Soviet Subject Lesson

Begin by asking students to respond to one of these prompts:

Do you think people write differently in a diary than they do on an online social media site? What accounts for these differences?  

Write three social media posts about the same issue: one your parents will see, one your teacher(s) will see, and one only your best friend will see. What is the difference here? Why is there a difference?

After students have reflected and shared their answers, ask them to consider: Are these different kinds of writing all “true” representations of themselves? Is it possible to have multiple versions of your “true” self? How might it be possible to tell? Would someone else be able to tell what is “true” and what is not? 

1. Have students watch minutes 00:00–4:30 of Alexis Peri’s lecture “Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Times: Personal Accounts of the Soviet Experience.” In this clip Peri poses the questions: What were the inner worlds of Soviet citizens like? What were people’s senses of who they were? Is it possible to access this knowledge? If so, how?

2. After viewing, ask students: What is the major question, challenge, or problem that Peri is raising? What sources of information does she rely upon? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? 

3. After reviewing the definition of a primary source with students, ask them to imagine that someone living one hundred years in the future is trying to find out what life was like at their school. Why might they want to know about this topic? Why would it matter to a historian? Have students consider several types of sources that this future historian might have access to: a diary, emails sent between students, postings from a social media site, etc. Ask students what each source might tell the person about students at their school. What is the strength of each source? What is the weakness of each source? Is any more “truthful” than another? What would “truthful” mean in this context?  

This online archive provides the “voices” not only of the interview subjects, but the interviewers themselves through their marginal notes, introductory comments, and interview questions. Some of this “marginalia” offers revealing examples of the ideas Peri discusses in her lecture. Have students explore this through one or more of the paired viewings and readings below:

1. Watch minutes 1:04:38–1:12:30 of Peri’s lecture on non-textual sources, particularly regarding clothing.

Read an excerpt from Schedule B, Vol. 1, Case 126, beginning with “I have the feeling that I was dealing with one of the more lawless Soviet types.”

Ask students: How is the interviewer “reading” the subject even before the interview begins?  

2. Watch minutes 24:25–27:10 in which Peri reflects on the idea, “There is always a disjunction between text and life.”

Read an excerpt from Schedule B, Vol. 2, Case 220, beginning with "He has all his views neatly capsuled and prepared."

Ask students if they agree with Peri’s claim that writing can never purely represent our thoughts and feelings. Do you agree? Do you agree with this interviewer’s assessment that prepared answers might be less reliable or authentic than unprepared interview responses?  

3. Watch minutes 49:42–53:41 of Peri’s lecture on the diary of Elena Mukhina. Ask students to respond first to the diary entries of Elena Mukhina. Why might Elena have switched between first person and third person? Do her diary entries sound like something an American student might write? Why or why not?

Peri says that when studying Soviet citizens it is important to avoid either extreme of saying, “They’re nothing like us” or “They’re exactly like us.” Do students agree? What is problematic about both of these perspectives? How can they be avoided?

4. Have students read page 3 of the HPSSS Guide for Interviewing Soviet Escapees, the manual written to guide future research efforts, beginning with “Americans are unaccustomed to the direct and spontaneous expression of emotion to which Russians are likely to give vent easily.”

• What assumptions does the guide seem to have about Americans? About Russians?
• How do the HPSSS researchers imagine these differences might affect the interview process?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of these interviews as sources of information about individual lives and Soviet society?

Using theater:

Performing the Meta Voice

Divide students into pairs with excerpts from interviews. Have students write an imagined “meta voice”. What might the person be thinking but not saying? Have one student read the original text while a second student stands behind them, reading the “meta voice” to accompany the piece of writing.

Visualizing Voice

The visual vocabulary of comic strips, including thought and word balloons, allows writers and readers to visualize the relationship between written or spoken communication and the inner thoughts of an individual. Visualization prompts for students can include having them draw a three-panel comic strip in which someone thinks one thing but says or writes another. Or, have students draw a one-page comic adaptation of a diary excerpt that includes both written text and accompanying thought balloons.