Red Autobiographies: Initiating the Bolshevik Self - Softcover

Halfin, Igal

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0295991127 ISBN 13: 9780295991122

Publisher: University of Washington Press, 2011

Synopsis

In Red Autobiographies, Igal Halfin reads admission records of the Soviet Communist Party cells in the 1920s for what they reveal about the politics of self-representation in Bolshevik political culture. He identifies ways of speaking about oneself as a central arena of the Soviet revolution's drive for discovering, changing, and perfecting the self. The study is based on sources-many of which are no longer as freely accessible as they were during the heyday of the Soviet "archival bonanza" - in provincial party archives in Leningrad, Smolensk, and Tomsk. Its principal merit is Halfin's masterful handling and interpretation of those sources. The study also serves as a popular "short course" on Halfin's seminal contributions to the historiographies of Russia, communism, and modern subjectivity.

About this title

About the Author

Igal Halfin is a professor of modern history in Tel Aviv University.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0295991127
• ISBN 13: 9780295991122
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224