Хочу жить! Дневник советской школьницы

by Nina Lugovskaya, Нина Луговская

Перед вами реальный дневник московской школьницы 1930-х годов, чудом уцелевший в архивах НКВД. Талантливая и независимая девочка писала в дневнике то, что другие боялись прошептать в те страшные времена. Она отказывалась принять "советский проект", ее не затронула идеологическая пропаганда. Она откровенно и правдиво описывала реальность своего непростого времени, а также свой внутренний противоречивый мир.

Эта пронзительная книга уже издана и пользуется огромной популярностью в Англии, Франции, Германии, Италии, Швеции и других странах.

В тексте выделены все те места, которые были подчеркнуты следователем НКВД как антисоветские.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Russia, Biography, Diary, Biography Memoir

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

She was a Russian painter and theatre designer in addition to being a survivor of the GULAG. During Joseph Stalin's Great Purge, a teenaged Nina was also the author of a diary, which was discovered by the Soviet political police and used to convict her entire family of Anti-Soviet agitation. After surviving Kolyma, Nina studied at Serpukhov Art School and in 1977 joined the Union of Artists of the USSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nina's diary was discovered intact inside the NKVD's file on her family. It was published in 2003, caused Nina to be labelled, "the Anne Frank of Stalin's Russia."

Reviews

[Ilze · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here is a book that’s meant to: ... inspire comparisons with Anne Frank ... (according to the blurb). Frankly, the book disappointed me. Should there be any comparisons to be made, it would be that both girls kept diaries many years ago and/or during difficult years.

Nina is the third daughter of a father who ends up being arrested for anti-Bolshevik activities. Her sisters are twins and her mother works hard to get any food on the table. Nina herself never really mentions the poverty they were living in, but spends most of the diary giving you acute descriptions of her classmates and her feelings – most of these embarrassed confessions of a squint eye and a longing for the attention of that “special” boy.

The title of the book could well have been a desperate attempt to get it sold, for Nina only mentions a want/will to live in two places: In March 1934 (p 130) and again in January 1936 (p 314). Why would anyone use it as the motto of a book in which the writer contemplates and attempts suicide occasionally? Could it be that both editor and publisher felt so sorry for Nina and the fact that her diary was censored by the NKVD that it compelled them to publish it (making sure to embolden all censored sections)?

For me, Nina’s diary can be summed up in her entry for 10 February 1935: I could go on reading Chekhov’s stories and plays for ever. Oh, I just keep coming across myself in them over and over again! And that hopeless, despairing tone, that pessimism and helplessness are so familiar to me, so like me. How could I possibly not recognize myself in his Ivanonv and Treplev! All of them are failures, dissatisfied with life. They’re all tormented by social stagnation, a stifling, musty atmosphere. But what can I do? That’s the way life is, life is like that, and it never has been and never will be any other way. What are energy, enthusiasm, joy and happiness? Just moments we experience only rarely in life. Writers love to add them all together and create an idealistic picture of life, but it’s a lie, not life. The editor informs us that “Treplev … suffers from unrequited love, becomes depressed and commits suicide. Ivanov, a frustrated idealist, also suffers from serious depression and romantic turmoil. It is easy to see why Nina identified with them” (2008: 230-231).

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though along the same realm of Anne Frank's diary, Nina Lugobskaya's diary is vastly difference. While Anne's diary is hopeful and beautifully written, Nina's diary is more cynical and contains her day-to-day life. Of course, Anne was stuck in the Annex while Nina could go out and about, so we learn more about Stalin's Russia in her diary than we do Hitler's regime in Anne's. Anne and Nina are very different girls. Anne Frank was pretty, charming, the type of girl everyone liked, especially boys. Nina Lugovskaya, on the other hand, was much darker, more cynical, and isolated from others. She was a bit of an outcast, which makes her diary read like a real teenager's. It really isn't fair to compare the two diaries, though, since Nina didn't get to edit hers beforehand like Anne did.

Nina, while often moody and selfish, is a shrew observer, and you really get to see what Russia was like at the time. You learn about the day-to-day life there: school, shopping, and the police knocking down your door. Nina's father had been sent away for suspected suspicious activities and so she, her mother, and two older sisters were on their own in terms of money and food, both of which there was never enough. The most passionate you ever see Nina is when she's ranting against Stalin. I could really see the political climate and how it was going to turn out. Nina, though dreaming of being a writer as a kid, ended up being a painter. Like Anne, this is her only testimony to us. I'd recommend!

[Nicole Scavino · Rating 5 out of 5]

«A menudo me gustaría saber qué piensan las otras mujeres y las otras niñas, quizá entonces lograría comprenderme a mí misma. Nosotras las mujeres no nos conocemos porque no tenemos a nadie de quien aprender. Todos los grandes escritores son hombres que describen a las mujeres partiendo únicamente de su punto de vista, y en consecuencia no nos conocen. Para mí, sin embargo, resulta indispensable estar al corriente de las opiniones de las mujeres, de sus deseos, de sus necesidades.» 15 dic. 1933

El Gulag stalianiano, Yezhovshchina, la era perestroika representaron décadas de destrucción, represión, una "distopía" del miedo –salvo que era una realidad– a causa de detenciones, campos de trabajo forzados, encarcelamientos injustificados y fusilamientos a "quienes atenten peligro contra el régimen". Nina perteneció a esta época. Años previos al inicio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la época genocida de la historia global.

[Bristol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. It took me a little while to get into, but I found it really interesting. I don't like how some people say that it isn't interesting, or that she talks to much about boys, this was her diary. She wasnt expecting people to read it! I found it well written, and poetic in parts :) I could really feel for her while I was reading :)

[Alina Meriacre · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Os cadernos permaneceram nos arquivos dos serviços secretos durante o tempo das purgas, dos campos e também na época em que Nina, que regressou miraculosamente viva de Kolyma, mas emudecida para sempre, perdeu o sonho de ser escritora e pintou quadros (assim, passou da arte da palavra à arte do silêncio) numa pequena cidade da província, sem tornar a ver Moscovo.

Os manuscritos souberam suportar aquilo que a Nina não aguentou. Não emudeceram e conservaram a voz de Nina com toda a sua variedade de tiradas ora perturbadas, ora engraçadas, que não foram trabalhadas nem corrigidas. O que resta dessa época terrível e distante? As vozes. Que procuram os arqueólogos de hoje? O que se disse.

E eis que encontraram um espólio precioso, raro. Acharam, perfeitamente intacta, a voz adolescente da denúncia.”,

in posfácio por Elena Kostioukovitch.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This girl, Nina, was advertised as "the Russian Anne Frank". However, having read the latter's diary, I can say that Nina, while a good writer, is not as good as Anne, nor is her diary as interesting as Anne's. Granted, Nina and her sisters and mother were imprisoned in Siberia, at which time the diary was confiscated. But Nina and her family survived, and lived on, whereas Anne did not.

Aside from the comparisons, Nina's diary covers a period between 1932 and January 1937, in the early years of Stalin's regime, beginning when she was 13 and ending when she was 17. It took me forever to read through it! Much of what she talks about is BOYS, and how badly she wants a boyfriend, and which boys she likes, and their attractive features, and how she envies her sisters. She has a lazy eye, which causes her to hate her looks. She also talks a lot about having to study harder and harder, yet she describes getting drunk on wine and goofing off. At one point she talks about seeing a neurologist because her memory is so bad, and she can't remember her lessons. Much of it is repetitious and comes across as constant whining, which got tiresome to read. Yet there were fascinating moments, when she described the school system, and talked about authors she read, or news events of the time, or her political views. The most interesting part was when her family were vacationing in the country and her observations of the peasants (common people). Unfortunately, the tedious parts far outnumbered the fascinating bits. It's too bad that she never went on to write more, because she had potential. Nevertheless, I do recommend it for those interesting bits.

[Laura Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering this diary is written by a girl during the teen years between 13-18, it's hardly surprising to find it filled with angst. There is a lot of anguish over boys and plenty of self-doubt. Yet Nina Lugovskaya also displays an astute awareness of Bolshevism and the negative effects it had on Soviet society. Very sad, however, that the musings of a young girl struggling to find herself and her place in the world were used to convict her at the age of 18 and send her to a labor camp for five years. I appreciated the Afterword at the end, giving information on the family's lives after their arrests and releases. I felt most sorry for Nina's mother. The woman did nothing, but was still sentenced to the same punishment as the others simply because she was related. Says everything one needs to know about the Soviet Union under Stalin.

It's a shame that the confiscation of her diary seemed to discourage Nina from writing (she took up painting instead) since I found her prose enjoyable, especially from one fairly young yet.

[Gremrien · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite a famous personal diary of a Soviet teenage girl of the 1930s who (together with all her family) was repressed and, on the basis of some of her words in the diary, accused of “terrorism.” The diary covers 1932-1937, when Нина Луговская was 14-19 years old, respectively. In 1937, she was arrested and received 5 years in the GULAG. She served the sentence in full and was released in 1942, after which she stayed in the Russian North until Ottepel. She was rehabilitated only in 1963 and only after a personal letter to Khruschev.

She lived a very calm and modest life after this and died in 1998, believing that her teenage diary was locked in the KGB archives or probably destroyed already. However, in 2001, the Russian historical and civil rights society “Memorial” found her diary, and it was published in 2003. It has been much more popular in Western countries than in Russia — probably because of the lack of interest in the GULAG-related things in modern Russia, or maybe because it was promoted there as “a diary of a Russian ‘Anne Frank'” (Western people LOVE everything about Anne Frank).

Well, this particular premise (about “Russian ‘Anne Frank'”) is bullshit, of course. Overall, I found the diary hardly readable and NOT interesting as a personal diary. It is interesting exclusively as a historical artifact, as a reminder of such historical realities. As a diary, it’s utterly mind-boggling. I seriously wanted to ditch it many times, and I see that many people leave commentaries that they could not finish it — and I understand them completely.

Нина Луговская was a VERY strange girl. I suspected that she was probably somewhat mentally impaired, but it may be just a case of a slowly developing and limited personality. Approximately 80% of the diary is about BOYS, BOYS, BOYS. Absolutely infantile and stupid hormonal fixation, even obsession. All this would look OK for an 11-12-year-old girl (although I would still be really concerned if any 11-12-year-old girl were so obsessed with boys and interested in nothing else), but when you see all this year after year from 14 to 19 (!!!) year-old age, you really start to believe that the girl is socially and intellectually retarded. The other 20% of the diary contain even more depressing and inadequate reflections about how boring her school was, how bad her parents, friends, sisters were, how she loves nature, and how exceptional and intelligent she considered herself (well, looks like pretty normal teenagery stuff, but I really had an impression that this girl is mentally sick — she just does not like anybody or anything, she is not interested in anything, she talks nonsense all the time… well, I also was a self-absorbed idiot when I was a teenager, but I still don’t think that I was so gloomy and monotonous as Нина Луговская).

She is not “Russian ‘Anne Frank'” exactly because real Anne Frank was a pretty normal and healthy teenage girl, absolutely RELATABLE for modern readers. From the diary of Anne Frank, you can learn something about her family, her friends, her interests, life around her in general, and typical sincere and immature reflections of a kid who is growing day after day. Нина Луговская is everything opposite to it. She is deeply unhealthy mentally, and you cannot learn from her diary about anything except for her compulsive interest in BOYS, and she is a very unpleasant personality overall, really narrow-minded and narcissistic (disproportionally to normal teenagery egoism, I believe), and she does not change a bit in all those several formative years. I did not hate her when I read the diary, but I felt mostly sorrow and psychological discomfort, and could not stop repeating to myself, “Oh, Nina, Nina, how can you be such a silly, empty goose…” In other words, I was depressed by the whole fact that such young people exist (I would prefer not to know about their existence).

(I also read a little her later diaries that she was keeping in her adult life, in the 1960-80s. She looks like a completely normal person there — boring and not pleasant again but at least not obsessed with anything and not so shallow-brained. I even found some interesting observations there, but it’s mostly about nature and weather, endless Пришвин-like exercises.)

Ah yeah, and there are also occasional bursts of hate toward “disgusting Bolsheviks” here and there. The part which looks the most intriguing and appealing for potential readers and which was a good excuse for the “terrorism” accusation (but only an excuse; we understand that they did not need any “excuses” and they would send Нина Луговская to the GULAG anyway, like all her family). This aspect of the diary is also extremely strange. From everything else, you see clearly that this girl cannot even THINK about any “Bolsheviks” because all the social life of society, all the political background, all the recent history are too far away from her. She almost never tells anything even about people she knows well, she does not read many books (and never discusses them in the diary), she does not have any more mature friends and acquaintances who would talk to her about anything political, so we can be sure that all this stuff about “disgusting Bolsheviks” in her diary is only a blind repetition of her father’s words (who indeed was a quite intelligent person and obviously talked about his political views at home A LOT). She does not even understand what she talks about when she repeats all those fiery accusations saturated with hate to “Bolsheviks” and anti-Semitism (yep, this was her father’s problem, and I don’t think that such a stupid teenager could be an anti-Semite herself, especially considering that she later married a Jew). The whole choice of words (“Bolsheviks”!) is so unusual for any Soviet kid that you can be sure that this is exactly what her father told (who was a “Socialist-Revolutionary,” “эсер” — and thus considered himself an opposition to “Bolsheviks” until the very end). The thing is that Нина Луговская, with all her narcissism and dislike of other people, including her family, would never admit that these “opinions” are not her own; she liked the hidden power in all those words, she considered them a sign of intellectual superiority, internal independency, and rebellion, so she repeated them eagerly, but she always wrote all those things as if they were her own opinions, which is absolutely impossible.

In the book, there are also some letters from her father’s correspondence — mostly between him and his older daughters, but sometimes also to Nina herself, and you can see clearly the high intelligence and independent mind of this person, and we can be sure that anything that Nina wrote about “disgusting Bolsheviks” was just a repetition of his words. He is not a pleasant person too — anti-Semitism, Russian imperialism, etc. — but his opinions are at least his own and based on some knowledge, real revolutionary experience, just normal healthy rationalism, and a well-developed mind. Nina’s “opinions” are not even her own, and I find ridiculous any talks about her brave and unconventional “political observations.”

Her mother was also an extremely interesting and strong person — you can read about her in the supporting materials, and again, you can see from them that such parents apparently were a powerful influence on their children. We can only wonder how empty and stupid their child could be to stay so ignorant and bored with everything as Nina was. Yeah, I believe that the parents understood that there is something wrong with their youngest child, but well, they also had two other daughters, older twins, who were indeed very promising as intelligent and independent minds.

I’ll quote what Nina herself wrote about this:

“Я как-то услыхала случайный разговор мамы и папы обо мне и папины слова: «Она настолько ограниченна, что не интересуется ничем, ее не касающимся, и даже разговаривать разучилась». Горько и обидно стало мне от этих слов. Хотела вначале поговорить с папой, а потом раздумала. С какой стати унижать себя лишний раз? Трудно будет мне жить на свете. Куда я гожусь? Быть или конторщицей и корпеть всю жизнь над бесконечными цифрами, или учительницей непокорных, противных учеников, которые издеваются над тобой и дразнят. Незавидная судьба! А большего я не достигну, но, может, к тому времени меня покинут мечты и угаснут мои надежды. Но жить будет, я знаю, еще тяжелей, недаром же старики с таким волнением и грустной радостью вспоминают молодость. Чем все это кончится? Моя тоска, моя хандра…”

Yeah, very true and very characteristic for Nina’s personality and their relationships in the family, I suppose.

Well, overall, this diary was a depressing reading experience, as I said, and I do not think that I would have lost something if I had indeed ditched it somewhere in the process, but I am glad that I learned about this family. This is a very interesting case from the historical point of view. I only wish I learned about this family from normal memoirs of the father, or the mother, or one of Nina’s older sisters — they all look very original and appealing to me.

[Mari Pacheco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um livro maravilhoso, que me encheu de nostalgia do tempo confuso e cheio de emoções da adolescência. Nina relata com excepcional clareza o dia a dia num país dominado pelo comunismo, pela injustiça, a fome e a violência - uma forma íntima de conhecer esse sistema político, muitas vezes romantizado, que condenou milhares de pessoas à morte e a anos ininterruptos em campos de trabalhos forçados.
Se existe algo que me desagradou, especificamente nessa edição, é o prefácio que insiste em comparar Nina Lugovskaia com Anne Frank; uma comparação absurda e injusta com ambas escritoras. Cada uma viveu e sofreu a sua maneira, totalmente opostas, em regimes totalitários que embora tenham algumas semelhanças, são mais opostos que similares.
Adorei conhecer mais sobre a cultura russa, e super indico a leitura!

[Grace Murphy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could not finish it because there wasnt a real plot to it and I decided to find something more interesting to read

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

achei q mais gente tinha lido esse livro, eu li ele na escola
gente pqp para de comparar com o da anne frank os dois são bons

[Sergei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Читать чужие дневники — всё равно, что заглядывать в письма через плечо. Всё время кажется, что эта предельная искренность (когда между автором и белым листом отсутствуют посредники) исключительно для себя. И от возникшего чувства неловкости никуда не деться. Как никуда не спрятаться от боли и горечи, читая страницы этого дневника.
Пять лет дневниковых записей московской школьницы Нины Луговской охватывают период с 1932 по 1937 годы. В 13 лет Нина начала вести дневник, а в 18 была написана последняя строка. В 1937-м году Нина, её старшие сёстры и мама были арестованы по групповому делу «участников контрреволюционной эсеровской организации». Дневник Нины стал частью обвинения. В книге выделены места, которые были подчеркнуты следователем НКВД как антисоветские.

Лейтмотив дневника, по крайней мере, в начале — вовсе не ужасы сталинизма, ни чёрные страницы, а вполне обычные переживания подростка о своём будущем, поиски смысла жизни, мысли о живописи и поэзии, первая любовь и так далее. Внутренний монолог о вечном перемежается наблюдениями за одноклассниками, друзьями:

«Любовь прошла, в душе осталась лишь слабая тень, отголосок этой любви. Меня уже не тянет в школу, и я не раз подумывала остаться дома. Зачем мне теперь школа? Как ни странно, она нужна мне была только для одного, а «это» прошло почти бесследно. Левка производит на меня впечатление только тогда, когда он рядом бегает, смеется, бузит. Но стоит скрыться этой фигурке – и обаяние проходит. Левка между тем вел себя сегодня немного странно, он не раз глядел в нашу сторону, чему-то смеялся и шептался с ребятами».

Всё это так узнаваемо и сейчас, в который раз подтверждая, что меняется только календарь и пейзажи, но не люди. И этот дневник бесхитростно и откровенно описывает жизнь до тех пор, пока не арестовывают отца. И здесь происходит взросление. Дневник меняет тон, появляются мысли о стране и времени. Собственно, эти строки и легли в основу обвинений в «подготовке террористического покушения на тов. Сталина, а также на вождей партии и правительства». Думала ли Луговская о том, что за слова придётся платить такую цену, но ведь иногда сказать — важнее всего остального. И всё, что накопилось — удержать в себе невыносимо. А уж у неведомого следователя НКВД нашелся повод погулять с карандашиком по детскому почерку…

И ведь меньше всего хочется называть дневник «свидетельством эпохи». Не монтируется пафос с этими, иногда по-детски наивными, строчками. Маленький человек растворяется на фоне «великих свершений». Дневник — взгляд на жизнь не с высоты трибун и передовиц, а из-под домашней настольной лампы, с улиц, из очередей, школьных перемен, вечеринок, поездок на дачу и всего того, что наполняет жизнь обычного человека. Но вопросов после прочтения не становится меньше. Правда, эти вопросы — к себе. А как бы ты жил-поживал в то время? Что бы чувствовал, что бы думал?

В 1963 году Нина Луговская была реабилитирована, работала театральным художником, скончалась в 1993 году. Дневник всё это время хранился в Государственном архиве, пока вдруг не был обнаружен в 2001 году сотрудниками общества «Мемориал». Сейчас дневник издан и пользуется большой популярностью во Франции, Англии, Германии, Швеции. Но, странное дело, не у нас. Почему в Европе дневник Луговской сопоставим с дневником Анны Франк, а у нас — тишина? С какой дремучей лёгкостью мы стараемся поскорее всё забыть. Словно бы — и не было ничего. Откуда такая короткая память? А ведь не вычеркнешь. А я всё думаю, вот мы сейчас со всеми нашими ЖЖ и прочими игрушками… Лет через сорок, например, что будут знать о нашем времени и о том, чем и как мы жили? И главное — найдутся ли люди, которым это будет интересно?

Да, да, мы знаем, что история ничему не учит, зато умеет наказывать. Читайте эту книжку, читайте. Думайте, сравнивайте. И не говорите потом, что вас не предупреждали.

[Isobel (pronounced Reginald) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not expect to related so much to a Russian girl who wrote during the 1930s…

~

Nina Lugovskaya (Rus: Нин�� Луговская, translated by myself thanks) wrote her diary between 1932-1937, during Stalin’s regime over the Soviet Union. She wrote during a time of Collectivisation which led to the mass killings and deportations of the kulaks (peasants who owned land), known as Dekulakisation, the Holodomor (Ukrainian genocide), a time of the Great Depression (though that did not impact the USSR really), a time when Hitler was coming into power and Mussolini controlled Italy. But most importantly, she wrote her diary during the Great Terror and Yezhovschina (the height of the terror) in which ultimately, Nina and her family fell victim to.

~

Nina was a product of her environment. She was depressed, hateful, insecure cynical but yet still hopeful. She wanted to live! For she is human and deserves such!

~

One thing that makes her diary so precious and all the more heartbreaking is that fact that she was a gifted writer. For her young age (writing at ages 13-19) she was so articulate of her thoughts and feelings, able to describe things I related to but couldn’t pin point, so clearly and vividly. What makes it so heartbreaking is that she doubted her own abilities, her insecurities getting the best of her, belittling herself for such a talent she didn’t even realise.
But what’s worse is that she never wrote again.

In 1937, the Lugovsky’s apartment was raided by the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) and Nina’s diaries were confiscated. A few months later, after the NKVD went through Nina’s diaries and discovered incriminating evidence of anti-revolutionary beliefs, Nina, her mother and two sisters were arrested and sent to a gulag.

Obviously after this incredibly traumatic experience, it is understandable why Nina would never write again. But it is undoubtedly heart shattering as she would’ve made an excellent author. Reading her diaries, her literary talent shines through and is capable of humbling some of the best of writers, considering her age.

~

What I found fascinating and unexpected is how much I related to Nina. Her thoughts about school, studying, her relationship with her family and friends and even the cynical way she thought all seemed to fall too close to home. It just goes to show how much we haven’t changed in the last 90(ish) years.

~

I feel it is only appropriate that I rate this book 5⭐️s as I feel this is definitely something I could re-read again.
I would recommend this to those who are interested in Russia and the Cold War and wish to know more about life during this period.

[Lusine Mkrtchyan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Manipulative title and extremely long account of a teenager's daily routine that could be at any time in any space. The title reads as she wants to live out of repressions and in reality she is bored at school and screams to no one that she wants to live without her school obligations. At times it was touching how physical appearence can influence child/teenager's acceptance of her/him-self and how at school one can become an outlier because of own look.

Basically the whole book is endless monologue of her obsessions for different boys at different times. The time she lives appears less, the hardship of the mother is somehow not felt and in general everyone and everything fades in infinite confessions of one sided love.

[Evariste Galois · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible book, authored by a teenager who was such a good writer that she outsmarted most of the reviewers here on goodreads.com. Congratulations to Andrew Bromfield for a terrific translation. I have read both Anne Frank and Nina Lugovskaya, and Nina's literary sophistication and beautiful prose can easily keep up with Anne's; as can the drama and tragedy of her life.

[Elizabeth Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historical aspects of this were very interesting (living in Stalinist Russia before WWII), but they were few and far between and it was mainly exactly what you would expect a young teenage girl's diary to be.

[Canadian_902]

You can't rate non function book..I think this could've been way better if Nina wrote something after getting out..and wrote her different stages of life..
There was no beginning or end and many repeated thoughts...

[Aileen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Сильно переоцененный текст.
Его можно рассматривать только как свидетельство бессмысленности сталинского террора, художественной ценности там 0.

[Hary · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5

[Jack Firmstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every time I remembered she was only 12 when she started writing I was more and more blown away

[Lisa Rackett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely and very relevant. Everyone should read this

[Maya Berardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

spiritually comforting to know that the Thought Daughter archetype transcends time & space

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Think of some Russian stereotypes. Russian people suffering under a dictatorship, Russians being bigoted against other Slavs and Jews. How about stereotypes of teenage girls? Boy-crazy, depressed, whiny. Nina Lugovskaya possesses many stereotypical attributes of both Russians and teenage girls. She even reads Chekhov. Her favorite play is Ivanov, Chekhov’s first long play, a mediocre one. She likes it because Ivanov is melancholy just like her.

Nina Lugovskaya is often compared to Anne Frank in the marketing for this book. This is an unfair comparison. They were both teenage girls suffering under dictatorships, but they were two different people. Anne Frank is a skilled writer with a complicated relationship with her family and has much less mental issues than modern teenagers despite having to hide from Nazis in a secret annex. Nina is a normal teenager, in that normal teenagers are bad writers, have many mental problems, are obsessed with both the boys and girls of her class, and sometimes attempt suicide. Nina is more like Gen Z teenagers than anyone living in Stalin’s Russia has any right to be.

I was a teenager when I read both Anne Frank’s diary and this one. I related more to Anne Frank personally, but my classmates, as well as the teenagers online, were more like Nina. That is possibly because Nina is antisemitic. Like most Russians, Nina displays antisemitic attitudes. She may have inherited them from her father, because they disappear when she meets a beautiful Jewish girl in her classroom. However, Nina remains bigoted in other ways, such as referring to Stalin as a Georgian who is ruining Russia. I know teenagers very well. She may have gotten that from her father, but she believes it with her whole heart.

The best parts of this diary are when Nina goes on angry rants about Stalin and Bolsheviks. However, those rants are few and far between, and come between diary entries about her being obsessed with boys (and some girls) and how sad she is. If living in Stalin’s Russia caused Nina’s mental issues, this diary would have drawn sympathy, but they seem to come from the normal pressures of teenage life rather than the communist dictatorship. Too bad.

Reading this diary, it seems like the NKVD censored the best parts. It also gives the air that Stalin’s dictatorship was much better than the Nazi dictatorship, if only because minorities like Jews are in the Communist Party. Nina is pitiable and should be treated as her own separate person and not like the Russian Anne Frank. Because the terror of Hitler in Anne Frank’s diary is much more horrifying than the terror of Stalin in Nina’s diary. You only really get a sense of how the Communist dictatorship affected schools, which makes sense because Nina is a schoolgirl, but it still makes living in Stalin’s Russia seem better than it actually was.

There is some merit to be found in this diary. However, it feels simultaneously exploitative and fake. Unlike Anne Frank, Nina did not edit this diary hoping it to be read by people who want to know how bad Stalin’s Russia was. Additionally, when I was reading this, the modernity in Nina’s attitude and the writing style of this book made me wonder if it was just made up. It wasn’t, but if the book made me think it was fake, this book has failed.

[Celia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read till I could read no longer. I wondered why I experiencing feelings of deep depression. It was coinciding with the reading of the book.
Touted as being akin to Anne Frank's amazing diary, just so you know...this is nothing like it. Yes it is the actual diary of a young girl. I think the comparison ends there.
Nina, the writer of this diary, lives in Soviet Russia and gives you some idea of Russia under Stalin's iron fist. However, peppered throughout this book is Nina's desire to die. The self perceived ugly duckling in her family because her 'squint eye'. She has few friends (go figure), she complains about everything in her life ad nauseam, like school...she is an A-1 student. She constantly plans her suicide and longs to die....over and over again. I was ready to slit my own wrists....geeeeeeezzzzzz!
So, read at your own risk, all I can say is when I finally realized the desperate weariness of this book was affecting how I was feeling, I skirted through to the end and put it aside! I felt better the next day and since! Do I get into my books, or what? Thank heaven it was a library book and I hadn't wasted money on it!

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the back cover: This diary was unearthed decades after it was confiscated by the NKVD (?) in 1937. Nina wrote about all the dangers around her at the same time she wrote about all the things that adolescent girls worry about. The diary ends two days before the family’s apartment was thoroughly searched. Her diary was seized and carefully studied, the incriminating passages are uderlined thoughout the book. The diaries were used to convict her of being a “counterrevolutionary” who was “preparing to kill Stalin”. She was sentenced to five years of hard labor and subsequent internal exile.
Nina’s father was outspoken and continually banished from Moscow. Her mother worked all the time to keep food on the table. There is a lot of writing about her school studies, her self consciousness and loathing of her looks, friends, and boys. There is also a lot of insight to the political situation around them. There is constant fear of intrusion and special knocks that the family has for when the father is secretly visiting.
Nina seemed to be quite a feminist before her time. She constantly wrote about “proving that a woman is as smart as a man”. I found it fascinating that someone her age could write and observe the way she did. There are a lot of questions out there regarding the book’s authenticity. I underlined a lot of the book.

[Megan Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, man. I had high hopes for this, since I'm reading it somewhat on the tails of all the other "wartime diaries" I've read--accounts of the Holocaust, Zlata's Diary, etc. But this...reading it seems jumbled. At times, the language is so beautiful and poetic, you wonder if someone between the ages of 13-18 could actually have written it. And then for pages on end she goes into an emo rant about how much she hates herself, other people, and life in general, that you think, "Yeah. A teenager wrote this."

But throughout the whole thing, I kept wondering if she really would have wanted her diaries published. A lot of the passages are really personal, particularly the rants. I feel more sorry for her about the publication of her private thoughts than I do about the content of the rants themselves.

However, her thoughts on the politics of the time are great. I wonder how much of what she said was inspired by what she heard from her father and his friends and the books she read and how much actually came from her own head. I guess I'll never know, but it's interesting to read and think about just the same.

I just wish it had been shorter.

3/5 on here, 6/10 for myself

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

synopsis: the plot of this book was to tell about the life of a young girl in stalin's russia. It is a diary of the girl Nina. Some of the most important thigs that happened were that people she knew were killed and she and her family were arrested. The book is mainly about Nina's life and the events that happen during her life during this terrible time in Russia.

classification: This book was nonfiction (journal or diary)
A) Audience was 14 and older
B) Why? because they wanted us to know what it was like in Stalin's Russia from a regular person's view
C)1: Journal
2: Nonfiction
3: Terror but normal day life
4: everyday person

criticism: to me this was an ok literature. It was a little boring in most parts of the book but could be interesting. what i did enjoy about it was the fact that it was about a young girl in this terrible time and I was getting to learn about it. It was completely believable. The pacing was slow but overall i sort of enjoyed it but it could've been alot more interesting.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book for Christmas and read it after I had finished Anne Applebaum's 'Gulag: A History', which I thought worked out well because I knew about the history and facts of what actually occurred. I've always preferred, however, to read personal accounts of things like this. I just think a personal glimpse is so much more honest and real. As you can probably imagine, Nina being a 13 year old girl, the diary is filled with a lot of ramblings of boys at school and dreams for the future, but I can't really argue, as I used to write about the exact same things. At times those parts had me a little tuned out, and I feel that what kept me going was to see what else she would write about the current situation, and how her final days before her arrest were. Admittedly, I would have liked to have read more about life at the time, much like Anne Frank's diary, but I think despite this it was still enjoyable. It's a good read if you're curious like me and love reading personal journals. I would give this book 7/10.

[Tanuja · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe that this book was accurate to how a young teenager to young adult with severe depression would approach life. Nina describes everyday life a lot, her goals for the future (that are rarely completed), crushes on boys, political beliefs, and dreams. I related to the book in the sense that I am very goal oriented as Nina is (probably why I'm giving the book 3 stars). However, while the book shows how teenage girls think it does not give us the greatest idea of what life was back during Stalin's control. This is a real diary though, so it is not to be expected that Nina Lugovskaya was preoccupied with giving a thorough description of the time period, but of keeping an account of her own life and dreams.

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

This diary reads like a manic depressive with bipolar mood swings. In other words - a teenage girl. The diary itself is pretty unspectacular. The most interesting were the parts that were underlined by the NKVD and were deemed "counter-revolutionary." Some of the passages talked about her hatred of Stalin and the Bolsheviks, but other passages seemed pretty inane and I'm wondering what the Soviets found so offensive. An interesting read, but honestly quite boring.