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A Spy in the Archives: A Memoir of Cold War Russia, by Sheila Fitzpatrick
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Moscow in the 1960s was the other side of the Iron Curtain: mysterious, exotic, even dangerous. In 1966 the historian Sheila Fitzpatrick traveled to Moscow to research in the Soviet archives. This was the era of Brezhnev, of a possible “thaw” in the Cold War, when the Soviets couldn’t decide either to thaw out properly or re-freeze. Moscow, the world capital of socialism, was renowned for its drabness. The buses were overcrowded; there were endemic shortages and endless queues. This was also the age of regular spying scandals and tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, and it was no surprise that visiting students were subject to intense scrutiny by the KGB. Many of Fitzpatrick’s friends were involved in espionage activities–and indeed others were accused of being spies or kept under close surveillance. In this book, Sheila Fitzpatrick provides a unique insight into everyday life in Soviet Moscow. Full of drama and colorful characters, her remarkable memoir highlights the dangers and drudgery faced by Westerners living under communism.
- Sales Rank: #534404 in Books
- Published on: 2015-05-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.00" w x 5.00" l, 1.36 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
Review
'absorbing... an exceptionally lucid and purposive account... this is a book about self-discovery, and about the shy, self-doubting but unusually astute and determined young woman who embarked on it... a remarkable record not only of personal history, but of Soviet and indeed British history as well.' - The Guardian 'As gripping as any spy novel, Fitzpatrick's memoir captures student life in 1960s Moscow perfectly. Against a surreal backdrop of KGB informers, shabby Moscow flats and sedate reading rooms, she also tells a story about growing up, as a woman and an intellectual, with a warmth that is irresistible and an honesty that is almost piercing.' - Catherine Merridale, author of Red Fortress 'A Spy in the Archives is the insanely readable crowning achievement of a distinguished career, a book every historian should dream of writing. Through the autobiographic report of her visit to the Soviet Union, she tells a story of bureaucratic hassles but also of deep and lasting personal friendships.'- Slavoj Zizek 'The vanished world of Brezhnev's Russia brought to life with unususal erve, a disarming candour and a shrewd eye for telling detail.' - Robert Dessaix
About the Author
Sheila Fitzpatrick is Emerita Professor of History at the University of Chicago and Honorary Professor of History at the University of Sydney. One of the most acclaimed historians of twentieth-century Russia, she is the author of several books, including The Russian Revolution; Stalin’s Peasants, Everyday Stalinism,Tear off the Masks!, and My Father’s Daughter: Memories of an Australian Childhood.
Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
A Spy in the Archives Review
By Tom Wood
Sheila Fitzpatrick’s, A Spy in the Archives, gives a unique insight into the Soviet Union following the thaw of the mid 1960s. She gives an enthralling account of what it was like to be a western historian researching in the previously restricted archives of the Soviet Union. Her memoirs detail the nature of the Soviet Union in 1966-1967 and her research of the first Soviet Commissar of Enlightenment, Anatoly Lunacharsky. Her keen eye for detail allows her to depict the otherworldly nature of the Soviet State and allows the reader an in-depth look and the USSR in the late 1960s.
As a westerner and a historian she describes the daily life of the Soviet citizens and how they feel about their government. Fitzpatrick has a keen eye for detail, she discusses how the average Soviets citizen lives and the difficulty they have obtaining clothing and other goods. One of the problems she encounters is trying to locate a suitable winter coat for the brutal winters. This problem emphasizes some of the routine difficulties that Russian citizens encountered in their daily lives. Through her eyes we see the true nature of the Soviet systems, the endless bureaucracy. She talks about how getting anything done in the Soviet system was nightmare of red tape. “Getting permission to do anything was a big problem in the Soviet Union, involving endless visits to bureaucrats who demanded ever more documents and didn’t care how much time you had to waste.” Getting permission to do research in the archives required the approval of various government officials who were in no real hurry to listen to her requests.
The memoir dashes many of the beliefs that Westerners had about the Soviet Citizens. There seemed to be a western sentiment that most people in the soviet sphere of influence were longing for the freedom the west had. Fitzpatrick addresses this in her memoir. She describes how many, including Lunarcharsky’s brother-in-law and former secretary, Igor Sats, still believed in the Soviet ideals despite some of the problems of the government. Igor was a wealth of information for Fitzpatrick because he worked directly under Lunarcharsky in the 1920s and up until Lunarcharsky’s death in 1933. He had met some the most notable members of the communist party at the time and had lived through Stalin’s purges, when a many of his compatriots did not.
Her memoir gives an extraordinary perspective about a relatively unknown time in Soviet culture. At the time that she is in the USSR, most “experts” only speculated on what Soviet culture and government was like. “Western Sovietologists believed that the soviet system of government was monolithic… one of the first things struck me was that things were not monolithic at all.” Sovietologists made guesses about the Soviet system, and did so from afar with little evidence as there was little evidence available. She provides the “boots on the ground” point of view that enables us to understand the secretive Soviet machine that we knew so little about.
One of the positive aspects of the memoir is that everything she writes is an accurate description of what was happening and what she was thinking at the time. She continuously refers to the diary that she kept while in the USSR. She also uses the correspondence between her and her mother to further understand her thoughts at the time. This is a good thing, as she is referencing from her notes at the time and not trying to recall her state of mind decades after the fact. One of the weaker points is that memoir is that it is only her opinions and experiences it lacks an official perspective. They are merely her interpretation of her brief experience in the USSR, which makes her memoir somewhat subjective.
Fitzpatrick also deals with her own personal crises. She is labeled a spy by a newpaper, further complicating her situation in the Soviet Union. She ponders if she is actually a spy. She is, after all, interested, in exposing things about the Soviet government that they do not want out in the open. She treats the people she meets with suspicion as it is guaranteed that the KGB is watching her movements and trying to deduce whether or not she is a spy. She derives a certain thrill from the idea that she is being watched. She knew that she was being watched, but she was unaware to what degree she was being monitored.
Fitzpatrick’s memoir is incredibly important in the present day. With the collapse of the Soviet Union we have the influx of all the official records that Fitzpatrick and historians like here worked so hard find. However, because the Soviet Union is no more, there are few westerners that have actually experienced Russia under the communists. Fitzpatrick’s memoir is unique in this way. She is one of the few westerners who had access to archives before the collapse of the Soviet Union. She is one of even fewer that kept a diary of her experience that could be turned into book and provide us with insights in into the USSR in the late 1960s.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Sheila Fitzpatrick A Spy in the Archives (London England, 2013). 345 pages.
By Beau Samples
Sheila Fitzpatrick’s memoir A Spy in the Archives is an account of her Soviet studies career and highlights her trips the Soviet Union; beginning in 19660s and ending with thru the collapse of the Soviet Union. The bulk of the memoir, however, concerns her first two research trips taken in X and Y. A look into her thoughts on daily life, as seen through her letters to her mother, as well as accounts told from her memory and notes she took during the time, provide an accurate sense of her daily life and thoughts during the 1960s and beyond as she established herself as a leading Soviet expert. Fitzpatrick argues that her gender as well as shaky translation from English to Russian allowed her work to continue in the Soviet Union for as long as it went. Her firsthand account of researching the Soviet Union through archives and libraries during the time of the Soviet Union provide a primary account given by a “Westerner” that is nearly unheard of in the field of Soviet-Russian studies.
The beginning of A Spy in the Archives conveys the manner to which Fitzpatrick went about getting into the Soviet Union and subsequently being able to return and continue research. Fitzpatrick married multiple times throughout her career, which helped her fly under the KGB radar multiple times. Her multiple identities and nationalities make her a unique researcher during a time when everyone was under strict observation. An Australian by birth, Fitzpatrick married a British citizen to get a British passport to then take part in a British Exchange to the Soviet Union. Fitzpatrick’s first trip to the Soviet Union occurred in 1966 when she traveled by train for three weeks throughout present day Russia. While Fitzpatrick did not do archival research during this time, this trip set up her subsequent trips to the Soviet Union and was the springboard to her next fifty years of work and research. The evidence used for her memoir came from first- hand experience, but also through a reexamination of her letters and diaries from that time. This adds to the credibility arguments presented throughout her career and this memoir.
A strong attribute of Fitzpatrick’s memoir is her employment of storytelling not only by documenting her bureaucratic hassles during her research in the Soviet Union, but also of the personal relationships she forged during her time in the USSR. A crucial part of her Soviet experience came from her decades- long friendships with Igor Alexandrovich Sats and Irina Anotolevna Lunacharskaya, Both were Soviet citizens who reciprocated Fitzpatrick’s dislike for Victor Ovcharenko’s care of Lunacharsky’s wWorks, which was the basis for their long lasting friendships. Specifically, Fitzpatrick became close to Irina because: “Irina was a fluent, persuasive conversationalist and a virtuoso of the telephone, with a well-honed instinct for the limits of the possible in any given situation” (129). Irina overwhelmed Fitzpatrick, something from which Fitzpatrick learned and thrived. Igor “adopted” Fitzpatrick and was one of her greatest allies and critics; orally reviewing her works to her in front of other Soviet scholars. He saw her as a waif that needed to be adopted (145). He had an aversion to privilege that drove those around him mad, but also garnered him tremendous respect.
The greatest strength of this memoir is its delicate balance between discussing the professional work of Fitzpatrick with her personal life. Many historians divide their personal life from the research they publish because of their distinct differences. Fitzpatrick’s experiences in the Soviet Union directly influenced the work that she completed and the manner in which she did her research. This memoir gives the story behind the story. The title of the memoir, A Spy in the Archives is a reference to Fitzpatrick’s decades long self-questioning of whether in fact she was a spy working in the archives of the Soviet Union. The concluding paragraph of the book states that Fitzpatrick still struggles with the notion of whether or not she was indeed a spy. “Perhaps I was, perhaps I wasn’t, but I hoped grace would abound and I would escape being cast into the pit” (345).
Fitzpatrick’s memoir leaves one yearning to learn more about other Sovietologists’ experiences during the same period. A supplemental memoir of her work since the collapse of the Soviet Union would be the crown jewel in her storied career. One lingering question that I am left with is how her work changed once the Soviet collapsed and also what fields of Post-Soviet studies can still be explored that have not been extensively researched already. The importance of this book will only grow as time passes and Sovietologists who lived and worked during the seventy-four years of the Soviet Union begin to retire and pass on their accounts as spies.
Beau Samples
Miami University | Oxford, OH
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
A Spy in the Archives Review
By Emily Bowersox
Sheila Fitzpatrick is a typical Australian studying the Soviet Union in Oxford, England. “A Spy in the Archives” is Fitzpatrick’s autobiography about her time in Cold War-era Soviet Union while participating in a British exchange program for ten months. Unlike most autobiographies I have read, Fitzpatrick turns to letters she wrote to her friends and mother, as well as diary entries during her time abroad. She explains how she felt during the time of her visit and then also comments on her thoughts and actions as older, wiser and more experienced Sheila. This commentary helps the reader relate to Fitzpatrick better; she seems more poised and knowledgeable than me, but being able to read her thoughts and observations from over forty years ago shows that she is not unlike your typical foreigner in the Soviet Union . She recognizes the differences and peculiarities in their culture but also learns from them to act more “Soviet” and learn. The way she writes quotes her writings and comments on them gives the reader the sense that we are with her as she is recalling all of her adventures and thoughts .
We learn more about Soviet history, life and people than we do Fitzpatrick , but that is no surprise. Fitzpatrick was so desperate and eager to go to the Soviet Union to conduct research for her dissertation that she rekindled her three-year-old relationship with her Australian sweetheart, who held British citizenship. They had not seen each other for two years, but they still agreed to get married. Fitzpatrick tried to rationalize her decision to marry, but she eventually accepted that the main reason was so she could acquire a British passport and participate in the exchange program .
There were serious amounts of mistrust among the Soviets and the rest of the world; both the British and Soviets assumed that everyone they met was a spy, and the only reason to be in the Soviet Union, or to befriend a foreigner, was to gather information and report back to your country. Obviously, that kind of thinking is not a main concern today, but there are some who are very wary of the Russian people. The biggest thing readers can learn from Fitzpatrick’s memoir is that much of what was thought and believed about the Soviet Union and its people is untrue . A Sovietologist once told Fitzpatrick, “Soviet Russians seem Orthodox on first meeting but then, as you get to know them better, inevitably revealed the dissident within that was their true self” (50). This makes it seem like all Soviets want change and are not happy with living in the Soviet Union. In reality, the Soviet Union was just like every country ; some loved and supported their government, and others were ready for change. Just because the West thinks something is not right does not mean the native people do. Some Soviet/Russian stereotypes were proven true though; everyone wore bland, neutral color clothing, but the women were able to use their hair and nails to express themselves.
Fitzpatrick explains aspects of SovietRussian history (current events during the time her story took place) and how the Russian government and people view foreigners, or more specifically Westerners. She makes it so that anyone can read and understand the book without having any background knowledge of Russia and the Soviet Union. “A Spy in the Archives” lets everyone experience Russian life without having to spend thousands of dollars to visit Russia .
“A Spy in the Archives” proved to be a very interesting and easy read. It does not take much time to get through but you will be pleasantly surprised by how much you learn. Fitzpatrick’s use of her diary entries and letters made it much more enjoyable as well, and the commentary she offers on her past self’s thoughts and actions are interesting and offer insight that I have not experienced before.
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