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Just Send Me Word
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Review
This powerful narrative by a distinguished historian will take its place not just in history but in literature (Robert Massie )
A poignant record illuminating the experiences of the millions who suffered untold miseries in Stalin's grinding system of repression - and throughout the history of Russia as a whole. But, more than anything, this is a book about love ... as fascinating and inspiring as it is heartbreaking; a unique contribution to Gulag scholarship as well as a study of the universal power of love, as relevant now as it was then. It is impossible to read without shedding tears (Simon Sebag Montefiore Financial Times )
An extraordinary story ... Figes gives us the chilling feel of Stalin's Russia ... a tale of hope, resilience, grit and love (The Times )
Remarkable ... moving... possesses extraordinary value ... a notable contribution to Gulag literature, and the extracts ... are finely translated (Max Hastings Sunday Times )
Immensely touching ... [a] heartening gem of a book (Anna Reid Literary Review )
The remarkable true story of a love affair between two Soviet citizens ... as much a literary challenge as a historical one: the book can be read as a non-fiction novel (Telegraph )
Without sites to remind visitor's of the gulag's extent, it is becoming ever easier to forget it even existed ... Just Send Me Word may well be the book to change that ... Figes is one of the great modern narrative historians ... These letters ... give real-time, uncensored colour and life to the gulag ... Figes has achieved something extraordinary (Oliver Bullough Independent )
A quiet, moving and memorable account of life in a totalitarian state ... The book often reads like a novel ... captivating (Evening Standard )
Just Send Me Word, grimly absorbing, conveys the pity of the Stalinist Gulag with integrity and proper sympathy (Ian Thomson Guardian )
A heart-rending record of extraordinary human endurance (Kirkus Reviews )
[A] remarkable tale of love and devotion during the worst years of the USSR ... [Figes's] fine narrative pacing enhances this moving, memorable story (Publishers Weekly )
A poignant record illuminating the experiences of the millions who suffered untold miseries in Stalin's grinding system of repression - and throughout the history of Russia as a whole. But, more than anything, this is a book about love ... as fascinating and inspiring as it is heartbreaking; a unique contribution to Gulag scholarship as well as a study of the universal power of love, as relevant now as it was then. It is impossible to read without shedding tears (Simon Sebag Montefiore Financial Times )
An extraordinary story ... Figes gives us the chilling feel of Stalin's Russia ... a tale of hope, resilience, grit and love (The Times )
Remarkable ... moving... possesses extraordinary value ... a notable contribution to Gulag literature, and the extracts ... are finely translated (Max Hastings Sunday Times )
Immensely touching ... [a] heartening gem of a book (Anna Reid Literary Review )
The remarkable true story of a love affair between two Soviet citizens ... as much a literary challenge as a historical one: the book can be read as a non-fiction novel (Telegraph )
Without sites to remind visitor's of the gulag's extent, it is becoming ever easier to forget it even existed ... Just Send Me Word may well be the book to change that ... Figes is one of the great modern narrative historians ... These letters ... give real-time, uncensored colour and life to the gulag ... Figes has achieved something extraordinary (Oliver Bullough Independent )
A quiet, moving and memorable account of life in a totalitarian state ... The book often reads like a novel ... captivating (Evening Standard )
Just Send Me Word, grimly absorbing, conveys the pity of the Stalinist Gulag with integrity and proper sympathy (Ian Thomson Guardian )
A heart-rending record of extraordinary human endurance (Kirkus Reviews )
[A] remarkable tale of love and devotion during the worst years of the USSR ... [Figes's] fine narrative pacing enhances this moving, memorable story (Publishers Weekly )
Review
This powerful narrative by a distinguished historian will take its place not just in history but in literature -- Robert Massie An extraordinary story ... Figes gives us the chilling feel of Stalin's Russia ... a tale of hope, resilience, grit and love The Times Immensely touching ... [a] heartening gem of a book -- Anna Reid Literary Review A heart-rending record of extraordinary human endurance Kirkus Reviews [A] remarkable tale of love and devotion during the worst years of the USSR ... [Figes's] fine narrative pacing enhances this moving, memorable story Publishers Weekly
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This is the moving story of the love affair between Lev and Sveta, who first met while taking the entrance exam at Moscow University in 1935 and only ended with their death in old age. What makes this story extraordinary is that they were kept apart, first by WWII and then by Lev's sentence to ten years in a Gulag on his return to the Soviet Union. During all these years, they kept their love alive by infrequent, and often perilous, meetings and thousands of letters. What makes the letters even more important, is that they were often smuggled into and out of the camp, avoiding the censors and making them a fascinating record of life both within the Gulag itself and in state controlled Moscow during the years of the Cold War.
Both Lev and Sveta seemed to be very sensible people; when they first met they were studying physics, which Sveta continued to work in for most of her life and they were both careful not to burden each other with negative feelings during their time apart. During the war Sveta found herself evacuated, along with her colleages, so they could continue their work away from the front lines. Meanwhile, Lev was taken prisoner and, at the end of the war was sent on a death march from Buchenwald. Forced into a force confession he then found himself sentenced to ten years in a Gulag near the Artic Circle. From 1946 until his release in 1954 his life was that of a prisoner. At first he was unsure about whether to contact Sveta or not, not even sure that she was still alive and unwilling to pressurise her with his feelings when he was a prisoner. However, it was clear from the start that Sveta still loved him - even though they had not seen each other for five years.
What follows is an extraordinary relationship, where Lev literally lived through her letters. Eventually, Sveta wondered why, "if letters couldn't be smuggled in, why couldn't she?" and there begins the first of many desperate attempts to visit him, against the odds and many difficulties. Over the years their meetings were fleeting and few, but their letters were far more than the one censored letter allowed a month. She sustained him, while he attempted to keep his self-esteem, and she longed to have a child and a normal life.
This book takes us through the Cold War. The problems faced not only by Lev, but also by Sveta - as Soviet scientists were under immense pressure and she suffered depression and the feeling her life was slipping away. Meanwhile, we read of how Lev and his fellow prisoners coped with the Gulag - as security increased or declined and prisoners were threatened with Siberia. This takes us through the death of Stalin and the changes that came about because of this. However, this book is not really concerned with politics - both Lev and Sveta were either too careful to discuss politics openly, or more interested in other matters, but this is the story of a personal relationship in troubling and tumultuous times. As the record of a love story it is an incredible and moving testament to the human spirit and a privilege to read. As Lev wrote, "let us hope, while we still have strength to hope."
Both Lev and Sveta seemed to be very sensible people; when they first met they were studying physics, which Sveta continued to work in for most of her life and they were both careful not to burden each other with negative feelings during their time apart. During the war Sveta found herself evacuated, along with her colleages, so they could continue their work away from the front lines. Meanwhile, Lev was taken prisoner and, at the end of the war was sent on a death march from Buchenwald. Forced into a force confession he then found himself sentenced to ten years in a Gulag near the Artic Circle. From 1946 until his release in 1954 his life was that of a prisoner. At first he was unsure about whether to contact Sveta or not, not even sure that she was still alive and unwilling to pressurise her with his feelings when he was a prisoner. However, it was clear from the start that Sveta still loved him - even though they had not seen each other for five years.
What follows is an extraordinary relationship, where Lev literally lived through her letters. Eventually, Sveta wondered why, "if letters couldn't be smuggled in, why couldn't she?" and there begins the first of many desperate attempts to visit him, against the odds and many difficulties. Over the years their meetings were fleeting and few, but their letters were far more than the one censored letter allowed a month. She sustained him, while he attempted to keep his self-esteem, and she longed to have a child and a normal life.
This book takes us through the Cold War. The problems faced not only by Lev, but also by Sveta - as Soviet scientists were under immense pressure and she suffered depression and the feeling her life was slipping away. Meanwhile, we read of how Lev and his fellow prisoners coped with the Gulag - as security increased or declined and prisoners were threatened with Siberia. This takes us through the death of Stalin and the changes that came about because of this. However, this book is not really concerned with politics - both Lev and Sveta were either too careful to discuss politics openly, or more interested in other matters, but this is the story of a personal relationship in troubling and tumultuous times. As the record of a love story it is an incredible and moving testament to the human spirit and a privilege to read. As Lev wrote, "let us hope, while we still have strength to hope."
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
'One must learn to be able to live in this world, which will probably always remain cruel'
23 May 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Lev Glebovich Mishchenko and his wife Svetlana Aleksandrovna are buried side by side in Moscow's Golovinskoe Cemetery. Both were born in 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution, and both outlived the Soviet Union, Lev dying in 2008 and Svetlana in 2010. The quotation above is taken from a letter Svetlana wrote to Lev in 1947, the greater part of a year after she discovered that her pre-war sweetheart was alive but serving a ten year sentence in a GULAG prison camp.
Pre-war, Lev trained as a nuclear physicist. During the war he was a Red Army officer. Captured by the Germans, liberated by the Americans, he was offered passage to the United States, but chose repatriation. Like thousands of other returning Prisoners of War, he was - on the basis of a false 'confession' of treason against the motherland - sentenced in 1946 to death, commuted to ten years in the camps.
But for something over a year of evacuation, Svetlana had meanwhile remained in Moscow. She too was a physicist, and she made a career in a research laboratory attached to the tyre industry. Because her work was considered militarily sensitive, it took outstanding determination and moral courage to respond to letters from a political prisoner. She was short of neither.
The letters began in July 1946 and continued to July 1954. So that each would know if they had received all that had been sent, Lev and Svetlana numbered their letters, which over the years amounted in total to 1500. Remarkably, none were censored (though all were self-censored as they were written and various codes employed) and all survived, to be handed eventually to Memorial, an international historical and civil rights society operating in Russia and some other post-Soviet states. It was through Memorial that Orlando Figes became aware of the letters and Lev and Svetlana's remarkable story, and he was fortunate to be able to meet and interview them both whilst they were still alive.
Through the letters, with supplementary information from the interviews and other sources, Figes takes us chronologically through Lev and Svetlana's whole story. Although it is also much more, it is fundamentally a love story. Not, of course, that true love always ran smooth, but each was very firm in their love for the other, and determination eventually to marry.
As readers, we gain new insights into life in Stalin's Russia and a view of a prison camp that, although close to the Arctic Circle, was on the European side of the Urals, and in which Lev was able to secure a position as an electrical engineer that was at least potentially survivable. In other words, the book provides a different perspective from those of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Shalamov's Kolyma Tales and complements rather than competes with those classics.
Most remarkable of all is that each year for five years Svetlana managed to visit Lev at the camp. The first visit in particular provides exciting reading. There are other high points too, and Figes makes good use of such photographs as are available, along with relevant camp records and descriptions drawn from other sources.
Pre-war, Lev trained as a nuclear physicist. During the war he was a Red Army officer. Captured by the Germans, liberated by the Americans, he was offered passage to the United States, but chose repatriation. Like thousands of other returning Prisoners of War, he was - on the basis of a false 'confession' of treason against the motherland - sentenced in 1946 to death, commuted to ten years in the camps.
But for something over a year of evacuation, Svetlana had meanwhile remained in Moscow. She too was a physicist, and she made a career in a research laboratory attached to the tyre industry. Because her work was considered militarily sensitive, it took outstanding determination and moral courage to respond to letters from a political prisoner. She was short of neither.
The letters began in July 1946 and continued to July 1954. So that each would know if they had received all that had been sent, Lev and Svetlana numbered their letters, which over the years amounted in total to 1500. Remarkably, none were censored (though all were self-censored as they were written and various codes employed) and all survived, to be handed eventually to Memorial, an international historical and civil rights society operating in Russia and some other post-Soviet states. It was through Memorial that Orlando Figes became aware of the letters and Lev and Svetlana's remarkable story, and he was fortunate to be able to meet and interview them both whilst they were still alive.
Through the letters, with supplementary information from the interviews and other sources, Figes takes us chronologically through Lev and Svetlana's whole story. Although it is also much more, it is fundamentally a love story. Not, of course, that true love always ran smooth, but each was very firm in their love for the other, and determination eventually to marry.
As readers, we gain new insights into life in Stalin's Russia and a view of a prison camp that, although close to the Arctic Circle, was on the European side of the Urals, and in which Lev was able to secure a position as an electrical engineer that was at least potentially survivable. In other words, the book provides a different perspective from those of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Shalamov's Kolyma Tales and complements rather than competes with those classics.
Most remarkable of all is that each year for five years Svetlana managed to visit Lev at the camp. The first visit in particular provides exciting reading. There are other high points too, and Figes makes good use of such photographs as are available, along with relevant camp records and descriptions drawn from other sources.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
These types of gritty, realistic historical stories are worth reading for many reasons. Having read A.Solzhenitsyn's books and many other books on fairly recent Russian history I found this tale fascinating. Lev and Sveta had a life long relationship that beggars description. They survived the Gulags and World War II and much more besides. They seemed to have written about 1500 letters that somehow survived the censors. Probably because they were apolitical and coded.
It was amazing that Sveta communicated with a so called dissident for so long and wasn't arrested herself. She was a very brave woman. A great read and thoroughly recommended.
It was amazing that Sveta communicated with a so called dissident for so long and wasn't arrested herself. She was a very brave woman. A great read and thoroughly recommended.
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