An Oral Historian In Moscow: Some Firsthand Observations

Abstract

On July 18, 1973, a very warm afternoon in Moscow, I began an extemporaneous lecture on oral history practices in the United States. My audience, approximately 20 men and women, were all research scholars of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, and understandably, I was nervous. Their friendly reception and their laughter as we joked beforehand had smoothed away some of my anxiety, but I remained awed at finding myself facing that particular group in that particular place. It had all begun innocuously enough, in the summer of 1972.