The diary as source in Russian and Soviet history

Abstract

After the collapse of communist rule, scholars of Russia looked forward to reading in personal diaries ‘what Soviet citizens really thought’ about a regime that allowed so little space for the private world. Diaries appeared to promise access to the ‘inner man and woman’ and to confirm once and for all the dreams and aspirations of Soviet citizens. Surely the Soviet diarist would turn out to be a desk-drawer dissident, criticising the Soviet order and preserving a personal authenticity that chimed with Western liberal notions of the free personality?The answers turned out to be quite different, and a debate over ‘Soviet subjectivity’ continues to draw upon diaries as fruitful sources that uncover a range of allegiances and conceptions of the self. Many had a ‘revolution on their mind’, but some refused to ‘speak Bolshevik’ on the page. After discussing the theoretical approaches to reading Russian and Soviet diaries, the chapter explores the range of interpretations that historians have applied to diaries and the opportunities still available in the study of this emerging category of source material. Problems of working with diaries include aspects of provenance, authenticity and integrity, and the question of rights to quote and publish; but they also include the much thornier questions of case-selection and ‘representativeness’. The chapter uses the example of the homosexual singer song-writer Vadim Kozin’s 1955–6 diary to illustrate these issues and suggest new approaches to reading Soviet diaries.