Time of Troubles
Time of Troubles: The Diary of Iurii Vladimirovich Got'e
IURII VLADIMIROVICH GOT’E
Translated, Edited, and Introduced by Terence Emmons
Series: Princeton Legacy Library
Copyright Date: 1988
Published by: Princeton University Press
Pages: 550
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7zv2mw
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Time of Troubles
Book Description:

Among the few diaries available from inside early Soviet Russia none approaches Iurii V. Got'e's in sustained length of coverage and depth of vivid detail. Got'e was a member of the Moscow intellectual elite--a complex and unusually observant man, who was a professor at Moscow University and one of the most prominent historians of Russia at the time the revolution broke out. Beginning his first entry with the words Finis Russiae, he describes his life in revolution-torn Moscow from July 8, 1917 through July 23, 1922--nearly the entire period of the Russian Revolution and Civil War up to the advent of the New Economic Policy. This remarkable chronicle, published here for the first time, describes the hardships undergone by Got'e's family and friends and the gradual takeover of the academic and professional sectors of Russia by the new regime. Got'e was in his mid-forties when he wrote the diary. At first he felt that Bolshevism meant complete doom for Russia, but eventually his ardent patriotism led him to accept the Bolsheviks' role in preserving the integrity of the Russian state. The diary was discovered in 1982 in the Hoover Institution Archives, in the papers of Frank Golder, to whom Got'e himself had entrusted it in 1922. It is translated literally and unabridged, with annotations by Terence Emmons. The introduction by Professor Emmons places the diary clearly in the context of Got'e's life and scholarly career.

Originally published in 1988.

ThePrinceton Legacy Libraryuses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

eISBN: 978-1-4008-5932-0
Subjects: History
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-vi)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. vii-viii)
  3. List of Illustrations
    List of Illustrations (pp. ix-x)
  4. Acknowledgments
    Acknowledgments (pp. xi-xii)
    Terence Emmons
  5. A Note to the Reader
    A Note to the Reader (pp. xiii-xiv)
  6. List of Frequently Used Abbreviations
    List of Frequently Used Abbreviations (pp. xv-xvi)
  7. Chronology of Principal Events Mentioned in the Diary of Iu. V. Got’e
    Chronology of Principal Events Mentioned in the Diary of Iu. V. Got’e (pp. xvii-xix)
  8. [Illustration]
    [Illustration] (pp. xx-1)
  9. [Map]
    [Map] (pp. 2-2)
  10. Got’e and His Diary
    Got’e and His Diary (pp. 3-24)

    Russia in the summer of 1917 was in a state of crisis: a revolution in February, in the midst of the First World War, had overthrown the tsarist regime; a Provisional Government, committed to running the country until a constituent assembly could be called and determined to keep Russia in the war against the Central Powers, maintained a fragile hold on power. By mid-July 1917, the failure of the Russian offensive on the Galician front, which began in the third week of June and turned into a rout by the beginning of July, and the “July Days” demonstrations in Petrograd...

  11. My Observations:: Lament on the Downfall of the Russian Land
    • 1917
      1917 (pp. 27-94)

      8–16 July 1917. Finis Russiae.The army is an army no more. Russia has lost the capacity to defend herself. The fundamental cause, of course, is the century-long decomposition of the old regime. With its fall, it provoked the pendulum swing to the left and the rise to domination of forces that have developed in the underground and are fit only for destruction. The destruction of the army, undertaken in the name of underground slogans that were designed for the struggle against tsarism, has of course brought forth the fruit it was meant to yield: transformation of an army...

    • 1918
      1918 (pp. 95-226)

      1 January. Neither visits nor newspapers with their bureaucratic good tidings. Yesterday there were new rumors about the abolition of all state loans, inheritances, and so forth. Everyone is upset and yet everyone disbelieves it, or pretends not to believe it. In addition to the fact that it is possible to do anything under the present regime for a bribe, Russian dishonorableness is apparently manifesting itself intensely in the triumphant boorocracy.¹ We greeted the new year at Mertvyi Pereulok, where we also spent the night. I have just returned home; on the paper of one of the wall decrees on...

    • 1919
      1919 (pp. 227-327)

      1 January. Although I am beginning the year according to the new style, and although I have always approved of the shift to the new style, I myself continue to feel the old style and will privately celebrate it in twelve days; perhaps this is a silent protest against the regime of the rsfsr. A day without impressions; I sat home and wrote lectures; there is pleasure only in studies.

      2 [January]. I spent the evening at my wife’s parents; I went there in a relatively good mood, perhaps because I had read all the beguiling news that the menshevik...

    • [Illustrations]
      [Illustrations] (pp. None)
    • 1920
      1920 (pp. 328-396)

      January. I am beginning the notes on January 5th because the state of bewilderment I am in not only doesn’t pass, it is still increasing. There is nothing ahead but terrible loneliness and fear of hunger (I am greeting the new year alone with my juvenile son). On Saturday I went to the Vvedenskie Hills to make the only visit planned for the holidays—to the grave of my parents. Everything was covered with snow there, an abomination of desolation that had never occurred there before. The journey through Moscow—dirty, befouled, snowed in, stripped, and full of garbage—produced,...

    • 1921
      1921 (pp. 397-441)

      1 January. On the occasion of New Year’s Day, Volodia and I slept at home and are now sitting together. The only pleasure is the hope of sitting home for a while and going nowhere. But that hope is a bad thing, too.

      4 [January]. I am getting ready to leave for Pestovo for a week. The bolsheviks are threatening that someone is preparing to make war against them. This is occurring because they themselves are Jew-cowards and also because they simply won’t get along without a war. Masha has returned and reported that she traveled there for 2,000 rubles...

    • 1922
      1922 (pp. 442-462)

      1 [January]. What are the auspices for this year? Apparently, a further shift; a difficult period of starvation. Will this year be worse or better than last?

      5 [January]. The Christmas preparations are bigger and more widespread this year than in past years. In the first place, there is more money; in the second, everything can be bought, and therefore a Christmas tree is prepared and a goose is purchased. The guarantee of two communists was demanded for the commission of experts on Poland. At first I didn’t want to do this at all, and in any case excluded the...

  12. Appendix
    Appendix (pp. 463-496)
  13. Index of Personal Names
    Index of Personal Names (pp. 497-513)
  14. Back Matter
    Back Matter (pp. 514-514)
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