A Spy in the Archive by Sheila Fitzpatrick
I’m not entirely sure what’s driving my reading at the moment; obviously the amount of comfort reading of classic crime is because of world circumstances; but I’ve also felt drawn towards non-fiction, maybe as a way of travel (which is not an option right now). Certainly, my love of Russia and its history hasn’t diminished at all, and so Sheila Fitzpatrick’s wonderful memoir of her time in Soviet Moscow in the 1960s turned out to be ideal for my mood.
I’ve been aware of Fitzpatrick’s work as a pioneering Sovietologist for some time; and she regularly appears as a contributor in the pages of the London Review of Books. Born in Australia, she came to study at Oxford in the 1960s as an exchange student; the college she was attached to, St Antony’s, was reputed to be a breeding grounds for anti-Soviet spies and she mixed with an array of well-known names. Her strong desire was to get to Russia and study its archives, a visit which was facilitated by the British Council; and the book relates her experiences in Moscow as well as the close friendships she made and the complexities of functioning under Soviet bureaucracy. It all makes for a scintillating read!
Fitzpatrick herself is a fascinating woman, coming from a left-wing family; her father Brian was a noted author, historian and journalist, as well as one of founders of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties. From what Sheila says in her book, they had a stormy relationship, one which she eventually covered in her book “My Father’s Daughter: Memories of an Australian Childhood”. “Spy…” draws on Fitzpatrick’s memories of the time, the diaries she kept and the letters she wrote to her mother (her father had passed away in 1965).
At the time, the study of Soviet history was not taken seriously and Sheila set out to change this. The Cold War was still in full swing, and even getting into the Soviet Union was complex enough. Add into that the constant fear of spies, threats of expulsion from East and West, plus the fact that any visitor to Moscow was going to be observed closely and possibly the subject of some kind of entrapment, and you end up with a situation guaranteed to make anyone feel anxious, especially a shy girl from Australia (which is how she describes herself). At one point, she was even ‘outed; in a Russian press article as a spy (which she wasn’t), but because of the confusion with names (she was using a married name as well as her maiden name) the effects were fortunately minimal.
Fitzpatrick’s focus at the time was on studying Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, an early Bolshevik who was (according to Wikipedia) “a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Bolshevik Soviet People’s Commissar (Narkompros) responsible for Ministry and Education as well as active playwright, critic, essayist and journalist throughout his career.” We have, of course, recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution; but when Fitzpatrick visited Moscow in the 1960s the Revolution was still within living memory, and she was able to gain access to members of Lunacharsky’s family. His home life had been a complex one, with a second marriage and in effect two families. However, Fitzpatrick made contact with his brother-in-law Igor Sats, and his daughter Irina, and they became fast friends; in fact, it seems, just as close as actual family members.
“Spy” is an engaging mix, therefore, of memoir, thoughts on her discipline, pen portaits of the people she encounters, musing on the politics of the era and a wonderful glimpse into what it was like in that place at that time; and I must admit I would love to have a TARDIS to go back and experience what Sheila did, despite the difficulties. In some ways, she recognises, she was very naive, and narrowly escaped entrapment a couple of times. But the relationships she built up with Igor and Irina were powerful ones, particularly with the former. At times, it almost verges on an unconsummated love affair, but Fitzpatrick acknowledges her need for a father figure in her life, especially after the complex relationship with her real father. She’s not afraid to look back at her younger self with a wry yet affectionate eye, recognising how hard it must have been for her mother to receive the letters Sheila sent home, and their relatationship was obviously also not easy…
I absolutely loved reading this book, as you might have guessed; I became thoroughly absorbed in it, transported back to the Oxford and Moscow of the time and it was a real window into the past. The sexual politics of era were quite an eye-opener too, both at home and abroad; and despite the burgeoning women’s movement there were still assumptions about how women should behave, particularly in a partnership. I admired how Fitzpatrick made her own way, and I’m keen to read the book she wrote about her later husband, Mischka Danos.
As well as being a fascinating and extremely engaging read, there was much in the book which resonated in me on a personal level. I’m of a different generation to Fitzpatrick, so came to the idea and history of the Soviet Union a decade later and much younger. However, a good part of the book is concerned with matters which came into my line of sight at the time (and since). Fitzpatrick’s supervisor at Oxford was Max Hayward, who I know as a translator, in particular being co-responsible for the first English version of “Dr. Zhivago” (and there’s a whole other story there about the CIA’s involvement in getting that book out of Soviet Russia to the west). He was a prolific translator, dying quite young, and it was intriguing to see him from Sheila’s point of view. She’s very honest looking back, finding her behaviour towards him perhaps not as she would now wish it to be and commenting:
I’m depressed in retrospect by the callousness of my report. All I can say in extenuation is that when you’re young, you don’t always believe that your seniors are human.
Of particular interest, however, was the fact that Igor Sats was heavily involved with the Russian literary journal Novy Mir (New World). First published in 1925, it was originally a publication which very much toed the Communist Party line. However, by the 1960s, under its editor Alexander Tvardovsky, it was leaning towards dissident territory and was responsible for a number of firsts, including its groundbreaking publication of Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (probably the first Russian book I read). Solzhenitsyn is an author dear to my heart – I followed his progress avidly during the 1970s, including his expulsion from the Soviet Union and his appearances on the BBC – and he makes regular appearances in “Spy” (as does another favourite Russian author, Andrey Platonov). Reading about the struggles the journal had, and the complexities of negotiating Soviet censorship to be able to publish what you want was absorbing, and transported me right back to my teens. Looking at the list of contributors in the battered old collection of Novy Mir pieces reminded me what an esteemed journal it really was, and was quite moving.
There were other resonances. Fitzpatrick relates encounters with Ivy Litvinov, an Englishwoman married to the Soviet diplomat Maxim Litvinov , whose books I’ve read and who I wrote about here. And she discusses the tendency I’ve noticed in Soviet writing, particularly in my exploration of Science Fiction works from that era, of hiding the real meaning of the story in a subtext – what she calls Aesopian writing.
So “A Spy in the Archives” turned out to be just the thing I needed to read right now. Sheila Fitzpatrick roams far and wide over all manner of complex issues, but the book is never dull and her memories are entertaining and fascinating. She provides a wonderful insight into the difficulties of research, particularly when access to material is tightly controlled, and her viewpoint that the past can be studied as social history, rather than just political state history, is one with which I really agree. I expected to like this book, but I hadn’t anticipated it would be such a wonderful read which ended up touching me personally. Highly recommended if you’re interested in history, the Soviet Union or simply an account of a memorable period in one woman’s life!
Tredynas Days
May 04, 2020 @ 07:13:04
It must have been a strange, exhilarating experience, to live in the Soviet Union as a westerner, at that time. Was she critical of the regime ?
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 04, 2020 @ 08:08:32
It sounds like something you would remember all your life (as she obviously has!) She’s critical, yes, but in an even-handed way – she does come from a family of left-wingers, of course – and it’s often more a case of mocking the bureaucracy and finding ways around it. She’s not unaware of the seriousness behind this though, and how vulnerable she was as a visitor to that place in that time.
madamebibilophile
May 04, 2020 @ 09:02:04
This sounds absolutely fascinating. What a unique experience to have had and it sounds like she’s recorded it in such a compelling way.
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 04, 2020 @ 10:49:12
It was, and the book is always so readable, despite dealing with complicated situations. A wonderful reading experience!
heavenali
May 04, 2020 @ 09:24:04
Sheila Fitzpatrick sounds like a fascinating woman, the places she went to the people she met and everything she experienced I can see would make this a fascinating work. I can see why you enjoyed it so much. Your mention of Ivy Litvinov reminds me I have a couple of her books buried in my tbr that I must get to.
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 04, 2020 @ 10:48:36
She was indeed, and I loved following her adventures in such an alien world. If you have the Ivy Litvinov Viragos I can recommend them both highly!
Gilt and Dust
May 04, 2020 @ 09:29:18
Thanks for this. Have added to my wishlist–sounds fascinating
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 04, 2020 @ 10:47:38
It really is – a snapshot of a completely different and lost world.
Passage à l'Est!
May 04, 2020 @ 10:08:13
Sounds like a fascinating book, also because of what you say about the “appearances” all sorts of other people make in the memoir. Luckily for me there’s a copy at one of my local libraries. Thanks for this discovery.
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 04, 2020 @ 10:47:07
Very welcome! It really was a *wonderful* read – absolutely loved it and I intend to track down more of her books!
Caustic Cover Critic
May 04, 2020 @ 10:11:49
This sounds fascinating! Do you know ‘The KGB’s Literary Archive’ by Vitaliĭ Shentalinskiĭ? An anthology of Soviet dossiers on the great (and not so great) literary figures of the era.
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 04, 2020 @ 10:53:47
It is, and I highly recommend it! And yes, I do indeed have a copy of the KGB Literary Archive, which I read pre-blog. A brilliant and often heartbreaking book.
JacquiWine
May 04, 2020 @ 10:26:50
A little like you, I’ve been reading some more non-fiction lately, alongside my usual novels form the mid-20th-century. There’s something rather appealing about these blends of memoir and other topics, be they cultural or political. Plus, the Russian angle makes it ideal for you – good choice!
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 04, 2020 @ 10:44:11
Yes, it was the perfect choice for me, really. And that mixture of time travel and real travel was ideal for the moment – such a fascinating book!
languagehat
May 04, 2020 @ 14:21:53
The memoirs are great, but I confess I’ve never much liked Fitzpatrick as a historian, though I’ve warmed to her over the years as she’s gotten less doctrinaire (probably as a result of having won her academic wars and gotten tenure). She was originally, along with Arch Getty and others, one of the “revisionists” who took the line that hey, Stalin may not have been a saint but he got the country industrialized, and his purges allowed lots of proletarians to move up in the ranks and achieve a middle-class life, so let’s cut him some slack. (I paraphrase with malice aforethought, but that’s the general idea.) Of course after years of overheated Cold War rhetoric about the unmitigated evil of everything Soviet it was time for a correction, but in my opinion they went too far in the opposite direction. Also, “At the time, the study of Soviet history was not taken seriously” is her self-serving take on things; of course it was taken seriously, it just wasn’t done the way she wanted.
That said, her concise history of the Revolution is excellent and I’ve recommended it to people if they’re not up for the full Figes.
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 04, 2020 @ 15:33:16
Oh, that’s interesting! I’ve not read any of her historical works so I’ll have to take your word for it. I *can* understand a need to redress the balance, but I don’t think I could ever take the line that Stalin was’t that bad…
As for the full Figes – I have reservations about him too! I enjoyed Natasha’s Dance, but his credibility seems to have suffered a bit, and despite claiming to be a Labour supporter he actually comes across a bit right wing for me. Is it unreasonable for me to want unbiased history?
languagehat
May 04, 2020 @ 16:19:03
Figes is full of himself and not always reliable, but his 900-page A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924 is superb and what I recommend to people if they want a deep dive.
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 04, 2020 @ 16:29:07
Thanks! I’ll bear that in mind! 😀
Julé Cunningham
May 05, 2020 @ 02:25:24
I greatly admire Fitzpatrick for her courage and tenacity in pursuing her work, but was really taken aback when I first read her history and perception of the Stalinist years. Count me as another fan of Figes ‘A People’s Tragedy’, it’s surprisingly even-handed and passionate about the subject.
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 05, 2020 @ 09:24:04
That’s interesting, as I hadn’t tagged her as a Stalin apologist from this book. I shall approach with caution…
languagehat
May 05, 2020 @ 14:02:02
To be fair, she would deny she was a Stalin apologist (as would the other revisionists); she would say she was just being dispassionate and avoiding ideological prejudice. The thing is, if she read a history of Nazi Germany that was enthusiastic about how cleverly Hitler had rearmed and industrialized the country and how his racial policies had opened up careers for previously underprivileged Aryans, she would be rightfully indignant. The problem with these people is they don’t understand that Stalin’s Russia was as evil as Hitler’s Germany; they insist on treating it as a sort of radical version of the US or UK, and they become apologists despite themselves. It’s quite possible to write objectively about these things while making clear you understand the moral stakes without descending into name-calling and Cold War rhetoric; Moshe Lewin, to take just one name that comes to mind, did this with no problem.
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 05, 2020 @ 14:28:00
It was indeed – it was a dictatorship under a another name with just as many victims as Nazi Germany (or maybe more – I have no idea of the statistics). It’s the Cold War rhetoric I think I object to most, and the condemning of any possibility of a socialist world based on the failure of the Soviet model (which was not a place of equality by any stretch of the imagination). Objectivity is what I want, and no hidden axes to grind (my main issues with so many books about Lenin and Trotsky).
Julé Cunningham
May 05, 2020 @ 23:18:02
Languagehat sums it up beautifully. I just felt when reading Fitzpatrick’s history that she wasn’t reckoning with the reality of the Soviet years and it surprised me since she was writing at a time when a certain amount of information about the Soviet years had surfaced. Figes’ more balanced history was a breath of fresh air after I’d read all too many books whose purpose seemed to be to grind an ideological axe; those almost put me off reading about Russian/Soviet history altogether.
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 06, 2020 @ 09:28:12
That *is* surprising – especially as she’d experienced some of those years herself! And agreed about the ideological axe – I don’t really want bias either way when I’m reading history. I’ve abandoned many a book on Lenin when I’ve realise the author hated their subject and just wanted to diss them…
Liz Dexter
May 05, 2020 @ 20:33:59
What a great book and absolutely perfect for you!
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 05, 2020 @ 20:38:22
It was – just perfect reading for me, and transported me back in time and off to a place I’ll never see!
Olga Zilberbourg
May 07, 2020 @ 07:12:39
Thanks for your detailed review! I’ve been seeing some of her stuff on LRB too, and not sure what to think about it, but it sounds like this is a very personal book, and would give a good background to her other work!.
kaggsysbookishramblings
May 07, 2020 @ 08:27:41
Interesting that you don’t know what to make of her pieces in LRB. I think I may have to explore her non-fiction works carefully….
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