Work, Fight, Fail
A Kyrgyz Functionary’s Diary from the Stalin Era
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Diaries are among the most controversial types of sources from the Stalin era. According to the current interpretation, keeping a diary under Stalinism was a technique of socialist subjectification, a means of self-ideologisation. The example of Kyrgyz Communist Iusup Abdrakhmanov, on other hand, shows that the diary could serve even top officials as a medium to address their growing alienation from the new political order. Abdrakhmanov’s diary bears witness to the ruthlessness and violence of enforcing the dictatorship. In the end, the diarist also fell victim to its destructive dynamic.
(Osteuropa 3/2012, pp. 121–136)