賷丿丕 賲賷 卮丿賳丿..賴賲賷卮賴 賵 賴賲賴 噩丕 賴賲賴 噩賵乇 丕賳爻丕賳賷 賴爻鬲..
May 30, 2014
丿乇 丿賱 诏乇丿亘丕丿
蹖賵诏蹖賳丕 诏蹖賳夭亘賵乇诏
鬲乇噩賲賴:賮乇夭丕賳賴 胤丕賴乇蹖
丕賳鬲卮丕乇丕鬲 賳蹖賱賵賮乇
15 賮賵乇蹖賴 爻丕賱 1937 丿爻鬲诏丕賴 丕賲賳蹖鬲蹖 丕爻鬲丕賱蹖賳 貙 蹖賵诏蹖賳丕 诏蹖賳夭亘賵乇诏 乇丕 讴賴 讴賲賵賳蹖爻鬲蹖 賲賵賲賳 亘賵丿 賵 毓賱丕賵賴 亘乇 鬲丿乇蹖爻 丿乇 乇賵夭賳丕賲賴 鬲丕鬲丕乇爻鬲丕賳 爻乇禺 賲賯丕賱賴 賲蹖 賳賵卮鬲 丿爻鬲诏蹖乇 讴乇丿.讴賲蹖 亘毓丿 賵丕賱丿蹖賳卮 賳蹖夭 亘丕夭丿丕卮鬲 賵 丿賵 賲丕賴 亘毓丿 丌夭丕丿 卮丿賳丿.卮賵賴乇卮 乇丕 賳蹖夭 丿爻鬲诏蹖乇 讴乇丿賳丿. 蹖賵诏蹖賳丕 鬲丕 18 爻丕賱 倬爻 丕夭 丌賳 乇丕 丿乇 夭賳丿丕賳 賴丕 賵 丕乇丿賵诏丕賴賴丕蹖 讴丕乇 丕噩亘丕乇蹖 诏賵賳丕诏賵賳 诏匕乇丕賳丿
蹖賵诏蹖賳丕 诏蹖賳夭亘賵乇诏
鬲乇噩賲賴:賮乇夭丕賳賴 胤丕賴乇蹖
丕賳鬲卮丕乇丕鬲 賳蹖賱賵賮乇
15 賮賵乇蹖賴 爻丕賱 1937 丿爻鬲诏丕賴 丕賲賳蹖鬲蹖 丕爻鬲丕賱蹖賳 貙 蹖賵诏蹖賳丕 诏蹖賳夭亘賵乇诏 乇丕 讴賴 讴賲賵賳蹖爻鬲蹖 賲賵賲賳 亘賵丿 賵 毓賱丕賵賴 亘乇 鬲丿乇蹖爻 丿乇 乇賵夭賳丕賲賴 鬲丕鬲丕乇爻鬲丕賳 爻乇禺 賲賯丕賱賴 賲蹖 賳賵卮鬲 丿爻鬲诏蹖乇 讴乇丿.讴賲蹖 亘毓丿 賵丕賱丿蹖賳卮 賳蹖夭 亘丕夭丿丕卮鬲 賵 丿賵 賲丕賴 亘毓丿 丌夭丕丿 卮丿賳丿.卮賵賴乇卮 乇丕 賳蹖夭 丿爻鬲诏蹖乇 讴乇丿賳丿. 蹖賵诏蹖賳丕 鬲丕 18 爻丕賱 倬爻 丕夭 丌賳 乇丕 丿乇 夭賳丿丕賳 賴丕 賵 丕乇丿賵诏丕賴賴丕蹖 讴丕乇 丕噩亘丕乇蹖 诏賵賳丕诏賵賳 诏匕乇丕賳丿
June 16, 2010
This book is really gripping. Her story is so grim. It has taught me that I need to memorise as much poetry as possible, in case I end up in prison.
April 24, 2014
Into the Whirlwind is really an extraordinary book, I had never heard of Eugenia Ginzburg, and frankly felt very ignorant of the terror unleashed by Stalin during the 1930s. Into the Whirlwind doesn鈥檛 always make for easy reading, but for those interested in Russian history it must surely be required reading. In the 1930鈥檚 Ginzburg was a loyal communist party member, a university teacher and journalist. A wife and mother, living a life surrounded by people who thought as she did, Eugenia (Jenny) found herself caught up in Stalin鈥檚 Great Purge of 1937, accused on trumped up charges when her colleague Elvov at the university was charged with leading a counter-revolutionary group 鈥� a group that was totally fictitious. From 1934 when prominent party member kirov was assassinated Jenny suddenly found herself, suspected, watched and frequently questioned.
鈥淭he year 1937 really began on the 1st December 1934.
The telephone rang at four in the morning. My husband, Paul Aksyonov, a leading member of the Regional Committee of the party, was away on business. I could hear the steady breathing of my children asleep in the nursery next door鈥�
The tension and fear that surrounded Jenny and her husband at this time, as they struggled to continue with their normal family life was palpable. Many people advised Jenny to flee 鈥� to disappear until 鈥渢hey鈥� forgot about her 鈥� or things settled down, many other people in her situation had saved themselves this way. Jenny refused to do so, her belief in the party, and her own innocence leaving her vulnerable to what followed.
鈥淧erhaps I鈥檒l just stop at my mother鈥檚 on the way鈥� I said to my husband.
鈥淣o, don鈥檛. Go at once. The sooner it鈥檚 all cleared up the better.鈥�
He helped me as I hurried into my things. I sent Alyosha off to the skating rink. He went without saying goodbye. I never saw him again.
For some strange reason, little Vasya, who was used to my coming and going and always took it perfectly calmly, kept asking insistently:
鈥榃here are you going, mummy, where? I don鈥檛 want you to go!鈥�
But I could not so much as look at the children or kiss them. If I had, I would have died then and there. I turned away and called: 鈥楴anny. Do take him. I haven鈥檛 time for him now.鈥�
Perhaps it was just as well not to see my mother either. What must be must be, and there was no point in trying to postpone it. The door banged shut. I still remember the sound. That was all鈥� I was never again to open that door behind which I had lived with my dear children. 鈥�
In 1937 she was finally arrested 鈥� and from then on spent almost twenty years in a series of Stalin鈥檚 prisons and labour camps. The first two years she spent in solitary, although fortunately for her, a lack of space meant that she soon had a cell mate with whom she developed a strong friendship. The treatment of so called 鈥減oliticals鈥� was especially harsh, the rules of the prison incredibly strict 鈥� but after a few months Jenny and her cell mate Julia were allowed books, oh and I could so appreciate the joy when finally after weeks of nothing at all to do 鈥� they had reading again. Those books and a few minutes鈥� walk outside each day were their only pleasures. The women were kept strictly segregated; however they quickly developed a way of communicating with other prisoners by tapping out messages on their cell walls, in this way they kept up a little with what was going on. The food was foul and lacked any real nourishment; the women became skeletal, and were later to find themselves suffering from scurvy and night blindness through lack of vitamins. The punishment cells were a frequent threat, where they were taken for the smallest of transgressions 鈥� singing for instance.
In 1939 鈥� Jenny was herded onto a train with the rest of the prisoners and transported at a snail鈥檚 pace, through the stifling heat of a Russian summer, to a transit camp in Vladivostok and then on to Kolyma camp 鈥� one of Stalin鈥檚 network of Gulag prisons. On the train which took a month to cross Russia, the women were crowded together with just one cup of water a day each; they developed strong bonds, but necessarily quarrelled too. Women from different political backgrounds sometimes regarding one another with a degree of suspicion forced together in an unbearable situation. At the end of this dreadful journey, Jenny鈥檚 physical condition is so poor she isn鈥檛 expected to survive, and yet she does. Once she is in the labour camp, Jenny has new rules to learn, she is instructed by others in basic survival, for now she is no longer among just political prisoners 鈥� but among all kinds of prisoners, many really criminal and violent. Jenny is destined to remain in these camps for the next eighteen years, although this book is merely the first volume in Eugenia Ginzburg鈥檚 memoirs, and take us up to about 1940.
What comes across most strongly in this book is the resilience of these women, women separated forever from their families, from their children; Jenny herself never saw her eldest son, her husband or her parents again. Just as Jenny had in 1937, many of the women imprisoned with Jenny, believe in Stalin still, maintain that 鈥淗e鈥� couldn鈥檛 possibly be aware of what was happening in his name, that at some future time, the mistake would be remedied and all would be well.
This astonishing memoir is a brilliant addition to the Persephone list, I was rather amazed in fact at how much I enjoyed it, Eugenia Ginzburg comes across as a brave, intelligent woman, whose life was destroyed by Stalin, and yet who found the strength within herself, to not only survive, but survive well, and to go on and write about her experiences. I can鈥檛 help but hope that Persephone decide to publish the second volume at some stage too.
鈥淭he year 1937 really began on the 1st December 1934.
The telephone rang at four in the morning. My husband, Paul Aksyonov, a leading member of the Regional Committee of the party, was away on business. I could hear the steady breathing of my children asleep in the nursery next door鈥�
The tension and fear that surrounded Jenny and her husband at this time, as they struggled to continue with their normal family life was palpable. Many people advised Jenny to flee 鈥� to disappear until 鈥渢hey鈥� forgot about her 鈥� or things settled down, many other people in her situation had saved themselves this way. Jenny refused to do so, her belief in the party, and her own innocence leaving her vulnerable to what followed.
鈥淧erhaps I鈥檒l just stop at my mother鈥檚 on the way鈥� I said to my husband.
鈥淣o, don鈥檛. Go at once. The sooner it鈥檚 all cleared up the better.鈥�
He helped me as I hurried into my things. I sent Alyosha off to the skating rink. He went without saying goodbye. I never saw him again.
For some strange reason, little Vasya, who was used to my coming and going and always took it perfectly calmly, kept asking insistently:
鈥榃here are you going, mummy, where? I don鈥檛 want you to go!鈥�
But I could not so much as look at the children or kiss them. If I had, I would have died then and there. I turned away and called: 鈥楴anny. Do take him. I haven鈥檛 time for him now.鈥�
Perhaps it was just as well not to see my mother either. What must be must be, and there was no point in trying to postpone it. The door banged shut. I still remember the sound. That was all鈥� I was never again to open that door behind which I had lived with my dear children. 鈥�
In 1937 she was finally arrested 鈥� and from then on spent almost twenty years in a series of Stalin鈥檚 prisons and labour camps. The first two years she spent in solitary, although fortunately for her, a lack of space meant that she soon had a cell mate with whom she developed a strong friendship. The treatment of so called 鈥減oliticals鈥� was especially harsh, the rules of the prison incredibly strict 鈥� but after a few months Jenny and her cell mate Julia were allowed books, oh and I could so appreciate the joy when finally after weeks of nothing at all to do 鈥� they had reading again. Those books and a few minutes鈥� walk outside each day were their only pleasures. The women were kept strictly segregated; however they quickly developed a way of communicating with other prisoners by tapping out messages on their cell walls, in this way they kept up a little with what was going on. The food was foul and lacked any real nourishment; the women became skeletal, and were later to find themselves suffering from scurvy and night blindness through lack of vitamins. The punishment cells were a frequent threat, where they were taken for the smallest of transgressions 鈥� singing for instance.
In 1939 鈥� Jenny was herded onto a train with the rest of the prisoners and transported at a snail鈥檚 pace, through the stifling heat of a Russian summer, to a transit camp in Vladivostok and then on to Kolyma camp 鈥� one of Stalin鈥檚 network of Gulag prisons. On the train which took a month to cross Russia, the women were crowded together with just one cup of water a day each; they developed strong bonds, but necessarily quarrelled too. Women from different political backgrounds sometimes regarding one another with a degree of suspicion forced together in an unbearable situation. At the end of this dreadful journey, Jenny鈥檚 physical condition is so poor she isn鈥檛 expected to survive, and yet she does. Once she is in the labour camp, Jenny has new rules to learn, she is instructed by others in basic survival, for now she is no longer among just political prisoners 鈥� but among all kinds of prisoners, many really criminal and violent. Jenny is destined to remain in these camps for the next eighteen years, although this book is merely the first volume in Eugenia Ginzburg鈥檚 memoirs, and take us up to about 1940.
What comes across most strongly in this book is the resilience of these women, women separated forever from their families, from their children; Jenny herself never saw her eldest son, her husband or her parents again. Just as Jenny had in 1937, many of the women imprisoned with Jenny, believe in Stalin still, maintain that 鈥淗e鈥� couldn鈥檛 possibly be aware of what was happening in his name, that at some future time, the mistake would be remedied and all would be well.
This astonishing memoir is a brilliant addition to the Persephone list, I was rather amazed in fact at how much I enjoyed it, Eugenia Ginzburg comes across as a brave, intelligent woman, whose life was destroyed by Stalin, and yet who found the strength within herself, to not only survive, but survive well, and to go on and write about her experiences. I can鈥檛 help but hope that Persephone decide to publish the second volume at some stage too.
October 12, 2011
Discovered while teaching in Athens in 1978 in a treasure of a bookshop, this story has just STUCK in my head!!!
It made me realise that our idealistic ideologies from Democracy to Communism to Christianity to Workers' Unions have to be guarded and defended with rigour since Human Nature being what it is, will hijack it and twist it to its own purposes - usually perverted and hiding behind the original to practise the exact opposite.
Communism had its origins in Early Christianity...just read the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. Christianity in the West soon became a male-dominated, hierarchical, centralised Monolith which persecuted and stamped out any other form of Christianity - and there were many varieties...and then sold itself as established by some divine light, in this case the Holy Spirit/Ghost.
Many, many years later the Acts of the Apostles were resurrected in Tsarist Russia. Evgenia Ginzburg and her husband and friends were idealistic Communists, eager to make a society in which equality was all and nobody went without, a glaring contrast to Russia under the Tsars and most of the European Continent. Unfortunately the Bolsheviks and finally Stalin were not sold on this belief and this was soon evident when the Ideal disappeared and the usual persecutions of the Faithful followed. Her remarkable story of endurance and survival is inspirational and unforgettable.
A film "Within the Whirlwind", the title taken from her second book,
and starring Emma Watson is sitting on my coffee table and due back at the DVD store tomorrow.
See You!!!
It made me realise that our idealistic ideologies from Democracy to Communism to Christianity to Workers' Unions have to be guarded and defended with rigour since Human Nature being what it is, will hijack it and twist it to its own purposes - usually perverted and hiding behind the original to practise the exact opposite.
Communism had its origins in Early Christianity...just read the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. Christianity in the West soon became a male-dominated, hierarchical, centralised Monolith which persecuted and stamped out any other form of Christianity - and there were many varieties...and then sold itself as established by some divine light, in this case the Holy Spirit/Ghost.
Many, many years later the Acts of the Apostles were resurrected in Tsarist Russia. Evgenia Ginzburg and her husband and friends were idealistic Communists, eager to make a society in which equality was all and nobody went without, a glaring contrast to Russia under the Tsars and most of the European Continent. Unfortunately the Bolsheviks and finally Stalin were not sold on this belief and this was soon evident when the Ideal disappeared and the usual persecutions of the Faithful followed. Her remarkable story of endurance and survival is inspirational and unforgettable.
A film "Within the Whirlwind", the title taken from her second book,
and starring Emma Watson is sitting on my coffee table and due back at the DVD store tomorrow.
See You!!!
June 24, 2021
Well-told memoir of the author's experiences in the Soviet political prisons during Stalin's time. Though she was a dedicated communist, I soon had a great sympathy for her struggle to survive. Reminded me a great deal of by Nien Cheng who was imprisoned in China during the "Cultural Revolution". This book is listed in "500 Great Books by Women".
November 3, 2019
Ich habe die Lekt眉re lange vor mir hergeschoben, obwohl ich die Leseprobe schon kannte und mochte, weil ich fand, dass ich f眉r ein Leben genug 眉ber KZ und Gulag gelesen habe, alles sehr gute B眉cher, aber trotzdem. Hinterher dachte ich das dann auch wieder. Aber die politische Perspektive war mir hier neu, Ginzburg wird nicht einfach so aus heiterem Himmel nach Sibirien geschickt wie viele andere, sondern ist 眉berzeugtes Parteimitglied mit pers枚nlichen Beziehungen zu vielen Ankl盲gern und Zeugen.
September 22, 2016
Part I (63%), covering her arrest and her period in solitary, is extremely moving and effective. The second part of the book (Part II) is duller and not written as well. I am not sure if these two parts correspond to her two books (presented as one), as kindle does not supply that information.
Good, but a bit over-rated
Good, but a bit over-rated
February 16, 2018
I think it's understandable I was trepidatious about reading a memoir about The Great Purge and survival in gulags. It's not heavy, at all, and is written in a very easy...almost chatty style. This book is not a series of horrifying vignettes (although there are many harrowing stories), but really, it is a story of hope, and of touching humanism.
July 29, 2014
The particular edition that I read was published in the 60s, which means that it was sewn through the fold. I love books bound this way; you don't have to hold them open. I wish all hardcover books were sewn through the fold.
Evgenia Ginzburg was sent to prison during the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s on a trumped-up charge, like many others. I had read about the purges, and I even read some Solzhenitzyn back in college, though that was a while ago now. Ms. Ginzburg describes in detail the circumstances of her arrest, interrogation, and trial which resulted in a ten-year sentence of solitary confinement. Mind you, she didn't actually serve in solitary for that long; due to overcrowding she was given a roommate after a while, and then was sent to the gulags with the rest of the political prisoners.
The book ends rather abruptly not long after her arrival at the work camp in Kolyma, in the far northeast of Siberia. She relates her transfer to the medical unit, a transfer which saved her life as she no longer had to work outside in the freezing cold. However, she was imprisoned for many more years after that and I would have been curious to know more details of what happened to her there, and then what happened after she was released. Did she find out what happened to her husband? She mentions that she never saw her son Alyosha again. Did he die? Was he missing? What about her reunion with her other child? I'm not sure why she didn't write the end.
Evgenia Ginzburg was sent to prison during the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s on a trumped-up charge, like many others. I had read about the purges, and I even read some Solzhenitzyn back in college, though that was a while ago now. Ms. Ginzburg describes in detail the circumstances of her arrest, interrogation, and trial which resulted in a ten-year sentence of solitary confinement. Mind you, she didn't actually serve in solitary for that long; due to overcrowding she was given a roommate after a while, and then was sent to the gulags with the rest of the political prisoners.
The book ends rather abruptly not long after her arrival at the work camp in Kolyma, in the far northeast of Siberia. She relates her transfer to the medical unit, a transfer which saved her life as she no longer had to work outside in the freezing cold. However, she was imprisoned for many more years after that and I would have been curious to know more details of what happened to her there, and then what happened after she was released. Did she find out what happened to her husband? She mentions that she never saw her son Alyosha again. Did he die? Was he missing? What about her reunion with her other child? I'm not sure why she didn't write the end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 3, 2020
'Journey into the Whirlwind' stands out from other memoirs of gulag survivors I've read in two major ways. First of all, Ginzburg, as an intellectual, goes beyond describing the mere events of her imprisonment. She refers to numerous literary works and poems to illustrate her experience, which adds enormous depth and a certain beauty. Secondly, her ordeal as a woman was quite different from gulag memoirists such as Bardach or Solzjenitsyn. For example, the threat of being raped or the humiliation of having your head shaven makes for a uniquely female, yet obviously unsettling and tragic story. The ending of the book is quite abrupt, being continued in 'Within the Whirlwind', which I'm hoping to start reading as soon as possible.
May 16, 2018
This narrative is the true story of life in Soviet prison camps in Siberia in the Stalinist era of purges starting in 1937. The twist is that it is written by a woman, who shows the female's experience was just as harsh as the male's. I am amazed she survived years of brutal treatment.
The Russians were very similar to the Nazis. They sent prisoners to Siberia in large groups crowded into boxcars, with no food and very little water, and in the camps were put to work doing hard manual labor and basically starved to death or near death. And as in the Nazi concentration camps, people tried to stay sane by doing small kindnesses for each other and maintaining dignity when possible.
The Russians were very similar to the Nazis. They sent prisoners to Siberia in large groups crowded into boxcars, with no food and very little water, and in the camps were put to work doing hard manual labor and basically starved to death or near death. And as in the Nazi concentration camps, people tried to stay sane by doing small kindnesses for each other and maintaining dignity when possible.
January 5, 2023
禄Gratwanderung芦 von Jewegenia Ginsburg kam mir als Antiquariatsfund meines Freundes in die H盲nde. Es ist der zweite Teil Ginsburgs Erinnerungsberichts 眉ber die Lager von Kolyma (und vorheriger Gef盲ngnishaft in Moskau zur Zeit der "Stalinschen S盲uberungen"). Besonders gelungen und wertvoll finde ich die Verflechtung allgemeiner und pers枚nlicher (脺ber-)Lebensumst盲nde mit Hintergrundinformationen der politischen Verh盲ltnisse in der Sowjetunion in den 1940er und 1950er Jahren. - F眉r mich eines der besten B眉cher, dass ich 2022 gelesen habe.
December 11, 2015
Eugenia (or Yevgeniya) Ginzburg was a member of the Communist party accused of political crimes along with many thousands of others during Stalin鈥檚 purges in the 1930s. She was sentenced to 10 years solitary confinement, the standard sentence for any party member who wasn鈥檛 shot, but after two years Stalin must have realised he鈥檇 locked up too many people of working age 鈥� not only were they not producing, but they had to be fed and guarded 鈥� and she and many others were sent to do physical labour in Siberia instead.
This is the story of her arrest, her time in prison and the first few years at the work camp. It鈥檚 a grim tale but she keeps a note of hope throughout. It was written afterwards, not at the time, so maybe that helped. Still, it鈥檚 a very sad story. She and her husband were both separately arrested, leaving their 3 children from various marriages to be divided between relatives.
She wrote two volumes of these memoirs and this is the first. Some editions combine the two and I wish Persephone had done that, but perhaps the second volume is less interesting?
This is the story of her arrest, her time in prison and the first few years at the work camp. It鈥檚 a grim tale but she keeps a note of hope throughout. It was written afterwards, not at the time, so maybe that helped. Still, it鈥檚 a very sad story. She and her husband were both separately arrested, leaving their 3 children from various marriages to be divided between relatives.
She wrote two volumes of these memoirs and this is the first. Some editions combine the two and I wish Persephone had done that, but perhaps the second volume is less interesting?
April 2, 2023
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噩賱丿 丿賵賲 丕蹖賳 丕孬乇 賴賲 亘丕 鬲乇噩賲賴 毓丕賱蹖 禺丕賳賲 賮乇夭丕賳賴 胤丕賴乇蹖 丿乇 爻丕賱 郾鄢鄱酃 鬲賵爻胤 丕賳鬲卮丕乇丕鬲 賳蹖賱賵賮乇 乇賵丕賳賴 亘丕夭丕乇 賲蹖鈥屫促堌�. 讴賴 丿乇 丕蹖賳 亘禺卮 禺丕賳賲 诏蹖賳夭亘賵乇诏 丿乇 亘丿鬲乇蹖賳 卮乇丕蹖胤 賲賲讴賳 賵 爻乇賲丕蹖 讴卮賳丿賴 賵 诏乇爻賳诏蹖鈥屬囏й� 丿蹖賵丕賳賴鈥屭┵嗁嗀囏� 禺賵丿 乇丕 亘丕 蹖丕丿丌賵乇蹖 丕丿亘蹖丕鬲 賵 讴鬲丕亘賴丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 诏匕卮鬲賴 禺賵丕賳丿賴 亘賵丿賴 诏乇賲 賵 爻蹖乇 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗀� 賵 丿乇 鬲賲丕賲 賱丨馗丕鬲 匕賴賳 禺賵丿 乇丕 亘丕 賳蹖乇賵蹖 丨賯蹖賯蹖 丕丿亘蹖丕鬲貙 倬賵蹖丕 賵 賲賯丕賵賲 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗀� 賵 丕蹖賳 亘乇丕蹖 賲賳 丨蹖乇鬲鈥屫з嗂屫� 亘賵丿.
丕蹖賳 丕孬乇 鬲賵爻胤 賳卮乇 卮亘丕賵蹖夭 亘丕 鬲乇噩賲賴 賯丕爻賲 氐賳毓賵蹖 賴賲 鬲乇噩賲賴 卮丿賴 丕爻鬲 丿乇 诏匕卮鬲賴 讴賴 亘丕 賲賯丕蹖爻賴鈥屫й� 讴賴 賲賳 丕賳噩丕賲 丿丕丿賲 鬲乇噩賲賴 氐賳毓賵蹖 讴丕賲賱丕 亘蹖鈥屫傌� 賵 丿乇 氐賮丨丕鬲蹖 亘丕 丨匕賮蹖丕鬲 夭蹖丕丿 賵 噩賲賱丕鬲 賳丕賲賮賴賵賲 賴賲乇丕賴 丕爻鬲.
丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇丕 毓賱丕賵賴 亘乇 毓賱丕賯賴鈥屬呝嗀з� 鬲丕乇蹖禺 乇賵爻蹖賴 賵 丕毓賲丕賱 丕爻鬲丕賱蹖賳 賵 爻賵爻蹖丕賱蹖爻賲貙 亘賴 讴爻丕賳蹖 鬲賵氐蹖賴 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁� 讴賴 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕乇賳丿 亘丿丕賳賳丿 丕丿亘蹖丕鬲 亘賴鈥屫� 爻乇诏乇賲蹖 趩賴 丕乇夭卮 丿蹖诏乇蹖 丿丕乇丿. 趩诏賵賳賴 賲蹖鈥屫堌з嗀� 丿乇 亘丨乇丕賳蹖鈥屫臂屬� 丿賯丕蹖賯 夭賳丿诏蹖 丌丿賲蹖 丿乇 賳賯卮 賳丕噩蹖 馗丕賴乇 卮賵丿. 趩诏賵賳賴 蹖讴 乇賲丕賳 蹖丕 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 蹖丕 讴鬲丕亘 丿乇 鬲丕乇蹖讴鈥屫臂屬� 賱丨馗丕鬲 丕夭 噩乇賯賴鈥屰� 蹖讴 趩禺賲丕賯貙 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖 賮乇賵夭丕賳 賲蹖鈥屫①佖臂屬嗀�.
January 25, 2022
I read this memoir for my Cold War History class and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I find in history and IA classes we focus primarily on big trends and big numbers. Rarely do we look closely at individual storytelling - especially when that individual is a woman. When we do focus on individual forces it is individuals with societal power: presidents, ambassadors, dictators, etc. So, this memoir of a professor, mother, wife, woman, and human being in the Gulag system was so enlightening. These individual stories are necessary and forces for humanization. I especially loved how Ginzburg revealed the importance of poetry. She attributes much of her mental resiliency to her ability to keep parts of her identity and share them with others. Her memorized poems were things that physically could not be taken from her. They served as comfort to herself and to others. The humanizing power of art is a beautiful thing! ALSO, the importance she places on maintaining her femininity as a source of strength rather than liability was so inspiring. She goes through the unimaginable and survives with her identity, values, and hope in tact.
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