Myth, Memory, Trauma: Rethinking the Stalinist Past in the Soviet Union, 1953-70 (Eurasia Past and Present)

Drawing on newly available materials from the Soviet archives, Polly Jones offers an innovative, comprehensive account of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev and early Brezhnev eras. Jones traces the authorities’ initiation and management of the de-Stalinization process and explores a wide range of popular reactions to the new narratives of Stalinism in party statements and in Soviet literature and historiography. Engaging with the dynamic field of memory studies, this book represents the first sustained comparison of this process with other countries’ attempts to rethink their own difficult pasts, and with later Soviet and post-Soviet approaches to Stalinism. Drawing on newly available materials from the Soviet archives, Polly Jones offers an innovative, comprehensive account of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev and early Brezhnev eras. Jones traces the authorities’ initiation and management of the de-Stalinization process and explores a wide range of popular reactions to the new narratives of Stalinism in party statements and in Soviet literature and historiography. Engaging with the dynamic field of memory studies, this book represents the first sustained comparison of this process with other countries’ attempts to rethink their own difficult pasts, and with later Soviet and post-Soviet approaches to Stalinism. CONTENTS 7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 9 Introduction 13 1. The Secret Speech 29 2. From Thaw to Freeze: Party History and Soviet Literature, 1956–57 69 3. Forgetting within Limits: Censorship and Preservation of the Stalin Cult 109 4. Trauma and Redemption: Narratives of 1937 in Soviet Culture 141 5. Between Myth and Memory: War, Terror, and Stalin in Popular Memory 185 6. The “Cult of Personality” in the Early Brezhnev Era 224 Conclusion 270 NOTES 275 BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 INDEX 369 "Drawing on newly available materials from the Soviet archives, Polly Jones offers an innovative, comprehensive account of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev and early Brezhnev eras. Jones traces the authorities' initiation and management of the de-Stalinization process and explores a wide range of popular reactions to the new narratives of Stalinism in party statements and in Soviet literature and historiography."--Publisher's Web site Offers an account of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev and early Brezhnev eras. The author traces the authorities' initiation and management of the de-Stalinization process and explores a wide range of popular reactions to the new narratives of Stalinism in party statements and in Soviet literature and historiography.