Small Fires: Letters from the Soviet People to "Ogonyok" Magazine, 1987-1990

by Christopher Cerf (editor), Hans Fenstermacher (Translator), Vitaly Korotich (Introduction)

Book by

303 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Sedrič Oskarovič · Rating 5 out of 5]

verzameling artikelen uit het russische tijdschrift ogonjok in eind jaren 80,super vet als je wil weten waar sovjetburgers zich destijds om bekommerden

[Marlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember a little bit of the Cold War. I was just a kid, but my family lived in Europe next to the Iron Curtain. The USSR constantly popped up in the news, but I knew very little about life there. I only heard stories, most of them heavily dosed with a subtext of "life is pretty dull, oppressive and horrible under communism". It was as if the USSR existed on a different planet.

This book lifted the curtain of my ignorance a little bit. Small Fires is a collection of letters to the editor for a progressive magazine, all in the several years before communism's fall. The letters give a phenomenal look into what was important and controversial, not to people in Western democratic countries, but to regular people in the USSR. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, New York & California & England become Latvia & Azerbaijan & Yugoslavia. People debate corruption and government transparency. They detail their frustration with trying to move or find a house. They grapple with ethnic tension. They argue about changes to government, those that would eventually bring about the breakup of the country.

The book is a gritty, all-inclusive look at life in the USSR, showing both the important, big-picture issues and the little, everyday ones. And although it was written to fascinate people in the early 1990s, it still remains interesting today.